Kava: Fact vs Fiction

[The Kap'n]

@Deleted User just a fyi, if things ever do get out of order, let us know. It's easy to swap the order of posts in a thread. Looking forward to reading the rest of this.

 

[Kavafied]

Kava: Fact vs Fiction
Part II - More Facts
​

We'll move backwards a bit now, and examine some important points in more detail. In the dark days of the German ban and severely decreased exports, many South Pacific farmers continued planting easy-to-grow tudei cultivars in hopes that Western business would return, and all continued to grow noble cultivars for their own consumption, as they had for thousands of years.

Why did the farmers sell inferior kava in the first place? Why didn't they just insist on selling noble? To understand this issue, it helps to have some understanding of Pacific culture. When Western buyers requested unsuitable kava be grown, Islanders did not respond by saying "You don't want that, it's no good". To do so would have been very disrespectful, and as a relatively poor nation (economically speaking) they had no absolutely no incentive to "make waves". And though I am sure some were laughing up their sleeves at the "stupid white men", they went ahead, grew massive amounts of tudei kava, and sold it to them.

As made clear in Part I, the Islanders have always known what to drink - but never before had they been in a position where dictating this knowledge to others was necessary. The Vanuatu Kava Act of 2002 was essentially that nation's way of saying "Look - we know what good kava is, but that's not what you wanted. So don't blame us if your citizens are having problems with it." Though they understandably lacked the resources to enforce the Act at that time, it sends a very clear message, and one that they felt was very necessary.

In the post-boom days from about 2002 to 2016, kava began to be more widely available in the USA. Some vendors were present since the 90's, others began to appear. As interest increased, good noble kava became scarce and costly. Island exporters were encouraged by the increase in business, and some began to ship tudei kava and/or mix tudei kava with noble. Though aware of the law against such exports, they were also aware that the Kava Act was not logistically enforceable at that time, and quite likely they took that attitude that "You asked for it before, so you get it now".

As kava continued to increase in popularity, many consumers noticed a wide and inconsistent range of effects from their drinks. They soon became aware of the various kava types, adopted the same standards for kava as the Islanders, and began to demand noble kava.

This too might have marked success, but again it did not happen. With much more interest in profit than quality and tradition, some exporters and vendors began to resist the new-found knowledge of Western kava consumers, and either deny the existence of noble tradition, or claim their kava was completely noble when it fact it was not.

Before laws enforcing the Vanuatu and Fiji Quality Standards were passed, these companies were at best ignorant and at worst deceitful. Since the passing of these laws, they could now more correctly be classed kava smugglers. Though they are aware of the laws, they now actively campaign against these laws in many ways, ranging from blatant lies about kava tradition to outright attacks on compliant companies. They encourage Islanders to break local laws, and often market kava that no Islander would drink, all the while insisting it is noble. One might think that such practices would eliminate repeat customers and lead to lost sales, but in fact many such companies maintain kava only as a front, gaining the bulk of their profits from K@ sales.

Other more credible vendors still traffic tudei kava, but at least admit what it is. Consumption of such kava still makes the average drinker very sick, but at least they know what they are getting. And at this point, I need to insert a qualification:

Tudei kava is not illegal to sell in the USA. It is illegal to export from Vanuatu and Fiji, and as mentioned above many vendors encourage Islanders to break these laws knowing that if they are caught, the USA vendor himself will suffer no consequence. But there are other sources, mainly Papa New Guinea and, sadly, Hawaii. Kava vendors who sell tudei kava sourced from these locations are not violating any laws, nor do they qualify as kava smugglers. If they do not properly identify such kava they are certainly unethical, but they are within the legal confines of the law, if not the moral confines.

Fortunately the situation in Hawaii may soon change. Legislation is being prepared to declare kava the National Drink of Hawaii, and I can assure you such legislation will include a ban on tudei similar to that of the rest of the South Pacific. Tudei kava is not native to Hawaii, and is not part of their kava tradition. It was introduced for the same reasons that its cultivation was encouraged in Vanuatu, to supply pharmaceutical companies. Its presence is an embarrassment to native Hawaiians.

There's more to tell, but I'll break for now and continue later in Part III, where we'll document some individual cases.

Thank you for educating me on pacific island culture. I know my cousins just drink whatever kava they can get their hands on but I guess other island cultures like the midwest or books think differently.

