Hi everyone, I thought I would take this time to talk a little bit about Hawaiian kava and why it is so hard to get good Hawaiian kava.
Out of all the kava growing areas in the Pacific, Hawaii has the best according to the chemotypes. When I say the best I am talking strictly about the chemotypes and how the most sought after kava has a good chemotype of, say 462351 or any other chemotype starting with the #4. The reason that this is considered a good kava is because of the amount of the different kavalactones. In this case it is #4 or Kavain and it is this kavalactone that you want to be in the first position.
If we look back to when kava was still being domesticated so to speak, the people of Vanuatu were drinking the wild kava called piper wichmannii, this wild kava is very strong and has some unwanted effects, when the people of Vanuatu would come across a wild kava that was good and did not cause the unwanted effects they would keep this kava and plant more. Sometimes they would come across a somatic mutation and this mutant kava is thought to be the start of the kava we know today, the Piper Methisticum. Then they would keep cultivating this and not the wild kava and in this way, the people of Vanuatu have made the kava we have now, the Piper Methysticum. This was made through selective cultivation and this is how the kava we like has become sterile and does not produce seeds like the wild kava.
To give you an idea of how some wild kava can be good enough to drink lets look at the chemotype of some kava that is known to you folks. If we look at ISA, this is a known tuday kava, it has a chemotype of 246531. You can see the kavalactone we like the most is in the second position.
A typical wild kava (piper Wichmannii) has a chemotype of 215634, notice that the #4, the kavalactone we like so much is at the last position. This is a kava you do not want to drink. The kava called Koniak has a chemotype of 256134, a kava called Borogu has a chemotype of 246531, a kava called Borogoru has a chemotype of 245613.
Chemotypes can change due to the way that the kava is grown, a chemotype is not set in stone for a certain variety of kava but it does stay close to the same, there is only a little variation, a good kava will not become a tuday kava.
Keep in mind this took hundreds of years. Now we have a place called Hawaii and when the people of the pacific came to settle in Hawaii, they brought with them certain plants, kava was one of them. Since there is limited room on these canoes they brought only the best with them, and so, in Hawaii, we have only the best kava, all the Hawaiian varieties start with the #4, kavain. Where as in other places like Vanuatu, they have wild kava (Hawaii has none) and they have the good kava, the piper methysticum but out of all the varieties of piper methysticum, only some start with the #4, others do not, the same with Fiji and other kava producing areas. It is interesting to note that the wild kava (piper wichmannii) is found only in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. But the kava in other places like Fiji still has some unwanted effects and this is because of the amount of the desired vs. the undesired kavalactones, Fiji has a lot of kava that is high in DHK and DHM, it is these kavalactones that cause the unwanted stomach effects and the long lasting effects.
The DHK and the DHM will take longer to act on us but it will last longer, the kavain will act on us in about 5 min or less and does not last as long as the DHK or the DHM, but it is the blend of these kavalactones that give the kava the effect we like so much, weather it be a heady or a body kind of kava, the heady ones will be high in kavain and low in the DHK and the DHM, a good body kava will have more DHK and DHM.
The trick is to find the right mix of kavalactones, the one that will have a good kavain effect but also last long thanks to the DHK and the DHM.
Back to the Hawaiian kava, as I said, all the Hawaiian kava is high in Kavain and that is good. But the problem is that Hawaii just does not have the quantity of kava that the other kava producing areas have. In the early 1800's kava was made illegal in Hawaii and alcohol started to take its place and this had a big impact on traditional kava use in Hawaii. A long time ago, the kava in Hawaii did not have any pest of disease like the other kava producing areas, so the kava in Hawaii got real big, some of the plants were as big as a car or a truck, these plants were actually very old kava plants, some were estimated as over 150 years old, people in the South Pacific would hear stories about how big the kava would get in Hawaii and they could not believe it. These big kava plants became a target of thieves and soon the kava in the wild was being decimated. It was such a big loss that we started a task force to stop the illegal harvesting of the kava. I was the head of this task force and the best thing we did to stop this was to put micro chips in the kava, that way we would know all the details about the kava, where it came from and all the good stuff, some arrests were made and soon the word got out and the stealing of the kava stopped considerably.
