Yea, that was ridiculous. It's not like these "coconut shells" are sacred anyway, they are just cheap and available. In Port Vila most people use plastic rice bowls for drinking kava as they are easier to wash, more durable and larger. Putting aside the fact that there are as many kava traditions as there are kava-drinking islands, the truth is that many of the traditional rituals and practices surrounding kava consumption are completely incompatible with the American kava bar model. E.g. almost everywhere around the Pacific women do not touch kava (note that I am not saying that this is a "good" tradition that should be followed elsewhere, I am just stating the fact). Even young female Tongan students I talk to in Auckland are shocked when I ask them if they drink/have tried kava. I know one girl whose entire family grows kava and she has never even tasted it! In other places drinking kava solo is considered "witchcraft". In many parts of the Pacific kava drinking should not be disturbed by any loud noises, etc.
I think it's nice to have pictures from the islands, but it's pretty obvious that these American kava bars are more like non-alcoholic versions of alcohol bars than "traditional" kava drinking places. And many of them use the Pacific artifacts not for pure aesthetic/designs reasons, but because they want to pretend they do things the way they've been done for millenia when in fact they (*some* of them! I mostly mean these K@-tudei dens in Florida or Nevada) serve people stuff nobody would willingly touch in the South Pacific. That's like opening a "traditional" Chinese healing massage place with all the artifacts, traditional music, scents, etc and then employing completely untrained people who simply look Chinese to do the massaging. I generally think that the concept of "cultural appropriation" is total bullshit as we all learn from each other and only dead things can be preserved, but I think in some instances businesses use cultural artifacts not to "appropriate" a culture (as this is truly impossible), but to trick their customers into believing that they are getting the real deal, the ancient wisdom, the tested practice, etc. It's easier to sell stuff when it's presented as something that's been used for millenia. E.g. people think yoga is probably healthier than swedish gymnastics or british military gymnastics because it sounds more holistic, ancient and "wise", even though the modern version of yoga was invented recently and was inspired by scandinavian gymnastics!
And I agree, a long history of safe use if a good indication of safety. But to me it means not drinking tudei, not drinking kava leaves, not mixing booze with kava, etc and not just drinking from a coconut shell or wearing flowers.
And just to be clear: I haven't visited Judd's bar, but it seems like one of these few places that does things in the right way, so I hope he will be getting more media coverege than kavasutra or the K@ dens.
Time to up your game. Tweetings will increase those numbers so fast you'll need to double-dose your kava just to handle the demand.