Pacifico
Kava Enthusiast
Hello! 2015 has turned into a year of rediscovery for me. It all started with a few blackouts due to alcohol. In these cases of blacking out, I managed to drive home and I was fortunate enough to find my car parked outside the next morning on each occasion. I did a tally and realized that since I was a teenager, I have been pulled over by the police on twenty different occasions. Half of those times, I had been drinking alcohol. Luckily, I have never been arrested or jailed. By no means am I a clinical alcoholic. What I am guilty of is having too much fun enjoying life and this often includes alcohol. I needed something new to involve myself with.
I call this a year of rediscovery because I have picked up two new hobbies that I was actually introduced to ages ago. My first rediscovery was yerba mate. In college, a student from Uruguay handed me cow's hoof with the hair still on it and full of liquid. That liquid was yerba mate, Uruguay's (and Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguays') version of tea). Yerba mate is very warming, quite invigorating, and comes with no jitters that I often get from coffee. I have a collection of a few dozen gourds to drink from.
Then there is kava. I saw something on the yerba mate forum about it and how it meshes with kava and realized that I had tried it before -- sort of. A girl that I went to college with did a one semester exchange at the University of Hawaii. She brought back this bottle of tincture with an eye dropper and asked if we wanted to try something that tasted like dirt. My friend and I tried it and... it tasted like dirt. She provided us with no other explanation. It is likely that she never had an explanation. That was more than fifteen years ago. I never had a second thought about kava until a few weeks ago.
Out of pure enthusiasm, I have tried to put this all together very quickly. I thought that a full spectrum kavalactone paste would be a good entry into the kava world with more personal research to follow. This was ineffective and I found myself scrambling a bit to make some good kava choices. I heard about micronized kava and found Bula's 11 Year Waka before anything else. I asked them questions on Facebook and they answered. I could tell that they were getting tired of all of my annoying questions but they answered them all. This waka seemed to be an affordable option and I went with it. At the moment, I am at the tail end of the notorious waiting period... (...)
I wanted to go somewhere local and buy some kava to get me started, perhaps something to maybe help me beat the reverse tolerance. Someone suggested Whole Foods but personally, I would rather not step foot into that place. Yes, I dislike it THAT much. I googled "kava" and realized that there are a few kava bars within a short driving distance of me. I have driven right by them many times and never knew. After a few boros and a few wakas with the kavarista, I realized that RT wasn't going to be the end of my kava beginning. I felt it a bit and I liked it. However, there was/is something left to be desired. I didn't know if that was a little RT or if I was drinking some weak kava.
Tomorrow, my 11 Year Waka shows up from Bula. The day after, I have some mo'i, boro, mahakea, and nene coming from GHK too -- all micros. It is going to be a good day. I am very anxious to find out where I fit in in the kava world. I look forward to finding out what my numbers are going to be like. In both the yerba mate and kava worlds, I often read about people consuming certain quantities, excessive ones, simply because they can. I don't want to be that guy. I don't have anyone to compete with. I have no one to prove anything to. I want to find out what the minimum amounts are when it comes to making me feel just a little happier to be alive than I already am... and maybe one shell more.
I am optimistic about all of this. While I don't think that my experience is going to mirror any one else's kava journey, any pessimism that I have is balanced out by the idea that so many varieties are available. I believe that there will be at least one that I will ultimately work for me and I find comfort in knowing that there are plenty of passionate people out there to learn from. I don't know if I will ever transform from a student of kava to sensei status but I do plan on enjoying myself. Cheers everyone.
Pacifico
I call this a year of rediscovery because I have picked up two new hobbies that I was actually introduced to ages ago. My first rediscovery was yerba mate. In college, a student from Uruguay handed me cow's hoof with the hair still on it and full of liquid. That liquid was yerba mate, Uruguay's (and Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguays') version of tea). Yerba mate is very warming, quite invigorating, and comes with no jitters that I often get from coffee. I have a collection of a few dozen gourds to drink from.
Then there is kava. I saw something on the yerba mate forum about it and how it meshes with kava and realized that I had tried it before -- sort of. A girl that I went to college with did a one semester exchange at the University of Hawaii. She brought back this bottle of tincture with an eye dropper and asked if we wanted to try something that tasted like dirt. My friend and I tried it and... it tasted like dirt. She provided us with no other explanation. It is likely that she never had an explanation. That was more than fifteen years ago. I never had a second thought about kava until a few weeks ago.
Out of pure enthusiasm, I have tried to put this all together very quickly. I thought that a full spectrum kavalactone paste would be a good entry into the kava world with more personal research to follow. This was ineffective and I found myself scrambling a bit to make some good kava choices. I heard about micronized kava and found Bula's 11 Year Waka before anything else. I asked them questions on Facebook and they answered. I could tell that they were getting tired of all of my annoying questions but they answered them all. This waka seemed to be an affordable option and I went with it. At the moment, I am at the tail end of the notorious waiting period... (...)
I wanted to go somewhere local and buy some kava to get me started, perhaps something to maybe help me beat the reverse tolerance. Someone suggested Whole Foods but personally, I would rather not step foot into that place. Yes, I dislike it THAT much. I googled "kava" and realized that there are a few kava bars within a short driving distance of me. I have driven right by them many times and never knew. After a few boros and a few wakas with the kavarista, I realized that RT wasn't going to be the end of my kava beginning. I felt it a bit and I liked it. However, there was/is something left to be desired. I didn't know if that was a little RT or if I was drinking some weak kava.
Tomorrow, my 11 Year Waka shows up from Bula. The day after, I have some mo'i, boro, mahakea, and nene coming from GHK too -- all micros. It is going to be a good day. I am very anxious to find out where I fit in in the kava world. I look forward to finding out what my numbers are going to be like. In both the yerba mate and kava worlds, I often read about people consuming certain quantities, excessive ones, simply because they can. I don't want to be that guy. I don't have anyone to compete with. I have no one to prove anything to. I want to find out what the minimum amounts are when it comes to making me feel just a little happier to be alive than I already am... and maybe one shell more.
I am optimistic about all of this. While I don't think that my experience is going to mirror any one else's kava journey, any pessimism that I have is balanced out by the idea that so many varieties are available. I believe that there will be at least one that I will ultimately work for me and I find comfort in knowing that there are plenty of passionate people out there to learn from. I don't know if I will ever transform from a student of kava to sensei status but I do plan on enjoying myself. Cheers everyone.
Pacifico