Not too long after that, we started to get disease and pests here in Hawaii that would attack the kava, this along with the liver scare started by the big drug companies drove the Hawaiian kava industry into the ground.
So now there are just a few people that grow kava in Hawaii, most is only small scale. In fact I can count the kava growers here in Hawaii and I will still have a few fingers left over to count some more, but there is just not any interest in growing it, most people do not want to get into it, they see more money in growing Papayas or something like that.
So since there are not that many people in Hawaii that grow kava, that means that there is a severely restricted supply of good Hawaiian kava, when I say good, I am talking about kava that is grown the right way, so as to increase the potency, tests we have done here have proven that the kava in the wild as apposed to the cultivated kava is not as strong, the cultivated kava is consistently stronger, that means that if you plant the kava and forget about it the strength will be X amount but if you took care of the kava as it was growing, then the kava potency will increase dramatically, so some farms here in Hawaii that rely on kava in the wild or kava that has been planted and forgotten till it is time to harvest, they will not have a good quality kava, but the kava farmer that takes care of his plants will get a much stronger kava. It is this kind of kava that is a good quality and it is this kind of kava that you should look for, that is why I started to offer my kava for sale so that all can enjoy it and see what a good kava can be like.
It is also interesting to note that in Hawaii there are not very many kava plants, most house holds here in Hawaii do not have any kava plants.
In Vanuatu however, kava is much more abundant and they take care of there kava plants because it is a cash crop for them, kava is a cash crop in Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis, Futuna, Tonga and Pohnpei, that is all. It has recently started to become a cash crop in other places like Samoa and the Solomon Islands but not as much as the other places I just mentioned.
To give you an idea of the amount of kava plants they have in Vanuatu---
In Vanuatu they have much more kava plants, I will list some by name and region, Southern Tanna has Malamala and there is an average of 183 plants per household.
Eastern Ambae has Melomelo and about 329 kava plants per household.
Southern Maewo has Sese and about 405 kava plants per household.
Northern Pentecost has Boroguru and about 172 kava plants per household and Central Pentecost has Borogu and about 531 kava plants per household. In 1988 kava farmers in Pentecost Vanuatu sold over 225,000 kilograms of kava, that is just in that area of Vanuatu, and the value at that time was over $153,000 US. The kava market has grown considerably since the 80ies.
So you can see why Vanuatu is the kava capital of the world and why Hawaiian kava is so rare and hard to come by.
I am growing and expanding my operation and I will soon have plenty of Hawaiian kava to offer but till then it will be small quantities as I harvest the plants.
I am able to guarantee potency and quality this way. I am sure that some of you have read the book "Hawaiian 'Awa Views of an ethnobotanical treasure"
A lot of the studies that we did here in Hawaii are in this book, some of the results are coded for example when you look at the pictures of the Hawaiian kava, they give the kavalactone content and the chemotype of a few different kava's, they coded this part, for example under the sample name they might say Pau6 or pono1, this is the code and it tells us where and who it came from, a lot of these came from me, they were provided by me to get an idea of what might contribute to the increase of the potency and quality of the kava. So you can see that I have a long history of growing kava and studding and researching it, it is with this knowledge that I am able to grow truly Gourmet kava. And since I know what a good kava is, I can also import only the best to sell to you. I have gone through several suppliers in Vanuatu before I found one that I trust and like. I am always looking for the best kava out there and when I find it I make it available for sale on my site. I guarantee the highest quality of kava because I grow only the best and I import only the best.
I hope that this helps to understand kava and what makes it more potent and why Vanuatu has so much kava and Hawaii does not.
If anyone has any questions about kava please let me know. If I can not answer it right away, I will contact other kava experts (Dr Lebot included) so I can get the answer for you.
