Brewing Trader Joe's Controversy: Customers Allege They Were Misled About Coffee's Low Caffeine

Is your cup of Joe, conscionable a cup for show?

Several java drinkers from astir nan state person revenge a suit connected Thursday against grocery elephantine Trader Joe’s, alleging their store-branded French Roast Low Acid full legume java has importantly little caffeine than customers are led to believe.

Tests connected nan coffee, plaintiffs opportunity successful nan lawsuit, shows nan merchandise “contains half of nan caffeine arsenic a regular java blend.” They mention testing from competitors of Trade Joe’s that shows that nan “Low Acid” java only has 51% of nan caffeine of Trader Joe’s Dark French Roast java and 45% of nan caffeine of Trader Joe’s House Blend coffee.

But because location is thing connected nan explanation that indicates nan little caffeine levels, nan suit says, “consumers acquisition nan Product believing that it is afloat caffeinated erstwhile it is not.”

“It is an manufacture modular that a coffee’s caffeine levels are not highlighted connected nan product’s explanation unless immoderate process is utilized to trim nan magnitude of caffeine contained therein,” lawyer Trenton Kashima, an lawyer representing plaintiffs from California, New York and Illinois, writes successful nan suit.

“For example, afloat caffeinated java does not person immoderate typical labeling denoting that it is afloat caffeinated, but 'decaf' and 'half-caff' coffees are labelled arsenic such," nan suit says. "Here, nan Product does not disclose that it is 'decaf' and 'half-caff' coffee.”

They suit says mundane Americans are “unable to observe nan quality of Defendant’s misrepresentation arsenic they cannot analyse nan java earlier purchasing it, and testing nan caffeine levels successful a java involves technological knowledge and instrumentality that is beyond nan capabilities of a normal consumer.”

Calling it “false and deceptive advertizing that forms a shape of “unlawful and unfair business practices that harm nan public,” these individuals are looking for monetary damages and for a national judge to bid Trader Joe’s to audit and reassess each anterior customer claims regarding nan product.

Trader Joe’s did not instantly respond to an NBC News petition for comment.