If you re looking at the price on the VKS site, it is a bit steep, given the way they have international shipping arrangements worked out. Because of our bulk purchasing for out bar, we have an excellent batch from 7 year old stocks that you can order from us stateside at $85/kg, including shipping, and we are the only US vendor that has access to this cultivar. If you'd like, feel free to give us a call at 828-505-8118 for a phone order, and whoever answers will be happy to give you pricing for smaller amounts.
In a couple weeks, I will be travelling to the village that gets us this kava for us for a kastom ceremony, and will staying in the bush with them for over a month. I'll post information about a related indy-go-go campaign soon (which has been a little late to launch) in case anyone is interested in making a donation and getting some kava from the village for their donation. We have already helped them to get a solar array for one of their tourist bungalows, so they do not have to rely on noisy, expensive, polluting diesel-generation to support a bit of electric in their eco-tourism cottage-industry. We are hoping to get them another one soon - along with school supplies, pots and pans, soccer balls, a water purification system, and some other basic things that we take for granted.
Thanks for your interest in this kava - it's really an amazing, heady strain, and hope that you decide to give it a shot soon. With the Tanna kavas, I can personally testify that campaign-donation or not, a significant portion of the purchase price goes right to Tanna island. that is part of the reason the prices are a bit higher than other strains, along with the added cost of inter-island shipping from a place whose kava industry has only recently been getting into a competitive scale of production. Cheers! Alez!
Andrew
~AP