Biggest Kava Drinking Country in World??

[Winning Shenanigans]

So I was wondering which country drinks the most Kava (by amount of people)... I figured this is the best place to ask that questions and I appreciate any and everyone who takes the time to answer BULA

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Interesting ! So pretty much who had the biggest population that drinks kava... I wanna say Vanuatu but Im litterally guessing out of my ass .

 

[nabanga]

I would have thought kava drinking per capita would be Vanuatu hands down, but since Fiji has over 3x the population as Vanuatu, if it's kava per country per year, then Fiji might just take it?

 

[Ligermeat]

I would have thought kava drinking per capita would be Vanuatu hands down, but since Fiji has over 3x the population as Vanuatu, if it's kava per country per year, then Fiji might just take it?

But I heard that Fijans don't take their kava as seriously as Vanuatuatans.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

I don't have the numbers, but I agree with Nabanga's take on it. I think per capita is the best way to judge and Vanuatu must be the most/biggest drinkers in that case. They've domesticated at least 50-70 different cultivars, where as other island coutries have between 5 to 15. They drink the strongest mix, they drink the most frequently...nearly every man there drinks it, excluding some 7th Day Adventist's. They have what seems like 100's of kava bars, other countries have a few to zero.

In Lebot's book, he mentions that Fiji technically grows and sells more kava by tonnage, but that's mostly because they have a bigger international import/export system set up. If you were to judge biggest kava drinking country simply on the number of people who have consumed it, then hypothetically the US could be answer in the not too distant future, simply because of the enormous population relative to Vanuatu. Vanuatu has about 252,000 people total, let's say half are men and they all drink kava, now there's only 126,000 people to make 100% of the country's male kava drinkers.
The US has about 319,000,000 people in, that means only 0.04% of the US population would have to drink kava to have more kava drinkers by number, than Vanuatu. (If I calculated that correctly) Being that the US includes Hawai'i, has a growing number of kava bars and a growing awareness of kava, it doesn't sound unreasonable. If you include American Samoa and Guam, then there's even more.

In comparison, here's some American alcohol consumption stats:
86.8 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.7 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month.

In my view, the list should probably look something like this:
1) Vanuatu
2) Fiji
3) Tonga
4) Samoa
5) Hawai'i/US ? New Caledonia ? Pohnpei ? Tokelau ? Marquesas ? Kiribati ? Niue ? Solomon ?
NZ also has a growing number of Polynesian kava drinkers, but again, a relatively small population compared the US.

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Yeah exactly that's how I thought of it. Was Vanuatu by sheer culture has to beet any other SMALL island

 

[Kojo Douglas]

Culturally and per capita, I'd have to guess Van. But for sheer numbers probably Hawaii and the US.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

I don't have the numbers, but I agree with Nabanga's take on it. I think per capita is the best way to judge and Vanuatu must be the most/biggest drinkers in that case. They've domesticated at least 50-70 different cultivars, where as other island coutries have between 5 to 15. They drink the strongest mix, they drink the most frequently...nearly every man there drinks it, excluding some 7th Day Adventist's. They have what seems like 100's of kava bars, other countries have a few to zero.

In Lebot's book, he mentions that Fiji technically grows and sells more kava by tonnage, but that's mostly because they have a bigger international import/export system set up. If you were to judge biggest kava drinking country simply on the number of people who have consumed it, then hypothetically the US could be answer in the not too distant future, simply because of the enormous population relative to Vanuatu. Vanuatu has about 252,000 people total, let's say half are men and they all drink kava, now there's only 126,000 people to make 100% of the country's male kava drinkers.
The US has about 319,000,000 people in, that means only 0.04% of the US population would have to drink kava to have more kava drinkers by number, than Vanuatu. (If I calculated that correctly) Being that the US includes Hawai'i, has a growing number of kava bars and a growing awareness of kava, it doesn't sound unreasonable. If you include American Samoa and Guam, then there's even more.

In comparison, here's some American alcohol consumption stats:
86.8 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.7 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month.

