Horopito
Kava Curious
I bought an 80g bag of traditional grind kava from a local Indian grocery supplier, it was really enjoyable to drink. It was about 3 weekends ago, since then I bought a few more bags from a few brands and just played around with learning different ways to make it.
It has wonderful bitterness, slight fenugreek vibe, subtle, subtle undertones of the “anise” sort of flavour area, amongst a myriad of other flavours. The most pronounced thing that hit me, was a strong horopito flavour, with both a numbing and astringent hit, but not as smash you in the face that horopito can get. I don’t really get the “earthy” vibes that some call it, it’s more of a slight minerally, woody edge. Weirdly, the last two buys have been super sweet honey like smelling kava that is just yummy, and the smell on your hands after kneading is sublime.
So… the horopito… we went for a long 260km drive into the hills and got some horopito to try it with the kava, it was amazing, the flavour pairing doubled down on the numbness and astringency, but also adds a wonderful vibe, really makes your throat feel like all the air runs past it. We went for subtle so it’s not to spicy, spicy, but it was still quite warming and had the beautiful smell of horopito. Yea just perfect, did not take away from the kava taste and really worked to strengthen it.
Tried the blender technique on a few batches, but enjoyed hand kneading more and the process of that. I have a beautiful giant ceramic bowl for kneading that I have had for years. I used folded muslin cloth for the first few batches, and decided I'll buy a strainer bag, great buy.
11/10, best relaxant I have had.
It has wonderful bitterness, slight fenugreek vibe, subtle, subtle undertones of the “anise” sort of flavour area, amongst a myriad of other flavours. The most pronounced thing that hit me, was a strong horopito flavour, with both a numbing and astringent hit, but not as smash you in the face that horopito can get. I don’t really get the “earthy” vibes that some call it, it’s more of a slight minerally, woody edge. Weirdly, the last two buys have been super sweet honey like smelling kava that is just yummy, and the smell on your hands after kneading is sublime.
So… the horopito… we went for a long 260km drive into the hills and got some horopito to try it with the kava, it was amazing, the flavour pairing doubled down on the numbness and astringency, but also adds a wonderful vibe, really makes your throat feel like all the air runs past it. We went for subtle so it’s not to spicy, spicy, but it was still quite warming and had the beautiful smell of horopito. Yea just perfect, did not take away from the kava taste and really worked to strengthen it.
Tried the blender technique on a few batches, but enjoyed hand kneading more and the process of that. I have a beautiful giant ceramic bowl for kneading that I have had for years. I used folded muslin cloth for the first few batches, and decided I'll buy a strainer bag, great buy.
11/10, best relaxant I have had.
