What am I doing wrong

[Eric Wetzel]

Howdy, all. My girlfriend and I ordered Kava from Kalm with kava. Borongoru and Loa Waka . We prepared it three times now. First time using 2 tbs to 12oz of water(1¹/² cups) and we drank almost all of it and didn't feel anything. The second day we upped it to 4 tbs to 12oz of water. Still didn't feel anything.

I'm just following instructions in back if bags. We let it soak 5 min, then I needed the shit outta it for like 15 minutes, and still nothing.

I'm I doing something wrong?

 

[kastom_lif]

I usually do 6-8 tablespoons to a quart of water for one evening. Are you drinking on an empty stomach?

Sometimes, reverse tolerance is truly a real thing. It might take a while before you can really hear the kava.

 

[Eric Wetzel]

We have only been drinking like half cup at a time then waiting a few hours and drinking a few more. Should we be drinking the entire batch all at once?

I'm not going to give up on er, gonna experiment until i find what's right for us. Just wanna make sure we are doing it right.

 

[kastom_lif]

We have only been drinking like half cup at a time then waiting a few hours and drinking a few more. Should we be drinking the entire batch all at once?

I'm not going to give up on er, gonna experiment until i find what's right for us. Just wanna make sure we are doing it right.

Maybe try banging one cup every 15-20 minutes. Try to tank a quart/liter per person in one session. The kava will tell you if you are overdoing it by way of nausea or double vision.

Some of the active ingredients in kava need to build up over time before you can feel it fully. Don't overdo it... But on the other hand, noble kava is forgiving enough that you can drink epic amounts spread out over a whole evening and be fine.

If you want to dig deeper, look up "reverse tolerance" on these forums or on the whole internet.

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Yeah give it some more time and drink every 20 minutes or so about a half tablespoon each time and have 4 to 8 overall between both of ya

 

[fait]

First time using 2 tbs to 12oz of water(1¹/² cups) and we drank almost all of it and didn't feel anything. The second day we upped it to 4 tbs to 12oz of water. Still didn't feel anything.

I'm just following instructions in back if bags. We let it soak 5 min, then I needed the shit outta it for like 15 minutes, and still nothing.

I'm I doing something wrong?

You shouldn't need to let it soak for 5 minutes and I've personally never found it necessary to knead it for more than 10 minutes. At least I've never noticed much difference. However, what I recommend is to increase your dose from 4 tbsp to 6 tbsp and knead that in a quart of warm water for 10 minutes. Then add fresh water, more like 3 cups than a quart, and knead for 10 more minutes and mix that 2nd wash with your 1st wash. Take your kava grind and put that in the freezer. Combine it with other quantities of grind from subsequent kava sessions until you have enough to make a "mongrel grog" of sorts. You'll need more grind per quart or X quantity of water to make a mongrel grog of respectable strength.

We have only been drinking like half cup at a time then waiting a few hours and drinking a few more. Should we be drinking the entire batch all at once?

You're not drinking your cups often enough. During the day, a cup every few hours is good if you can feel the effects, but if you're having a kava session in the evening where you want to unwind, you'll want to drink a cup every 15-30 minutes. Here, "cup" can mean 8 oz, 6 oz (this is how much I drink), or more or less. You'll want to chug however much you're comfortable with chugging, wait 15-30 minutes, then have your next cup until you run out. Try drinking it all within an hour, but not all at once. The multiple cups are meant to layer and renew the kavalactones from the previous cup. I say an hour but you can stretch this out or condense it however much you like. That's the nice thing about kava is you can adjust the frequency of cups just like you can adjust the quantity of root grind or water to suit your preference. But you gotta have many sessions to figure out what you like to do and how much you like to drink.

 

[Zaphod]

Howdy, all. My girlfriend and I ordered Kava from Kalm with kava. Borongoru and Loa Waka . We prepared it three times now. First time using 2 tbs to 12oz of water(1¹/² cups) and we drank almost all of it and didn't feel anything. The second day we upped it to 4 tbs to 12oz of water. Still didn't feel anything.

I'm just following instructions in back if bags. We let it soak 5 min, then I needed the shit outta it for like 15 minutes, and still nothing.

I'm I doing something wrong?

2-4 TBS for two of you over the course of several hours is way too low. Now I am probably on the high end of usage but will have 8-10TBS myself in a night with the first ~4TBS in my first big shell. No need to wait hours between shells. 15-20min is all you need to feel it (usually just a few minutes but it does build up). Most importantly is to have an empty stomach. 3-4 hours since your last meal will definitely help.

Don't bother letting it sit, it won't do anything more for extraction. 15 minutes of kneading is more than enough (to be honest I never knead more than a few minutes). Warmer water will help extract more, but it will also make it taste more bitter. For a beginner it already tastes bad enough so I would stick with room temperature water.

I basically did the same thing when I started - first two nights I way underdosed and was about to throw the bag out and chalk it up to internet bs or barely above placebo level (like st. johns wort). It was not until my third night of drinking where it really hit me.