I've been reading this thread, itching to reply, but refraining because they always go in the same circles. I realized a while ago that engaging does nothing for my business either way. We have become the world leader in sales of kava for drinking because we sell high quality products and take care of our customers. As long as we keep doing that, we'll keep having success. A few forum members making claims won't change anything.
Despite all that, I've decided to contribute a post in the interest of getting out a full spectrum of information.
First, our 11 Year Waka has always been
reviewed very well. It is kava though, and all kava can cause a negative reactions here and there, especially when it's micronized. The sheer amount of this kava we sell (Literally tons, annually) means there will be some bad reviews. Those reviews by customers who had negative reactions were cherry picked to support the case that the kava in question was not noble, while the scores of positive reviews were ignored.
Also, I wanted to write a little something about the acetone test. As many of you know, I recently took a trip to the south pacific. When I was in Vanuatu, I talked to multiple people in the kava industry- growers, processors, exporters, researchers. Among many other things, the acetone test came up. It became quite apparent that the test is far from perfect. One industry expert who controls the kava he exports from plant in ground to shipping explained that he's seen false positives and that in fact melomelo, a well known noble cultivar, always tests "bright orange, almost brown." The Vanuatu Ministry of Agriculture actually stopped a shipment of his after some melomelo tested as tudei. He threatened litigation, they consulted with Dr. Lebot who informed them that the test was never meant to be the deciding factor, and the Ministry allowed the shipment. Other exporters I spoke with in Vila confirmed that they too had seen known noble kava test as tudei. All industry experts agreed that the acetone test was a good preliminary indicator, but it is far from fool proof and provides known false positives, something I have long suspected. The acetone test's limitations are common knowledge in the south pacific. For some reason, that knowledge hasn't made it to this forum.
When I first saw this thread I sent an email to Dr. Mathias Schmidt who advises me at times. Here is the quote from my email to him as relating to the acetone test (proprietary information omitted):
Mathias,
I talked to multiple people in Vanuatu who informed me that the acetone test every once in a while gives a false positive. In -------, ---- -------, who knows his kava, said that specifically melomelo that he confirmed was actually melomelo, turns acetone bright orange. In Vila, some prominent people in the industry independently told me that they've seen multiple false positives for kava that they know are 100% noble. I've personally seen a kava powder that has very low flavokavain levels, and a noble chemotype, as verified by HPLC, turn acetone orange as well. Can you confirm any false positives? The acetone test is clearly a great, and inexpensive indicator as to a kava's nobility, but quite a bit of science tends to be at least slightly fallible in certain instances.
His reply:
Dear Judd,
The quick test is clearly not a fail-proof method, it just gives you an impression. I would say Melomelo is probably not the only one where you may risk a false-negative finding. I am just working on a monograph with an HPLC method, which increases the chances for a correct finding, but the problem was always that HPLC is good for importers, whereas there is no way to use this in Vanuatu.
Examining my samples I had a few false correlations with two-day as well, and I had the gut-feeling that this may be related to the age of the plant upon harvesting. Just a gut feeling, I would need much more samples and a systematic approach. But it is well known that the kavalactone composition changes with the age of the plant, becoming more noble. My hypothesis is that the noble varieties I found non-noble were simply too young. Just a hypothesis, not a proven fact.
The orange colour in the acetone does not necessarily come from flavokavins alone, there may be other constituents we do not know anything about. Vincent Lebot just observed that there is this general observation that non-noble turns far more orange-red than noble. But again, this is a quick test. It would give you certainty when it shows noble, so you’d err on the safe side, but it does not give you a guarantee that a finding of non-noble is always correct. Science in herbs is not digital…
Cheers
Mathias
Now, the 11 Year Waka that turned acetone orange came directly from a Fijian farm, where tudei isn't grown, has overwhelmingly positive reviews, had very low flavokavain levels, very high kavain levels, and very low DHM levels (Nobody has ever seen a tudei kava with levels such as those found in this kava). These facts combined with the fact that the acetone test gives false positives as confirmed directly by Dr. Schmidt is enough for me to say that the kava was noble, and simply gave a false positive.
The 11 Year Waka we sell now passes all tests, including the acetone test. This tells me that the newer batches are from a different cultivar. What many people not in the industry don't realize is that kava growers in most countries are less specific about which kava they plant than we'd like them to be, and batches are often mixes of cultivars. Growers use whatever source material they have at the time of planting, and whatever grows well in the current local climate. This is why many of our new offerings are named simply for the region they come from, i.e.
'Ava Fagaloa, or
Taveuni Waka.
Bringing this thread back on topic, it's clear that the acetone test is more reliable than unreliable, and that it's the best option for a people and government that have very little money for more extensive testing, but it's important that we remain objective and consider all the testing and anecdotal information when determining a kava's quality. I'm happy to see Vanuatu putting these standards in place and I think that if the colormetric test is all they have to go on it will help make sure they are exporting the right kavas. As long as officials can be objective and look at potential false positives intelligently on a case by case basis they will be able to make the proper decisions moving forward. The fact is, they need to do whatever they can. Vanuatu farmers are still planting tudei and the only way that will stop is if the growers themselves know that they won't be able to sell it. The Quality Standard is another step in the right direction.
*As an aside, the email from Dr. Schmidt was forwarded to
@Kapmcrunk so he can confirm that the quote is legitimate. Dr. Schmidt gave me permission to quote him publicly.
