Kava Research 7 Acetone Tests

[sɥɐʞɐs]

The picture without the white paper is actually more representative of how the results appear.

The acetone test isn't perfect, but it can give you a pretty good idea what you're working with, when you have a tudei & noble standard to test against. Apart from the Starwest tudei, they all appear to likely be in the "noble range", for what ever that's worth.

Kava Supreme & Wakacon were clearly the lightest colored, Kava Vinaka just slightly darker, then Mood & Mind followed by Tikaram's Vanuatu and Tikaram's Fiji being a little on the darker side...but not as dark as the tudei sample.

If anyone's curious how I'd rank the effectiveness/potency of the kavas, I'd say Kava Supreme & Kava Vinaka are the strongest or most effective. Wakacon's waka & Tikaram's Fiji are sufficient, even if slightly below what should be average. Starwest's tudei, Mood & Mind Vanuatu & Tikaram's Vanuatu are very mild.

 

[TheKavaFlow]

Awesome post as usual! Keep 'em coming.

 

[kastom_lif]

Excellent!

I'm curious if all tudei cultivars will turn orange in acetone. It's pretty well established that palisi and isa do, though there are a bunch of other wild kavas. What if some obscure cultivar proves to be the exception?

'Cause it's not just isa and palisi being used to stretch noble kava. I rewatched that youtube video with the Labultamata guys growing kava and selling it to "John blo Santo." One guy described a cultivar he called fabu I had never heard of and said they also called it "Stone"... hmmm... I know a Stone that comes via John blo Santo...

Well, anyway, I dug around some more and found out what it might have been: in the Banks they have a tudei called vambu that's a dead ringer for what's normally called bo on Pentecost. While it's customary to cut noble kava with bo for special occasions, that doesn't necessarily mean that cutting with fabu/vambu will give the same results, or look the same in acetone.

 

[verticity]

Excellent!

I'm curious if all tudei cultivars will turn orange in acetone. It's pretty well established that palisi and isa do, though there are a bunch of other wild kavas. What if some obscure cultivar proves to be the exception?

'Cause it's not just isa and palisi being used to stretch noble kava. I rewatched that youtube video with the Labultamata guys growing kava and selling it to "John blo Santo." One guy described a cultivar he called fabu I had never heard of and said they also called it "Stone"... hmmm... I know a Stone that comes via John blo Santo...

Well, anyway, I dug around some more and found out what it might have been: in the Banks they have a tudei called vambu that's a dead ringer for what's normally called bo on Pentecost. While it's customary to cut noble kava with bo for special occasions, that doesn't necessarily mean that cutting with fabu/vambu will give the same results, or look the same in acetone.

Like @sɥɐʞɐs said, the test is good but not perfect. It's useful as a screening tool, but can't give definitive results. Based on the data I have seen for Vanuatu cultivars, there is a statistical distribution in the visible spectra of both noble and tudei. The spectra of tudei cultivars tend to absorb more at longer wavelengths, and nobles absorb less, making the former tend to appear orange and the latter tend to appear yellow. This difference is statistically significant. There is variability among both groups, but there is more variability among tudeis than nobles. So a false negative test (a tudei that appears yellow, especially to the unaided eye) is possible and more likely than a false positive (a noble which appears orange). Unfortunately I can't get into any more detail because this is based on unpublished results by Schmidt and @Deleted User ...