State of the Kava Industry: October 1998

[kasa_balavu]

Found this under a stack of old documents and magazines on my last trip home. Didn't have time to go through it, but if there's interest I'll scan it on my next trip and upload the entire thing.

 

[nabanga]

I would be very keen to read that if it is not too much hassle. I had been in Vanuatu 4 years at that time and remember all the fuss about the first European interest.
It was about $10/kg then...good times


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[sɥɐʞɐs]

Could be interesting, just to see the view of it at that time. If you flip through it, maybe you could scan specific interesting sections.

Here's an article from NY Times in 1998:

• http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/13/health/kava-may-soothe-jagged-nerves-but-is-it-safe.html
• "The wholesale price, $14 to $20 for a kilogram of dried root (2.2 pounds), nearly doubled in the last few years, Mr. Smith said."

and a Time Magazine Article from 2001:

• http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047865,00.html
• Drinking kava is a nightly tradition on Tanna, where popular varieties include "wok let" (likely to make you late for work) and "two-day" (which has a 48-hour recovery period)

Australian government paper from 1999:

• http://aciar.gov.au/files/node/2134/tr46_pdf_21300.pdf

 

[kasa_balavu]

It looks like I'll have something to do in the evenings on my next trip home. I'll scan and upload as much of it as I can.\

@sɥɐʞɐs Thanks for those links. Great content that I hadn't read before.

 

[kastom_lif]

Good ol' Time Magazine, imposing the foreign concept of "being late for work" to the South Pacific

 

[Intrepidus_dux]

I want to read too pls!

 

[verticity]

Here is a contemporaneous article about that symposium.
http://www.ipsnews.net/1998/11/deve...-pacific-all-worked-up-over-anti-stress-crop/

In retrospect it seems clear that what went wrong back then was the lack of respect for traditional use of kava by European and American pharmaceutical companies trying to make money, using the usual paradigm of Western medicine: extract the active ingredient, put it in a pill, slap your brand on it, and sell it for a premium.

Quote:
"... Last year, Kava Kompany — which works with a U.S. laboratory — introduced 10 kava-based products to the U.S. market. These include a drink called Mellow Out, a blend of kava and a Chinese herb, sold at 90 dollars a litre.
A capsule called ‘Kavatrol’, advertised in airline magazines as a remedy for jet lag, is sold in the United States at nine dollars per packet of 30. Then there is ‘Erotikava’, advertised in adult magazines as a tonic to be taken after dinner “preferably in a candle-lit room with soft music”.
German, Japanese and US companies are also believed to be planning to market kava tablets in South-east Asia as stress- relief capsules...."

Also the discussion of suggestions to patent kava as the intellectual property of Pasifika people, and kava plantations in Central America is pretty interesting.

 

[kastom_lif]

Here's an impression of kava from a Canadian family who lived on Malekula back in the 1980's. Shaw.ca is closed, so I'm linking to the wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160314100632/http://members.shaw.ca/scombs/kava.html

 

[kasa_balavu]

Here's an impression of kava from a Canadian family who lived on Malekula back in the 1980's. Shaw.ca is closed, so I'm linking to the wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160314100632/http://members.shaw.ca/scombs/kava.html

What a find! Worthy of it's own thread I reckon.

 

[recentreturn]

Here's an impression of kava from a Canadian family who lived on Malekula back in the 1980's. Shaw.ca is closed, so I'm linking to the wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160314100632/http://members.shaw.ca/scombs/kava.html

Love the classic 90's internet vibe! Only thing missing is LONG load times for every page!

I do think it could probably generate its own thread.

I've been meaning to post a thread asking about kava customs in the South Pacific. These pages contain quite a lot of interesting insights.

My interest, for example, was piqued by the line about kava in Australia that mentions "traditional social constraints [in Vanuatu] against over-indulgence." I would love to hear about such mores and customs in Vanuatu or any other locale where kava is/was traditionally consumed.