The heavy metal content of coffee made by Italian coffee machine exceeds the standard.

Officials at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, recently talked about coffee discoloration because coffee made by a batch of coffee machines in the building was found to contain much higher-than-normal heavy metals. These Italian-made high-end coffee machines are designed for use by some senior officials, including European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and are now out of use, the Times reported on the 4th.

Strange taste of coffee

As usual, Alexander Uster, the European Commission's archives official from Austria, brewed a cup of espresso using the new Italian Kimberley automatic coffee machine in the office. After tasting it, he was puzzled by the strong metallic taste of the coffee, so he paid 70 euros out of his own pocket to send several coffee samples back to his hometown of Austria for inspection. The test results are shocking. All coffee samples contained 175 times the normal level of nickel and 15% higher than the normal level of lead.

"the results are shocking," Mr. Uster wrote in a letter to the logistics department of the European Commission. "both heavy metals are higher than the legal levels that are drinkable, so they can no longer be consumed."

In this regard, the European Commission has issued a medical opinion to staff at headquarters informing them of the symptoms caused by excessive intake of nickel. According to the submission, depending on the intake and exposure time, nickel can be excreted for the body's metabolism within 7 to 40 days. As for the possible effects of eating too much nickel on the human body, the report says it varies from person to person. Nickel may have a more serious effect on allergic people, which is generally characterized by gastrointestinal dysfunction.

Each sticks to his own version

European Commission spokesman Dennis Abbott said that the European Commission commissioned a third-party quality verification company SGS certification company to conduct a sampling inspection of the coffee machine, and the results were partly the same as those submitted by Uster. Abbott said that of the about 20 Kimberly coffee machines in the European Commission, 17 coffee machines contain excessive levels of nickel and lead.

Abbott said that the inspection found that the coffee maker in the water storage tank contains these two heavy metals, but has ruled out the coffee machine and the building water supply system connection problem, the building water quality is not a problem.

Coffee maker Kimberly of Italy is skeptical of the test results and has launched a self-test. "our products meet all international standards," said Luca Dusi, head of marketing and communications at Kimberly. "

Pros or cons?

This batch of coffee machines were newly purchased by EU headquarters in January this year. From grinding coffee beans to adding the right amount of milk to automatically removing coffee grounds, you can do it all at the press of a button. The European Union spent a total of about 120000 euros on the coffee machines. Some are housed in the offices of 27 senior officials, and there is also one in the office of the chairman of the committee, Barroso.

Reported that the coffee machine incident made the EU headquarters once again criticized for extravagant style.

He Shan (featured by Xinhua News Agency)

(source of this article: modern KuaiBao)