Chinese Kava Wholesalors

[Buddhacide]

So, what do you suppose the deal is with the kava vendors on Alibaba. They all seem to be in China and seem to deal in enormous quantities (1000 tons per week?). Many, if you look closely, are selling other parts of the plant like bark. Others are selling some sort of extract. I dont imagine the quality is very good. But whats the deal, are they importing tons and tons of this stuff to China and then redistributing it? Is it a scam? Some sort of synthetic copy? I cant imagine there is that much kava out there to justify these claims.

http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=kava+kava&IndexArea=Products&fsb=y

 

[kl.new2kava]

I had alot of dealings on alibaba back when I was more into the research chemical business before those "bath salts" and "k2" chodes ruined it for everyone. The thing with most of the chinese people you see listed claim to have every herb or compound on earth, but they actually don't. If you look at their inventories they will have 254,000 items in stock and are selling metric tons of all of them. Basically they put the name of anything and everything there to get a nibble and when you contact them they will find out how much you are looking for and if it's worth it for them to source it for you. Most all of the companies are just sourcing agents and have no interest in doing transactions under 10,000$ and quite alot of them are scammers.



Kava doesn't grow in China and if the getting it they are buying in bulk from the South Pacific. The best was to source kava on alibaba is to limit the nation sof origin to; Vanatu, Fiji, Tonga and Papua new Guinee. Instead of 10,000 suppliers coming up there will only be about 100 and about 50 of them will be the same few companies. Klin kava comes up the most and seems to be the reputable looking. I've actually considered trying to order a few kilos of instant kava as they have it made from either lateral root or basel root, I wonder if thats N@H's shaman and fire island are. Most of these compamies are looking for big orders and I don't like misrepresenting myself as some type of distributer and waste their time.



Basically the thing I learned with alibaba is to limit your searches to the nations where whatever you want are actaully produced and get the Chinese middlemen out of the picture. I used to buy mimosa rootbark by the 50 kg crates from Brazil that I sourced on alibaba back when I had a shop on ebay and got some pretty good 10kg orders of K@ from Indosnesia as well, then I had some legal troubles and the police confiscated my inventory as evidence and then ebay got all sketchy about what people sell there. Anyway alibaba is a decent place to source things, just avoid Chinese middlemen and make sure the seller is high rated as there are tons of scammer. Also don't buy anything from Africa most especially Cameroon. I'm not saying there aren't honest African companies, I'm just saying that all the ones on Alibaba are notorious scammers.

 

[Buddhacide]

Thanks a lot. That's very informative. I dont plan on actually purchasing anything from them. I've been browsing alibaba looking for inspiration to start a small home business of some sort, but nothing has struck as of yet. I wonder what farms the deal with and whether they actually offer the same strains as are talked about here. I'd love to start a kava related business. Too bad I'm not allowed to sell it in Canada

 

[Steve]

Gotta say that I have not had a good experience with kava from alibaba.  I received many samples before, but they were under par for sure.  Typically, they will cut any nobel with "other stuff" thus, getting more volume.  You can tell by the quality and also by the kava experience...just my 2 cents.  Sorry, I don't have better news to offer from my experience.

 

[Buddhacide]

One would think It's illogical to source kava from China. Least of all for the Chinese who would have to increase costs due to all the overseas shipping. Then again, I have no idea what the import/export/tax/duty situation is. Sometimes arrangements like this can work for some people in some places . However It makes little sense for anyone in North America, particularly the US to be buying kava from China. You would think anyone buying in signficant amounts would want to buy from the farm directly.



I'm not surprised you got a suspicous product.