In my view, the list should probably look something like this:
1) Vanuatu
2) Fiji
3) Tonga
4) Samoa
5) Hawai'i/US ? New Caledonia ? Pohnpei ? Tokelau ? Marquesas ? Kiribati ? Niue ? Solomon ?
NZ also has a growing number of Polynesian kava drinkers, but again, a relatively small population compared the US.

Sadly, Niue doesnt have any local kava drinkers anymore. I met the three non niuean kava drinkers who live there when I did some work on the island. It is a sad case of an old tradition being destroyed by bigotry and ignorance

 

[kasa_balavu]

Are there really that many Americans consuming kava? I have a hard time believing that. Even in Hawaii I'd assume that only a very small minority drinks kava regularly.

Keep in mind we're talking here about kava as defined in the Codex Alimentarius: a water extract of the root and/or rhizome of Piper methysticum. All those capsules and extracts don't count.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

Are there really that many Americans consuming kava? I have a hard time believing that. Even in Hawaii I'd assume that only a very small minority drinks kava regularly.

Keep in mind we're talking here about kava as defined in the Codex Alimentarius: a water extract of the root and/or rhizome of Piper methysticum. All those capsules and extracts don't count.

Probably not. But there is huge potential for growth, IMO.

In NZ we estimate than on an average Friday night apx 20,000 people drink traditional kava. Not a huge number, but it's def growing.

 

[kasa_balavu]

In NZ we estimate than on an average Friday night apx 20,000 people drink traditional kava. Not a huge number, but it's def growing.

That's an interesting stat, thanks. Apparently there are approx 310,000 non-Maori Pacific Islanders in NZ, and around 60k Indo-Fijians.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

It comes from a NZ-Fijian kava researcher and activist based in Hamilton. I suppose waaaaaay more people have tried kava or drink it occasionally. But apx 20-30k drink it regularly.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

In the US for example, there are about 540,000 pacific islanders (mostly in california, nevada, hawaii, utah, alaska, texas, oregon & washington)
There's ~1,225,195 if include mixed race.
I even read that there are 4 times as many Samoans living in the US mainland than there are in the entirety of American Samoa.

So there's definitely a huge potential for a big number of kava drinkers here (relative to the entire population of Vanuatu), but like I said, our whole population is so incredibly large in comparison and the size of the country is so vast, it seems more like a drop in the bucket....or should I say Tanoa.

 

[kasa_balavu]

In the US for example, there are about 540,000 pacific islanders (mostly in california, nevada, hawaii, utah, alaska, texas, oregon & washington)
There's ~1,225,195 if include mixed race.
I even read that there are 4 times as many Samoans living in the US mainland than there are in the entirety of American Samoa.

So there's definitely a huge potential for a big number of kava drinkers here (relative to the entire population of Vanuatu), but like I said, our whole population is so incredibly large in comparison and the size of the country is so vast, it seems more like a drop in the bucket....or should I say Tanoa.

There definitely is huge potential in the US, but from what I've heard, not so much from this population of Islanders. They largely prefer beer, and regular consumption of kava is cost-prohibitive. As you know, Islanders very rarely drink kava alone, using it mainly as a social drink. The US is just too damn big and spread out and it's not easy to get a group of people together for a kava session on a regular basis.
Obviously there are exceptions. I found this club on twitter: https://twitter.com/showmekavaclub
And incredibly, they have a 8yr old website: http://showmekavaclub.weebly.com/index.html

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

It's true, a lot of the Polynesians grow up in poor neighborhoods here, which in turn makes many of them align with african american gang culture...sadly abandoning their heritage in favor of tHuG LyFe, guns, weed, alcohol etc...
But there's always another portion that remains church going, family oriented islanders and they still drink kava.
Polynesian areas are small pockets within huge cities, but they stay close within those pockets. In places like california, nevada, utah... they have several Samoan and Tongan churches (which always have kava on sunday), there are Samoan and Indo-Fijian markets which sell kava, and the Tongans import kava from back home that gets sold directly within the community. Within all these Poly communities there are always people getting together mixing root in the garage.
It just goes unseen by the majority of americans.

The population numbers I listed are no way a suggestion of how many kava drinkers I think are actually among them, it's certainly just a fraction. But it goes to show just how possible it could be for the US to surpass the number of kava drinkers in Vanuatu. Based on number alone. Never by percentage.