How Our Kava Is Made

From Garden to Sealed Bag

1. 1

   Grown

   It starts in customary gardens across Vanuatu, in a pristine environment of volcanic soil and clean water. More than a thousand growers supply the factory, concentrated on Santo, Epi, Pentecost and the Banks. Under the Vanuatu Kava Act, kava must be grown organically, and only noble cultivars may be exported. Everything we sell is both.

   

   Always noble, always organic
2. 2

   Harvested

   Only mature noble plants are lifted, four years and older. The cultivar is identified in the field before anything is cut, because one misidentified plant would carry through every step that follows.

   

   Only mature plants, four years and older
3. 3

   Trimmed for the Trip

   The root ball comes up and the tops are cut back for the trip out, but never cut flush. Two or three nodes stay attached to every root ball, and a couple of stalks keep their branches and leaves. Those leftovers are how the factory confirms the plant's identity when the load arrives.

4. 4

   Checked on Arrival

   Several complete plants travel with every load, above-ground parts and all. Between those and the nodes left on each root ball, the field identification is confirmed a second time at the factory. Onsite analysts also assess the load independently for freshness and contamination, and their report has to match the harvest team's.

   

   Plants are often inspected prior to harvest to verify identity and quality.

   One cultivar per batch, checked twice
5. 5

   Separated by Hand

   Laterals and basal stump are parted by hand, one root ball at a time. The two behave differently in the cup, and the ratio between them is most of what gives a cultivar its character, so it is not a job to hand to a machine.

   

   Laterals and stump differ in the cup
6. 6

   Sorted, Then Weighed Again

   Roots arrive tangled and things get caught in them. A weed root, a stone, sometimes a fragment off a tool. The load is weighed once on arrival and again after all of that comes out, and it is the second number the grower is paid on. That gap tells the grower how clean their load was, which is why the washing floor is a lot less muddy than it used to be.

   

   Growers are paid on the clean weight
7. 7

   Washed

   Every speck of dirt is blasted off at high pressure. The water itself is purified on site and tested for sterility, pH and chlorine right before it touches a root. This is also where the decision is made on how much of the thin root bark to leave on.

   

   Washed in purified, tested water
8. 8

   Chopped and Sliced

   Kava root is brutal on machinery, and nobody builds machines for kava, so nearly every kind of chopping and slicing equipment ever made has been trialled in this factory. What survives the root is what we still use.

   
9. 9

   Evened Out, Then Dried

   Tonnes of root arrive at different moisture levels, so the load is brought to an even moisture content before drying begins. Then the temperature has to sit inside a narrow window: high enough to meet strict microbiological limits, low enough that kavalactones do not start to degrade and take the flavour with them. The settings move as conditions move through the day, and nothing stays in the dryer a second longer than it has to. Drying is where good kava is most easily ruined, which is why the exact settings are the one part of the process not made public.

   Dried in a narrow temperature window
10. 10

    Screened for Microbes

    Product and equipment are sampled at every stage, and again after production, and again before shipping. The protocols reliably detect trace amounts of over a hundred species. Nothing leaves that the people who made it would not happily drink themselves.

    

    Screening detects over 100 microbial species
11. 11

    Milled

    You will not get kavalactones out of a root by stirring it around in water. The surface area has to be enormous relative to the volume before extraction works at all, which is the entire reason kava is a powder. Every batch is milled to a consistent fine grind.

    

    Milled fine so kavalactones can extract
12. 12

    Chemotype Measured

    Every batch goes through UHPLC analysis, which produces the six-digit chemotype and tells us the balance of kavalactones in that particular harvest. The certificate is published, so anyone holding a bag can look up exactly what it was tested at.

    Every batch tested, every certificate public
13. 13

    Blended as It Grew

    The powders from the different root types of one cultivar go back together in the ratio they actually grew in. Laterals are usually a little less abundant than basal roots, and that balance shifts from harvest to harvest, so a bag reflects what that batch really was.

    

    Harvests vary, like wine vintages
14. 14

    Sealed and Shipped

    Weighed on calibrated analytical balances, because nobody should buy a kilogram and get 950 grams. The oxygen is purged and replaced with nitrogen, each bag is vacuum sealed in low-permeability packaging, and the batch and production date go on the label. All of it before the kava leaves Vanuatu.

    Nitrogen flushed, vacuum sealed
15. 15

    The Instant Step

    For our instant range, the insoluble fibres are removed from freshly harvested roots before drying, and the result is milled ultra-fine. One ingredient: noble kava root. No straining, just mix with water.

    One ingredient: kava root