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sɥɐʞɐs What do you know about Starwest Botanicals? I am currently creating an opinion of them and I need to express my learnings to a local store who is selling a product containing their Kava. The Kava made me feel bad and tasted like spice, what's the deal with it?
I used to buy Starwest Kava every once in a while, if I ran out of good stuff, 'cause they sold it in a local health food store.
It was always suspicious to me, very dark, with a strange aroma and flavor. The tell-tale signs of aerial adulteration, if not also some other kind of adulteration. So eventually I got it tested, and it was notoriously one of the worst test results we've ever seen. It had a large percentage of aerials in it and had a tudei-like chemotype. However it was always very weak and never made me feel bad.
A couple years later a kava-industry article came out about a big kava exporters product getting busted for being tainted...and on the list of companies he sells this product to was:
Starwest Botanicals. I'm not sure if they ever corrected the issue and sourced proper kava root, I wouldn't be surprised if they just jumped from one shitty supplier to another.