Aloha nui loa.
Chris
Out of all the kava growing areas in the Pacific, Hawaii has the best according to the chemotypes. When I say the best I am talking strictly about the chemotypes and how the most sought after kava has a good chemotype of, say 462351 or any other chemotype starting with the #4. The reason that this is considered a good kava is because of the amount of the different kavalactones. In this case it is #4 or Kavain and it is this kavalactone that you want to be in the first position.
If we look back to when kava was still being domesticated so to speak, the people of Vanuatu were drinking the wild kava called piper wichmannii, this wild kava is very strong and has some unwanted effects, when the people of Vanuatu would come across a wild kava that was good and did not cause the unwanted effects they would keep this kava and plant more. Sometimes they would come across a somatic mutation and this mutant kava is thought to be the start of the kava we know today, the Piper Methisticum. Then they would keep cultivating this and not the wild kava and in this way, the people of Vanuatu have made the kava we have now, the Piper Methysticum. This was made through selective cultivation and this is how the kava we like has become sterile and does not produce seeds like the wild kava.
To give you an idea of how some wild kava can be good enough to drink lets look at the chemotype of some kava that is known to you folks. If we look at ISA, this is a known tuday kava, it has a chemotype of 246531. You can see the kavalactone we like the most is in the second position.
A typical wild kava (piper Wichmannii) has a chemotype of 215634, notice that the #4, the kavalactone we like so much is at the last position. This is a kava you do not want to drink. The kava called Koniak has a chemotype of 256134, a kava called Borogu has a chemotype of 246531, a kava called Borogoru has a chemotype of 245613.
Chemotypes can change due to the way that the kava is grown, a chemotype is not set in stone for a certain variety of kava but it does stay close to the same, there is only a little variation, a good kava will not become a tuday kava.
Keep in mind this took hundreds of years. Now we have a place called Hawaii and when the people of the pacific came to settle in Hawaii, they brought with them certain plants, kava was one of them. Since there is limited room on these canoes they brought only the best with them, and so, in Hawaii, we have only the best kava, all the Hawaiian varieties start with the #4, kavain. Where as in other places like Vanuatu, they have wild kava (Hawaii has none) and they have the good kava, the piper methysticum but out of all the varieties of piper methysticum, only some start with the #4, others do not, the same with Fiji and other kava producing areas. It is interesting to note that the wild kava (piper wichmannii) is found only in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. But the kava in other places like Fiji still has some unwanted effects and this is because of the amount of the desired vs. the undesired kavalactones, Fiji has a lot of kava that is high in DHK and DHM, it is these kavalactones that cause the unwanted stomach effects and the long lasting effects.
The DHK and the DHM will take longer to act on us but it will last longer, the kavain will act on us in about 5 min or less and does not last as long as the DHK or the DHM, but it is the blend of these kavalactones that give the kava the effect we like so much, weather it be a heady or a body kind of kava, the heady ones will be high in kavain and low in the DHK and the DHM, a good body kava will have more DHK and DHM.
The trick is to find the right mix of kavalactones, the one that will have a good kavain effect but also last long thanks to the DHK and the DHM.
Back to the Hawaiian kava, as I said, all the Hawaiian kava is high in Kavain and that is good. But the problem is that Hawaii just does not have the quantity of kava that the other kava producing areas have. In the early 1800's kava was made illegal in Hawaii and alcohol started to take its place and this had a big impact on traditional kava use in Hawaii. A long time ago, the kava in Hawaii did not have any pest of disease like the other kava producing areas, so the kava in Hawaii got real big, some of the plants were as big as a car or a truck, these plants were actually very old kava plants, some were estimated as over 150 years old, people in the South Pacific would hear stories about how big the kava would get in Hawaii and they could not believe it. These big kava plants became a target of thieves and soon the kava in the wild was being decimated. It was such a big loss that we started a task force to stop the illegal harvesting of the kava. I was the head of this task force and the best thing we did to stop this was to put micro chips in the kava, that way we would know all the details about the kava, where it came from and all the good stuff, some arrests were made and soon the word got out and the stealing of the kava stopped considerably.
