One Shell of Bad Tudei....

[NAMBATU]

My problem with N@H is that they don't seem to know what they're selling.

 

[kasa_balavu]

With that same token I believe we need to be more careful before we call a Kava Tudei especially with only one session. If further sessions bring the same results then testing needs to be done.

The problem is what happens *after* testing is done.

I don't know why everybody's all up in arms about other people's opinions on a product. I can completely understand @Kavasseur having conflicting reviews. Ever had a bad Steak at your favorite restaurant? So many variables going to this wonderful drink, did I squeeze it too hard, let it sit too long, did I not let it sit long enough? I can also appreciate when someone is obviously not bias, every person in here has a favorite and they will always lean towards that and away from others.

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I'm "up in arms" not about his opinion, but about his reaction when we no longer had to rely on opinions... when we had test results that proved the kava to be adulterated with tudei.
To use your analogy, there were multiple restaurant patrons with no connection to each other all complaining about the steak at this restaurant. Many of them were old customers who loved the steak but reported that the last one they had there gave them the runs. Even a renowned food critic said he suspected that the last steak he had there was off. Health inspectors were called and their tests revealed an unacceptable level of E.coli in the steaks sold by this restaurant.
The food critic (who normally had the steak delivered free to his home) attempted to contact the owner of the restaurant, seeking answers. After speaking with the restaurateur, he suddenly changes his tune, rejecting not just his own earlier report but the Health Inspector's lab results. Instead of posting a review of this steak giving him a bad time, he posts videos showing the great atmosphere and wonderful patrons of the restaurant. The videos are a red herring; the people and the atmosphere and the steak served in the bar was never in question.
Frankly after being hosted like that, I'd be very surprised if he ever said anything but praise about their steaks ever again.

On a second note why the hostility towards nakamal at home? I feel like at this point if everything was tested by a professional, not to say that nobody here is a professional but by a reputable laboratory and come back as Noble it wouldn't mean anything for all the draging through the dirt.

Except it was tested by a reputable laboratory and proven to be tudei. N@H then appeared to reject those results. It would have been quite simple (commendable, even) if he'd just said "the adulteration of that single batch was accidental and to correct it I'm going to start testing every batch".

 

[Kojo Douglas]

I wish it was that complicated. You're giving me WAY too much credit

 

[Kojo Douglas]

I endorse many different varieties and vendors of Kava. My most glowing reviews have been for Kava Roots, Kalm with Kava, Squanch, Paradise Kava, and Nakamal at Home.

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

"Why was there a Civil War?"

I go with bumbling generation. Most of life comes down to clerical errors, Buttle/Tuttle,Mauritania/Mauritius. I fully expect the next German dictator to attempt to annex Australia.

 

[Bubba Bula]

No, it was just dizziness, jumpy eyes, and a "drunk" kind of feeling. Also, I became very quiet and spaced out.

I'm thinking it probably did not have K@ in it then, as K@ can mess with your heart functioning via QT prolongation.

 

[Bubba Bula]

We're not against vendors, Vlad. We're for the consumers. When a kava presents itself as possibly having an issue, we address that issue. Be it N@H, BKH, or GHK, we're going to bring it to the attention of the consumers here on this forum.

Yep thats right. Wasn't that long ago that Kava R Us tried passing tudei off to us, and many of us (myself included) bought what he was selling. Remember? Not all of it was tudei, but when @Deleted User called him on it he was really defensive and hostile. His reaction was telling.

We try to look out for one another here, and @Kavasseur is a kava drinker emeritus and has drunk way more kava than I knew existed. He is always enthusiastic about it, and I've always felt he is trying to provide a service to the kava community. Thanks @Kavasseur & keep the reviews coming!

 

[Myk]

I'm thinking it probably did not have K@ in it then, as K@ can mess with your heart functioning via QT prolongation.

In very low doses K@ is a stimulant but with higher doses visual over stimulation, spins nausea and vomiting are all very common especially in first timers. In a bad K@ experience you want to get horizontal in a dark quiet space with eyes closed, not a social thing at all which makes it a very curious choice to offer in a kava bar? My buddy is always on me to start up a kava bar but in all the years I've been rooting not one convert yet. It tastes like sticks and mud. It's cool more for me

 

[verticity]

I wonder where the Hawaiian varietals would fall on that chart. Are they a separate grouping or would they fall under/close to one of these existing groupings?

The Hawaiian kavas are in the Pom (Polynsian) grouping. The reason they are in a different grouping than the Vanuatu nobles is because genes tend to drift when organisms are separated geographically for a long time, which is what happened when the Ancient Pasifika people carried noble Vanuatu kava eastward to Polynesia. (Vanuatu is in Melanesia, not Polynesia) It doesn't mean Hawaiian kavas are not noble. They are noble. It just means there was some genetic drift over time.

 

[kasa_balavu]

The Hawaiian kavas are in the Pom (Polynsian) grouping. The reason they are in a different grouping than the Vanuatu nobles is because genes tend to drift when organisms are separated geographically for a long time, which is what happened when the Ancient Pasifika people carried noble Vanuatu kava eastward to Polynesia. (Vanuatu is in Melanesia, not Polynesia) It doesn't mean Hawaiian kavas are not noble. They are noble. It just means there was some genetic drift over time.

Yup. The peoples that moved on from Vanuatu only took noble with them so there is no tudei kava east of Vanuatu other than the Isa that was taken to Hawaii by Lebot and made its way out to the general public.
I wonder why Fijian kava wasn't included in that study.

 

[kasa_balavu]

Apparently Fijian kava came from Tonga.

Really? Fijians and Tongans have always traded, but I wasn't aware that they gave us kava. Is that discussed in the same paper that @verticity mentioned?

In any case, that doesn't make it Polynesian kava any more than the Tongan kava from Vanuatu is Melanesian.

 

[verticity]

Really? Fijians and Tongans have always traded, but I wasn't aware that they gave us kava. Is that discussed in the same paper that @verticity mentioned?

In any case, that doesn't make it Polynesian kava any more than the Tongan kava from Vanuatu is Melanesian.

I'm not sure why Fijian kava is not included in that study. Maybe they didn't have any samples. The "Pom" group actually includes Polynesia (Hawaii and Tonga), and one sample from Pohnpei, in Micronesia. It would be interesting to see where Fijian kava falls. The paper does say this about Fiji:

"In Fiji, a country partly Melanesian and Polynesian [Lebot's words, not mine ], which has played an important role in the distribution of vegetatively propagated species across the Pacific, AFLP fingerprints have shown that all local cultivars are clones of a single genotype"

The full text of the paper is attached.

Based on stuff I have read about the migration of Pacific people, my understanding was that the general direction of movement was from the Solomons west to east, but that after people moved to an island to the east, like you say, they would continue to trade with islands they had come from. Especially once they got to the region of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, they kind of hung out there for a while before moving further east to Hawaii, etc. Just based on looking at a map they probably would have arrived at Fiji before Tonga, but Tonga is only about 400 miles from Fiji, so there was surely some back-and-forth.

 

[verticity]

The point being that Melanesian vs. Polynesian is a distinction invented by people, that the genes don't care about, if it is true that Fijian kavas fall into the "Pom" group. In that case the problem is that the group should not be called "Pom = Polynesia & Micronesia", but "Pomf = Polynesia, Micronesia & Fiji"

 

[Kris954]

Man, I hear you. All my drunk friends are dancing around the fire nude. And I'm just sitting there staring with a smile on my face sunk into my lawn chair.

Sigh. Still a bit early for Fest season around here, but soon, soon....

 

[Myk]

I might dance if I caught fire after I carefully finished the shell of course