I'm thinking that bula and other suppliers have alot to do with their price drops. I imagine the owners look over this forum periodically and check out the competition. I bet once bula opened and started getting rave reviews N@H probably saw a drop in sales. For a while I gave up on N@H and ordered strictly from bula, I love N@H just I'm a tightwad. Now that they have come down on prices they will likely be my primary source. Their kava is pretty much the best I've found and their free shipping is a blowaway. When you order a kg on bula you pay 12$ shipping so it costs 67-89$ depending on which strain you get including shipping, then compare that 71-77$ for chief's or stone and the prices or totally comparable.
I got 1/4 kg of: stone, chiefs, and wow last week for 68$ and love it. I will likely get a kg of chiefs and mabye stone before christmas just in case this is a holiday pricing. I swear I saw a thing on their site the day I ordered that said something about holiday prices and I mentioned it here and it was gone. I could be crazy though. Either way these prices are almost too good to be true. I thought that with prices this low something must be wrong with the kava but no it is as bomb as it always is.
The guy who runs that place should totally post here, he has a ton of experience with kava and opened the first kava bar in the country. I've talked to him on the phone when the post office did something screwy with my package and he sounded like a really cool guy. Very active customer service and extremely helpful. I love the vendors here and their input and think he would bring alot to the conversations.