White Sand, Black Sand, Stone acetone test

[___]

First off apologies for the username; my mind blanked when I was trying to come up with one. Anyhow I like to buy bulk kava to save money and nah has been my favorite the price/quality ratio since kavaboy dissapeared. I ended up feeling terrible after drinking the black sand right before finding out about the controversy over possible tudei right after. As a result I decided to do my first acetone test since I bought 9 pounds of this stuff and can't afford to just throw it out.



From left to right that's white sand, black sand, and stone. I've never done an acetone test before, but I think all three came out as okay meaning my earlier bad experience wasn't because of kava. Can anyone here comment? The stone is a little darker in color but I think it's still in the yellow range, plus there's a bit less liquid in there. I've been drinking the white sand, but I finally drank some of the stone last night and the only thing that caught me off guard was how strong it was.

I will probably stick to true kava certified kava in the future because I want to support having a transparent and objective standard rather than operating on the basis of personal trust and subjective feelings, but at least the batch I got seems to be good stuff.

 

[___]

I found this in a google image search:

The first four are supposedly noble and the stone is closest to color to the fourth noble one.

 

[The Kap'n]

First off apologies for the username; my mind blanked when I was trying to come up with one. Anyhow I like to buy bulk kava to save money and nah has been my favorite the price/quality ratio since kavaboy dissapeared. I ended up feeling terrible after drinking the black sand right before finding out about the controversy over possible tudei right after. As a result I decided to do my first acetone test since I bought 9 pounds of this stuff and can't afford to just throw it out.

View attachment 8102

From left to right that's white sand, black sand, and stone. I've never done an acetone test before, but I think all three came out as okay meaning my earlier bad experience wasn't because of kava. Can anyone here comment? The stone is a little darker in color but I think it's still in the yellow range, plus there's a bit less liquid in there. I've been drinking the white sand, but I finally drank some of the stone last night and the only thing that caught me off guard was how strong it was.

I will probably stick to true kava certified kava in the future because I want to support having a transparent and objective standard rather than operating on the basis of personal trust and subjective feelings, but at least the batch I got seems to be good stuff.

lol, don't worry. We've got members with names such as "Idontknow" and "noname" so you're in good company! Honestly the two on the left look okay, but without a known noble to compare to (in the same picture) it's quite difficult to tell. Welcome to kavaforums, and kudos to you for applying your own acetone test to your samples

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

White Sand & Black Sand look good, Stone looks questionable. If it gives you any problems, just mix it with some White Sand when you make a batch.

 

[___]

lol, don't worry. We've got members with names such as "Idontknow" and "noname" so you're in good company! Honestly the two on the left look okay, but without a known noble to compare to (in the same picture) it's quite difficult to tell. Welcome to kavaforums, and kudos to you for applying your own acetone test to your samples

Thanks! Maybe later on I can try one of the truekava vendors and do another test, but I guess the tentative verdict is that the sands from nah are okay and the stone 'may' be okay.

In terms of those subjective feelings I was complaining about I'm not having any lingering effects from the stone other than waking up feeling like I had just drank a few tablespoons of noble kava, which is typical when I 'overdose' right before going to bed.

 

[verticity]

lol, don't worry. We've got members with names such as "Idontknow" and "noname" so you're in good company! Honestly the two on the left look okay, but without a known noble to compare to (in the same picture) it's quite difficult to tell. Welcome to kavaforums, and kudos to you for applying your own acetone test to your samples

When I first saw this post I thought the user name had been deleted or something... But hey, at least your name can be typed on a standard keyboard, unlike some people I know (cough @sɥɐʞɐs cough). Welcome to the Forum.

The test on the right does look questionable, but it really is impossible to tell from a photograph, so I can't say definitively either way. Also it is very important to use a standard amount of liquid and powder: 3 mL of acetone for each gram of powder.. and it looks like there is not enough liquid in that one, or at least the amount of liquid is different from the others The photo in your second post is Dr. Lebot's and I think is the same one that appears in the Vanuatu kava standard. But again it is hard to tell by eye, and hard to tell from a photo.

 

[Señor Chuggs]

Just like the acetone test requires a known noble to compare to, I think the good ol' fashioned chug n' check method also requires a trained pallet with some known good and even some lackluster (for comparison) kavas. I have tasted a pineyness in some kavas before that reminded me of known labeled ISA I've had, yet they did not bring on any lingering undesired effects. being able to recognize that taste might help you make your own judgement call. Id suggest having some kava from a few different vendors on hand to compare. Drink a known noble for a few sessions stretched out over a few days, then do the same for the kava in question. If your getting a long foggy krunk, its much easier to tell when you have a clean krunk to compare it too.

of course... all kava cultivars and even different preparations have their own signature krunk to them, so they aren't 100% comparable apples-to-apples. I get that. I just think that in addition to that acetone test, trying out kavas is good way to tell if they work for you. Ive heard stories about people drinking tudei for a long time and getting undesirable effects, but they couldn't tell until after they switched to another product. All this said... the acetone test is the best way I know of to make an objective, binary decision between noble/ignoble.

And my 2 cents: if you determine a kava to be even slightly undesirable, stop buying it, even if the price is really good. We use our wallets to drive the market to offer good kava, and it takes years to grow. The kava we buy now is influencing what plants the distributors are demanding, and thus what the farmers are putting in the ground. That kava in the ground is what we will be drinking in half a decade.

Edit: I removed my assertion that small Fijian vendors are probably selling noble. I've used this as a rule of thumb, but this is misleading because the small vendors could (and some do) still import ignobles from other places and blend it into their kava.

 

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Kavas I've tried: Kalm with Kava Pouni Ono and Borongoru, Kavaboy, Wakacon Waka and Lawena, Best Fiji Kava, and the 3 NaH's mentioned. I know there are people here who have tried way more than me, but I'm not exactly a spring chicken as far as kava goes.

As far as I know I have never had an isa, but if I have was having an experience far off norm I believe I would realize. I figure I had a cold or something when I was drinking the black sand last time and the white sand has been about the same for me as drinking the borongoru.

As long as I'm posting if i hold the stone acetone up to a light it looks very yellow which isn't something captured in that picture.