Palmetto
Thank God!
Recently, I have been having stomach issues from drinking kava several hours a day. I drink until I am at the point of nearly vomiting and I am forced to stop. I decided to try an experiment I thought of a long time ago. I read from some academic paper that kava grog acidifies within an hour of being exposed to the atmosphere. I decided to add some buffer to stop the acidification process to see what happens.
Last night, I took a mixture of old kava samples that I had made over the last week. They had all sat out at room temperature for several hours before going into the fridge. The mixture smelled like a combination of dirty underwear and sweaty socks in July. I took one sip of it, and it tasted worse than it smelled. I added part of a ground up tums tablet to it and stirred. After 2 minutes of waiting and building up my courage to drink it, I found that it tasted and smelled considerably better.
Today, I mixed about a level tablespoon each of fresh powder: Stone, Vanua Vanuatu, and Vanua Old Roots. I dissolved a tums tablet in warm water and stirred. I added some of the water to the kava and added some lukewarm water. The resulting grog tasted better than it does using the regular unbuffered prep. What is more interesting, however, is that my lips were tingling. It has been years since kava has been able to make my lips tingle. I drank one weak cupful and already could feel the effects. I saved the rest for later. It is possible that buffering the kava in solution maintains the integrity of some of the less common kavalactones that get destroyed quickly when preparing from unbuffered water + powder. I plan to continue the experiments, but so far, I am very encouraged by my first two trials. I suspect the buffered kava is more like fresh kava. If this does pan out with more trials, it would be nice if kava producers tried offering buffered preparation of powders, so that people outside of traditional kava regions could enjoy the same effects as fresh kava.
Last night, I took a mixture of old kava samples that I had made over the last week. They had all sat out at room temperature for several hours before going into the fridge. The mixture smelled like a combination of dirty underwear and sweaty socks in July. I took one sip of it, and it tasted worse than it smelled. I added part of a ground up tums tablet to it and stirred. After 2 minutes of waiting and building up my courage to drink it, I found that it tasted and smelled considerably better.
Today, I mixed about a level tablespoon each of fresh powder: Stone, Vanua Vanuatu, and Vanua Old Roots. I dissolved a tums tablet in warm water and stirred. I added some of the water to the kava and added some lukewarm water. The resulting grog tasted better than it does using the regular unbuffered prep. What is more interesting, however, is that my lips were tingling. It has been years since kava has been able to make my lips tingle. I drank one weak cupful and already could feel the effects. I saved the rest for later. It is possible that buffering the kava in solution maintains the integrity of some of the less common kavalactones that get destroyed quickly when preparing from unbuffered water + powder. I plan to continue the experiments, but so far, I am very encouraged by my first two trials. I suspect the buffered kava is more like fresh kava. If this does pan out with more trials, it would be nice if kava producers tried offering buffered preparation of powders, so that people outside of traditional kava regions could enjoy the same effects as fresh kava.