Not too long after that, we started to get disease and pests here in Hawaii that would attack the kava, this along with the liver scare started by the big drug companies drove the Hawaiian kava industry into the ground.
So now there are just a few people that grow kava in Hawaii, most is only small scale. In fact I can count the kava growers here in Hawaii and I will still have a few fingers left over to count some more, but there is just not any interest in growing it, most people do not want to get into it, they see more money in growing Papayas or something like that.
So since there are not that many people in Hawaii that grow kava, that means that there is a severely restricted supply of good Hawaiian kava, when I say good, I am talking about kava that is grown the right way, so as to increase the potency, tests we have done here have proven that the kava in the wild as apposed to the cultivated kava is not as strong, the cultivated kava is consistently stronger, that means that if you plant the kava and forget about it the strength will be X amount but if you took care of the kava as it was growing, then the kava potency will increase dramatically, so some farms here in Hawaii that rely on kava in the wild or kava that has been planted and forgotten till it is time to harvest, they will not have a good quality kava, but the kava farmer that takes care of his plants will get a much stronger kava. It is this kind of kava that is a good quality and it is this kind of kava that you should look for, that is why I started to offer my kava for sale so that all can enjoy it and see what a good kava can be like.
It is also interesting to note that in Hawaii there are not very many kava plants, most house holds here in Hawaii do not have any kava plants.
In Vanuatu however, kava is much more abundant and they take care of there kava plants because it is a cash crop for them, kava is a cash crop in Vanuatu, Fiji, Wallis, Futuna, Tonga and Pohnpei, that is all. It has recently started to become a cash crop in other places like Samoa and the Solomon Islands but not as much as the other places I just mentioned.
To give you an idea of the amount of kava plants they have in Vanuatu---
In Vanuatu they have much more kava plants, I will list some by name and region, Southern Tanna has Malamala and there is an average of 183 plants per household.
Eastern Ambae has Melomelo and about 329 kava plants per household.
Southern Maewo has Sese and about 405 kava plants per household.
Northern Pentecost has Boroguru and about 172 kava plants per household and Central Pentecost has Borogu and about 531 kava plants per household. In 1988 kava farmers in Pentecost Vanuatu sold over 225,000 kilograms of kava, that is just in that area of Vanuatu, and the value at that time was over $153,000 US. The kava market has grown considerably since the 80ies.
So you can see why Vanuatu is the kava capital of the world and why Hawaiian kava is so rare and hard to come by.
I am growing and expanding my operation and I will soon have plenty of Hawaiian kava to offer but till then it will be small quantities as I harvest the plants.
I am able to guarantee potency and quality this way. I am sure that some of you have read the book "Hawaiian 'Awa Views of an ethnobotanical treasure"
A lot of the studies that we did here in Hawaii are in this book, some of the results are coded for example when you look at the pictures of the Hawaiian kava, they give the kavalactone content and the chemotype of a few different kava's, they coded this part, for example under the sample name they might say Pau6 or pono1, this is the code and it tells us where and who it came from, a lot of these came from me, they were provided by me to get an idea of what might contribute to the increase of the potency and quality of the kava. So you can see that I have a long history of growing kava and studding and researching it, it is with this knowledge that I am able to grow truly Gourmet kava. And since I know what a good kava is, I can also import only the best to sell to you. I have gone through several suppliers in Vanuatu before I found one that I trust and like. I am always looking for the best kava out there and when I find it I make it available for sale on my site. I guarantee the highest quality of kava because I grow only the best and I import only the best.
I hope that this helps to understand kava and what makes it more potent and why Vanuatu has so much kava and Hawaii does not.
If anyone has any questions about kava please let me know. If I can not answer it right away, I will contact other kava experts (Dr Lebot included) so I can get the answer for you.
Aloha nui loa.
Chris
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