kavapros
Kava Curious
Greetings Kavasuers,
I’ve been meaning to get this post out for a while but something always came up. I have a little time on my hands today so please allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Dave and operate under “Kava Pros” and “Royal Fiji Kava”.
Having grown up in Fiji I’ve been drinking kava for about 25 years or so. I have been involved with agriculture for about 22 years now since the 2000 coup where many businesses took an extremely hard hit.
Honestly speaking I never liked kava only really drank it for social and traditional obligation. In Fiji, apart from the traditional aspect of kava we tend to over indulge on a social level. I always hated the way kava made me feel the next day. That said it never stopped me from drinking it, the company was just too good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with friends and family.
Up until about 15 years ago I was chatting with a man from Vanuatu while attending an agro-producers seminar and his thoughts were “good kava shouldn’t make you feel like crap the following day”.
As soon as I got home I headed to the fruit and vegie markets and purchased some kava root. I discovered there is a vast difference from the $60/kg kava powder to the $100/kg kava root (Fijian dollars). All this time I thought kava was kava. Apparently not! So I bit the bullet and decided to spend a little extra on the whole root.
I cleaned it pounded it and as you can imagine I drank it. Wow what a difference. Still with over indulging on a social level with friends, you’re bound to have some sort of hangover the following day with the way we drink.
It definitely kicked a lot harder and I was feeling a lot less lethargic the next day, especially after a good rest. As the months went by I started getting calls from mates asking if I have any grog? (Fijian slang for kava).
I also started drinking this kava on my own, as I began to enjoy it more in moderation (I,e, small doses 600-800ml per night) as opposed to literally drinking a gallon of it and sleeping until noon.
I slowly started supplying friends and family who would ask, but as I was making it primarily for myself I never had enough for me. I decided to make some calls and got in touch with a farmer from Savusavu. With our existing agro-processing facility it wasn’t difficult to add kava to our processes.
Seeing there was a demand for high quality reasonably priced kava I decided to get into processing.
I soon found out that high quality and reasonably priced kava simply cannot go together.
After some research and a lot of kava drinking, I decided to stick with the quality aspect. Unfortunately high quality is not something that the grass roots level in Fiji care much about. With the shear amount we drink in Fiji, it becomes quite unaffordable for a lot of people unless you’re drinking by yourself. So we started exporting our product to the USA where quality is appreciated and people can afford to pay slightly more for a quality hard hitting product.
To cut a hellava long story short we now have the Royal Fiji Kava brand available on Amazon in the USA and now available in Australia. Our kava is 4-6 years old and all grown in Savusavu.
In the USA we have 3 types of kava all single cultivar “Kasa Loa” (Black Stem).
Fijian Gold – 6yr old 100% Pure Waka (Lateral root) – Hard hitting and very sedative, its not a very social drink because it does make you tired quite quickly.
Platinum Lewena – 6yr old pure Lewena (Basal root) – Mildly sedating and very social and uplifting kava which allows you to sleep well and wake up fresh the following day (actually my all-time favourite). I’ve heard this described as scented caramel/vanilla x cookies and cream.
A-Grade kava which is a 4yr old root at about 30-40% waka: 60-70% lewena. The entire root is processed together – Very euphoric and well balanced drink, gives a nice rush or kavain and mildly sedative.
In Australia we operate as Kava Pros but will soon be opening the site up for USA customers which will bring a slightly more affordable Fijian kava.
In the next couple of weeks we will be offering some exciting new promos exclusive to the Kava Forum for USA drinkers so stay tuned for that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a safe and enjoyable weekend.
I’ve been meaning to get this post out for a while but something always came up. I have a little time on my hands today so please allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Dave and operate under “Kava Pros” and “Royal Fiji Kava”.
Having grown up in Fiji I’ve been drinking kava for about 25 years or so. I have been involved with agriculture for about 22 years now since the 2000 coup where many businesses took an extremely hard hit.
Honestly speaking I never liked kava only really drank it for social and traditional obligation. In Fiji, apart from the traditional aspect of kava we tend to over indulge on a social level. I always hated the way kava made me feel the next day. That said it never stopped me from drinking it, the company was just too good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with friends and family.
Up until about 15 years ago I was chatting with a man from Vanuatu while attending an agro-producers seminar and his thoughts were “good kava shouldn’t make you feel like crap the following day”.
As soon as I got home I headed to the fruit and vegie markets and purchased some kava root. I discovered there is a vast difference from the $60/kg kava powder to the $100/kg kava root (Fijian dollars). All this time I thought kava was kava. Apparently not! So I bit the bullet and decided to spend a little extra on the whole root.
I cleaned it pounded it and as you can imagine I drank it. Wow what a difference. Still with over indulging on a social level with friends, you’re bound to have some sort of hangover the following day with the way we drink.
It definitely kicked a lot harder and I was feeling a lot less lethargic the next day, especially after a good rest. As the months went by I started getting calls from mates asking if I have any grog? (Fijian slang for kava).
I also started drinking this kava on my own, as I began to enjoy it more in moderation (I,e, small doses 600-800ml per night) as opposed to literally drinking a gallon of it and sleeping until noon.
I slowly started supplying friends and family who would ask, but as I was making it primarily for myself I never had enough for me. I decided to make some calls and got in touch with a farmer from Savusavu. With our existing agro-processing facility it wasn’t difficult to add kava to our processes.
Seeing there was a demand for high quality reasonably priced kava I decided to get into processing.
I soon found out that high quality and reasonably priced kava simply cannot go together.
After some research and a lot of kava drinking, I decided to stick with the quality aspect. Unfortunately high quality is not something that the grass roots level in Fiji care much about. With the shear amount we drink in Fiji, it becomes quite unaffordable for a lot of people unless you’re drinking by yourself. So we started exporting our product to the USA where quality is appreciated and people can afford to pay slightly more for a quality hard hitting product.
To cut a hellava long story short we now have the Royal Fiji Kava brand available on Amazon in the USA and now available in Australia. Our kava is 4-6 years old and all grown in Savusavu.
In the USA we have 3 types of kava all single cultivar “Kasa Loa” (Black Stem).
Fijian Gold – 6yr old 100% Pure Waka (Lateral root) – Hard hitting and very sedative, its not a very social drink because it does make you tired quite quickly.
Platinum Lewena – 6yr old pure Lewena (Basal root) – Mildly sedating and very social and uplifting kava which allows you to sleep well and wake up fresh the following day (actually my all-time favourite). I’ve heard this described as scented caramel/vanilla x cookies and cream.
A-Grade kava which is a 4yr old root at about 30-40% waka: 60-70% lewena. The entire root is processed together – Very euphoric and well balanced drink, gives a nice rush or kavain and mildly sedative.
In Australia we operate as Kava Pros but will soon be opening the site up for USA customers which will bring a slightly more affordable Fijian kava.
In the next couple of weeks we will be offering some exciting new promos exclusive to the Kava Forum for USA drinkers so stay tuned for that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a safe and enjoyable weekend.