 

[TheKavaFlow]

To be fair, switching to drinking dried powder and mixing kava with massive amounts of water (as practiced in Tonga) has done a lot to kill the selection process described by Garry. Lebot talked about it in his earlier papers ,as well as in Les Buveurs de Kava. Differences between cultivars are less pronounced if one drinks dried kava and especially if one drinks it Tongan style, i.e. extremely heavily diluted with water. In one of the recent interviews Kirk Huffman (I think) also argued that this way of drinking kava largely eliminates the pressure to select cultivars on the basis of their unique effects and instead results in the increasing preference for cultivars that are simply easier to grow.

Always appreciate your insight, Henry. Bula.

 

[kasa_balavu]

I know my cousins just drink whatever kava they can get their hands on

I can confirm that it is the same in Fiji these days (to be fair, most have the same attitude to alcohol. No beer?... pineapples and yeast!). Present-day kava culture is completely different than it used to be. People drink whatever dried kava is available regardless of its source or quality. The kava is almost an afterthought... the real reason they're there is to be together and talanoa (share stories and socialize).

It's quite unfortunate because most traditional botanical knowledge about kava has been lost and we Fijians have to turn to books to learn about how kava was used by previous generations.

Trying to convince the average Fijian that the kava they're drinking is adulterated with hepatotoxic stem peelings and possibly tudei kava from Vanuatu and that they should instead drink this other good quality kava is like trying to get a broke college student to permanently forsake Coors Lite for _EXPENSIVE_CRAFT_BEER_. They just can't afford to care about quality.

We need to focus on exports. Fijians, Tongans, and Samoans drink crap kava but we have to make sure that only high-quality kava free of tudei and aerial parts makes its way into export markets. Failure to improve quality standards jeopardizes the entire industry.

We've been down this road before and those of us who were around back then can see history repeating itself. We really need to be more proactive about this. I'd like to see more vendors come out in support of initiatives to improve the quality of kava imported by the west. True Kava is a fine example of that, but even vendors who can't or refuse to join that initiative can do their part by publishing COA's and asking their customers to only support vendors who do so.

We should be at panic-stations. Hit shitty vendors in their pocket-books and they'll stop the nonsense and start selling good product. And we can't be all stick and no carrot. Vendors have been banned from kavaforums... we should check on them and see if they've cleaned up their act. Then welcome them back into the community if they have.

And we really need to find a way to fund True Kava so that it's growth isn't dependent on one good mans free time. So long as they can't join the gang in the tree house, vendors will have an axe to grind and the smear tactics won't end, playing right into the hands of the pro-tudei mob.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

And we really need to find a way to fund True Kava so that it's growth isn't dependent on one good mans free time. So long as they can't join the gang in the tree house, vendors will have an axe to grind and the smear tactics won't end, playing right into the hands of the pro-tudei mob.

We really need a truly independent certifying authority. Otherwise there will always be conflicts between vendors and interests.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

But it's important to note that the way ppl drink kava on this forum or in the us kava bars is indeed much closer to the vanuatuam way, i.e. they use waaaay less water than people in Tonga and enjoy their srrvings super strong. This is why western drinkers care more about cultivars etc than tongan drinkers in my humble opinion.

I've never got to try fresh kava and wish I would have bought some when I had the chance. Maybe some of us have to brew it so strong because of all that's lost in the drying process? Maybe there could be work done on other methods of drying that can preserve more from the fresh root?

 

[Edward]

I've never got to try fresh kava and wish I would have bought some when I had the chance. Maybe some of us have to brew it so strong because of all that's lost in the drying process? Maybe there could be work done on other methods of drying that can preserve more from the fresh root?

Like instant?

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Like instant?

Instant can be awesome but it has always been the most hit or miss for me. I used instant for a good year or so almost exclusively. Switching between GHK Moi/Mahakea, BKH and Fire Island. Unfortunately the effects from them seem pretty weak lately. The last good one I had was the Mahakea but that was back in March, so I am kind of leary of them right now.

 

[kasa_balavu]

We really need a truly independent certifying authority.

Independent of who/what?
What would such an entity look like? Is it just TK labs but with a silent operator who stayed quiet instead of defending his organization?

 

[Bula Kava House]

"Consumption of such kava (non-noble) still makes the average drinker very sick."

You hear this a lot from people without practical knowledge of the kava industry. The correct statement is that some non-noble kava makes the average drinker sick. All our kava is noble now but we used to sell two non-noble kavas, both online and at the kava bar. Neither made people sick at any substantial rate. We had many repeat online customers, especially for Koniak. At the time, it was actually our most popular product. And if the majority of people were puking and getting hangovers at my kava bar, I'd know about it.

