I understand your confusion and it's not something that is easy to figure out at first. Shakas gave a very good introduction and accurate information for you.
The problem that you may be running into is that chemotypes don't say how much of a given kavalactone is in the plant, other than relative to the other ones. For example, there can be two kavas that have a 463xxx which means that Kavain is the most abundant, than Methysticin is less abundant than Kavain, and that Yangonin is less abundant than Methysticin.
The problem is this, we could have two kavas that have a 463xxx chemotype but have one that has, (for example) 70% Kavain, 20% Methysticin and then 5% Yangonin, then tiny percentages of the rest. Then, we could have a kava that has a chemotype of 463xxx that has (for example) 30% Kavain, 19% Methysticin, 15% Yangonin, then higher amounts of the rest.
What I'm trying to say is that we only get a
relative ratio of the kavalactone concentration in that it doesn't say exactly how much of each kavalactone there is.
However, and this is something that takes a while to "develop" is getting in tune with the very fine subtle differences between kavas. At first, sometimes feel like they are all the same in terms of effects, but the more that they drink different varieties, the more they find the differences and fine subtleties between them. The chemotype is still very important and is a good indicator of how a kava will act, but then again, we all react slightly different to a given kavalactone. For example, I am very sensitive to Kavain and can actually feel a little
too energized and uplifted by kavain whereas most people don't have this experience.
That being said, for the vast majority of people, they respond very similarly. I'll copy and post the Wiki page we have for it, but it doesn't include the full article which can be found here:
http://www.kavaforums.com/forum/wiki/kava-chemotypes/
Kava Chemotypes
Understand the Relationship between Chemotypes and their Effects
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"A chemotype (sometimes chemovar) is a chemically distinct entity in a plant or microorganism, with differences in the composition of the secondary metabolites. Minor genetic and epigenetic changes with little or no effect on morphology or anatomy may produce large changes in the chemical phenotype. Chemotypes are often defined by the most abundant chemical produced by that individual and the concept has been useful in work done by chemical ecologists and natural product chemists. With respect to plant biology, the term "chemotype" was first coined by Dr. Rolf Santesson and his son Johan in 1968, defined as, "...chemically characterized parts of a population of morphologically indistinguishable individuals."[1]"
Chemotypes can be used to estimate the physiological effect that a given kava will have due to the variation in effects within the 6 main kavalactones.
Chemotypes
Below are the numbers with their corresponding kavalactones. If a chemotype is said to be a 426 it means #4 kavalactone, kavain, is the most abundant, followed by #2 dihydrokavain, then #6 and so on. The first 3 lactones listed in a chemotype usually contain over 70% of the total kavalactone content.
1 = demethoxy-yangonin
2 = Dihydrokavain
3 =
Yangonin
4 =
Kavain
5 = Dihydromethysticin
6 =
Methysticin