kavadude
❦ॐ tanuki tamer
Thank you everyone for participating in the forums census. This is a followup to infraredz's excellent kava information polls: http://www.kavaforums.com/forum/pages/KavaPolls/
It's impossible to capture everyone's true thoughts in simple multiple choice answer format. So, if there are any responses you would like to elaborate on, please feel free to do so in this thread.
I will now summarize the results: http://bit.ly/kava-census-results
There were 66 respondents.
Obviously, this is not a scientific exercise, it's just something I threw together to help us get an idea of who's out there and how they're consuming kava.
92% of respondents were men, 8% were women.
71% of respondents were from the USA, along with 9 users from Canada, 3 from New Zealand and the UK, 2 from Sweden, and respondents from Norway, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia (I know we've got more Aussies on here but they missed out for some reason),
11% of the respondents were from Texas. Yee-haw! We also have multiple users from British Columbia, California, Florida, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ontario, and Tennessee. Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Victoria, Virginia and Washington each had 1 respondent.
Most of our users skew towards fairly experienced, with 3 in 4 users having used kava for a year or more. 1 in 4 have under a year of experience. 5 users have over a decade of kava experience! Wow!
Not surprisingly, respondents tend to use kava fairly frequently, with 18% reporting daily kava consumption and 82% consuming kava 3 days a week or more.
On the other hand, 32% spend under $50 on kava a month, and 74% under $100 a month. This one made me jealous of all you hardheads who can have a kava session with two tablespoons.
About 7 out of 10 respondents reported experiencing reverse tolerance.
3 in 4 respondents said they use kava for both medicinal and recreational purposes; the rest were evenly split between purely medicinal and purely recreational use.
64% reported that kava is a medical necessity for them.
Nearly all respondents said kava helps treat anxiety, with a fair amount of people claiming it helps with chronic pain, insomnia, addiction, and muscle soreness. Long form responses mentioned: stress, depression and paranoia, mental sharpness, diuretic properties, attention/concentration, general malaise, and shift work disorder.
By far the most common side effects reported are dehydration, nausea and dermopathy, by about half of respondents. Dry mouth and anxiety were less common. Only 4 respondents reported elevated liver enzymes.
About 50% of respondents use between 3-5 tablespoons per kava session. 26% use 7-8 tablespoons per kava session. The rest fell elsewhere, with 1 user reporting 1 tablespoon per session (!), and 6 reporting 10+ tablespoons per session.
Half use hot water, half use cold, one respondent uses boiling water. Those of you who use cold water might like to know that a UHawaii study determined that hot water increases extraction of kavalactones. It also makes it tastes terrible but it's not like you're drinking it for the taste anyway!
61% of users strain their kava, with another 12% blending and 20% using some combination thereof. (This was a poor answer choice on my part as I assume these users are just blending and straining).
48% of users use a fijian strainer, with 20% using a nylon stocking and a handful choosing laundry bags, cheesecloth, mesh strainers, paint or jelly strainers, other types of strainers or not straining at all.
About 1 in 4 respondents use mixers (orange juice, milk, etc) in their kava.
3 in 10 users find that emulsifiers such as lecithin increase the potency of their kava. I forgot to put in a "don't know" answer on this one, my bad.
44% of users have no regional preference, but 39% prefer kava from Vanuatu, 9% Hawaii and a handful of votes for Fiji, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands.
1 in 4 users enjoy the taste of kava. Please share your secrets with us!
About 44% of users believe tudei is unsafe, with 45% in the "don't know" camp and 11% in the "yes" camp.
Only 11% of users drink tudei kava.
Of note to vendors: 68% of our users would NOT buy kava from a vendor that sells other botanical products. This question was updated a few days in to include K@ as an example of such a product.
Only 2 respondents reported problems with addiction to kava, and one of those users was Prince Phillip being sassy.
It's impossible to capture everyone's true thoughts in simple multiple choice answer format. So, if there are any responses you would like to elaborate on, please feel free to do so in this thread.
I will now summarize the results: http://bit.ly/kava-census-results
There were 66 respondents.
Obviously, this is not a scientific exercise, it's just something I threw together to help us get an idea of who's out there and how they're consuming kava.
92% of respondents were men, 8% were women.
71% of respondents were from the USA, along with 9 users from Canada, 3 from New Zealand and the UK, 2 from Sweden, and respondents from Norway, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia (I know we've got more Aussies on here but they missed out for some reason),
11% of the respondents were from Texas. Yee-haw! We also have multiple users from British Columbia, California, Florida, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ontario, and Tennessee. Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Victoria, Virginia and Washington each had 1 respondent.
Most of our users skew towards fairly experienced, with 3 in 4 users having used kava for a year or more. 1 in 4 have under a year of experience. 5 users have over a decade of kava experience! Wow!
Not surprisingly, respondents tend to use kava fairly frequently, with 18% reporting daily kava consumption and 82% consuming kava 3 days a week or more.
On the other hand, 32% spend under $50 on kava a month, and 74% under $100 a month. This one made me jealous of all you hardheads who can have a kava session with two tablespoons.
About 7 out of 10 respondents reported experiencing reverse tolerance.
3 in 4 respondents said they use kava for both medicinal and recreational purposes; the rest were evenly split between purely medicinal and purely recreational use.
64% reported that kava is a medical necessity for them.
Nearly all respondents said kava helps treat anxiety, with a fair amount of people claiming it helps with chronic pain, insomnia, addiction, and muscle soreness. Long form responses mentioned: stress, depression and paranoia, mental sharpness, diuretic properties, attention/concentration, general malaise, and shift work disorder.
By far the most common side effects reported are dehydration, nausea and dermopathy, by about half of respondents. Dry mouth and anxiety were less common. Only 4 respondents reported elevated liver enzymes.
About 50% of respondents use between 3-5 tablespoons per kava session. 26% use 7-8 tablespoons per kava session. The rest fell elsewhere, with 1 user reporting 1 tablespoon per session (!), and 6 reporting 10+ tablespoons per session.
Half use hot water, half use cold, one respondent uses boiling water. Those of you who use cold water might like to know that a UHawaii study determined that hot water increases extraction of kavalactones. It also makes it tastes terrible but it's not like you're drinking it for the taste anyway!
61% of users strain their kava, with another 12% blending and 20% using some combination thereof. (This was a poor answer choice on my part as I assume these users are just blending and straining).
48% of users use a fijian strainer, with 20% using a nylon stocking and a handful choosing laundry bags, cheesecloth, mesh strainers, paint or jelly strainers, other types of strainers or not straining at all.
About 1 in 4 respondents use mixers (orange juice, milk, etc) in their kava.
3 in 10 users find that emulsifiers such as lecithin increase the potency of their kava. I forgot to put in a "don't know" answer on this one, my bad.
44% of users have no regional preference, but 39% prefer kava from Vanuatu, 9% Hawaii and a handful of votes for Fiji, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands.
1 in 4 users enjoy the taste of kava. Please share your secrets with us!
About 44% of users believe tudei is unsafe, with 45% in the "don't know" camp and 11% in the "yes" camp.
Only 11% of users drink tudei kava.
Of note to vendors: 68% of our users would NOT buy kava from a vendor that sells other botanical products. This question was updated a few days in to include K@ as an example of such a product.
Only 2 respondents reported problems with addiction to kava, and one of those users was Prince Phillip being sassy.
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