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

Almost daily here we see posts from new members, and even some old hands, giving reports of getting sick from perfectly decent kava. If you want to see some really bizarre/sad/bang your head on the keyboard stories, check out Amazon reviews of various kavas. Someone getting sick doesn't mean the kava is bad. If anything, if only seasoned kavasseurs drank tudei, they would be less likely to get sick than the newbs drinking good root, because they'd know how to minimize ill-effects. Paradoxical, I know. Don't take this as being in favour of tudei and the last thing I would ever want to see is tudei crowd out the market in a kind of Gresham's Law effect, but there really is no harm in someone who knows exactly what they are doing, who has experience, who knowingly buys something clearly labelled as tudei, buying and using tudei, is there?

I mean, is the concern here really with kava drinkers getting sick? Because it seems to me there's a hell of a lot more we could be doing to prevent the amount of bad experiences we see with new or casual users or even incautious veteran users consuming root which is, all things considered, perfectly fine.

If you've ever done much computer consulting or computer or software or database maintenance or whatever, you know this phenomenon: there's nothing wrong with the computer, the problem is in the chair. I'm not saying we shouldn't be helpful and understanding to them, I'm just saying often the root gets an undeserved bad rap.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Independent of who/what?
What would such an entity look like? Is it just TK labs but with a silent operator who stayed quiet instead of defending his organization?

Independent of the vendors it certifies. Of course it would have to defend it's organization but that defense should be around testing process/results if they were to come into question. If questions about a certified vendors ethics arise, the organization should not be involved in their defense.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

"Consumption of such kava (non-noble) still makes the average drinker very sick."

You hear this a lot from people without practical knowledge of the kava industry. The correct statement is that some non-noble kava makes the average drinker sick. All our kava is noble now but we used to sell two non-noble kavas, both online and at the kava bar. Neither made people sick at any substantial rate. We had many repeat online customers, especially for Koniak. At the time, it was actually our most popular product. And if the majority of people were puking and getting hangovers at my kava bar, I'd know about it.

The "tudei causes nausea" statement is used too much and is causing confusion with new drinkers. The reality is nausea can happen with tudei or noble. It's common to see new people on the forum wondering why they get nauseated from certified noble kava or see people here or on other forums accusing vendors of selling tudei because they experienced nausea. I don't have issues with it much anymore but early on I used to get extremely nauseated from noble kava.

 

[kasa_balavu]

Independent of the vendors it certifies. Of course it would have to defend it's organization but that defense should be around testing process/results if they were to come into question. If questions about a certified vendors ethics arise, the organization should not be involved in their defense.

I agree with you there.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

The logis behind your first paragraph is a bit problematic. Garry doesn't argue that only drinking tudei kava kava makes people sick, but that drinking tudei increases the likelihood of getting sick. It's obvious that, let's say, literally eating an entire, intact and unpeeled root of any kava would give gastro issues to just about anyone, but this doesn't mean that all kava in all circumstances is equally likely to result in gastro problems.

The main point about non-noble kava is that other things being equal, on average it is more likely than noble kava to produce stomach upsets and such adverse effects as dermopathy and hangover. There is also a theoretical, yet not fully proven, possibility that it might be less healthy than noble kava, especially if consumed in the form of strong extracts obtained with the use of organic solvents, as done by companies outside of my own little country where selling such products is illegal. Finally, tudei kava is on average associated with much heavier effects and much less of the kavain-induced euphoria that is reportedly seen as the more pleasurable, recreational effect of kava among strong kava drinkers in Vanuatu. These points do not mean that drinking water-based tudei is dangerous, but merely that it has been decided that such kava is less desirable as an export commodity and the type of kava that should be promoted to new users or for daily use. this is especially true for as long as kava exported from vanuatu is used to make strong extracts everywhere outside of New Zealand.

Judd is right that there are different grades of tudei. The one pure tudei I personally drunk was so bad that one of my friends (an experienced drinker) ended up seeking medical assistance (literally his body couldn't stop expelling the stuff from a number of body orifices) and I spent literally the whole night in the toilet. But I am aware that this must have been a particularly nasty variety as I cannot possibly imagine that any bar could survive for a day if that's what they served to their customers. However, we are talking about general botanical and biochemical features of this distinct (albeit internally varied) sub-category of plants and I think the argument I put forward in the previous paragraph is still valid.

You make a lot of good points. With the kava shortages we are experiencing, wouldn't it make more sense to look at what varieties of Tudei are truly bad and which ones are not likely to make users sick? Tudei mixes have been very common in past years and it was not causing major issues. Between the shortages and all the weak noble kava I've been buying, I don't have a lot of confidence that we can get enough mature noble only kava at reasonable prices.