First Time I Discovered Kava

You probably want to skip this method but it is worth the read. At the time, I thought this was the only way kava was consumed, but today I realize that we may have only been 2 people to try this.

I was born on the American and Canadian border where winters are as cold as ice and snow abundant. It isn't unlikely to get bored unless, of course, you had the internet, and may I add, it wasn't the same type of internet that we see today. I discovered something there that forever changed my life. An ebook, unlike other ebooks that briefly explained some of the plants around the world that cultures use to replace drugs and alcohol legally. One plant that quickly caught my eye was the kava root, which had a unique way of being brewed.

At the end of the day, I stopped reading this e-book and decided to continue my life as normal.

It wasn't until a year later that I ended up walking into a herb shop while on vacation and fell upon a few herbs that I had remembered reading about, and one of these was Kava. So I bought up a bunch of kava, along with a few other plants recommended by the shop owner, who wasn't your ordinary businessman. It had been my first experience meeting a modern shaman who through meditation and plants wanted to share his special treasures with the world. So the Kava was stuffed away for a rainy day.

Summer quickly came along and I was reunited with a close buddy of mine who was always open to trying new activities. So I decided it was time to pull out the kava and share my special find and what I had read about this plant. I prepared my packsack with a few ingredients and went for a discovery walk in the woods.

We stopped in what felt like a special place, surrounded by a ring of low-lying trees with the sun rays shining through the branches. We sat down and I pulled out my special ingredients: 2 small plastic cups, a can opener, a can of coconut milk, and a bag of kava roots which were still whole but cut into smaller lengths.

We both took a large inch of roots and put this in our mouths. I have to admit that it was the first time in my life that it felt right to put what looked like tree branches in my mouth. I handed over an empty cup to my friend and explained, "So you don't swallow it, you simply bite the root and spit in your cup for 15 minutes or so." He looked at me and said "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" and answered, "Yes, that's the way they traditionally do this!"

My mouth quickly turned numb, we talked about how weird this was, and after about 15 minutes our cup was over half full and he looked and he said "I think I'm feeling something."

I pulled out my can opener and started opening the can of coconut milk and told him, "Actually, you see the spit in your cup, that's full of the active ingredients, and to help activate the plant it needs to be mixed with something fatty like this coconut milk..." I topped off his cup with the thick milk and explained, "We need to drink this in one shot."

For some reason, it didn't take too much convincing and we both pounded it down like it was a round of shooters. I have to say that it was not appealing as a beverage but gave an extreme sense of ceremony for both of us. We decided to pack things up and continue our walk in the woods.

It didn't take long before we felt the kava effect. At that time, I did not have a reference point to explain what I was feeling except that it transformed a simple walk in the woods into a journey of not only nature exploration, but self-exploration. To this day, almost 25 years later, I realize that kava, played an important role for both of us that day.

Nature is filled with magical tools that we can choose to discover and learn to work with. We are lucky that we can explore different plants from different cultures without having to travel the world to find and discover the treasures of the thousands of cultures out there. While many cultures in the South Pacific use kava ceremonially every day, it is a plant that I believe will become a useful tool for relaxation and meditation in the western world.

Today, I present to you a more acceptable means of discovering kava, from traditional to innovational methods, these kava recipes are meant for you to explore and share with the world.

Enjoy!