Stop Sleeping on Kava; a diary

Ground Up Think Tank
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Ever since my last project blew up in my face I’ve been on the grind and I’ve got my sights set on the beautiful KavaRoot. There is no and I mean NO local or mass produced, ready to drink, medium dosage, tasty kava drinks in any of the northern USA. In south Florida the ish is a novelty in kava bars because it taste like dirt and sanitizer. Hell, every kava bar I’ve been to has great vibes and,… more kratom sales than kava.

So, this is the beginning of my second diary. Trying to turn oils into tasty drinks seems to be my thing. There’s already water soluble powders. I think I’ll start with those. But if I can turn true kava powder into a non shitty drink, it’ll be fun.

To lay out some of my plan.

First, I’m gonna carbonate the shit out of it. Fizzy drinks just hit the pallet so much better than non carbonated.

0 calorie. I’m on a health kick and I’m forcing everyone else to be on one too, and sucralose is cheap as hell for how sweet it is.

Less than 8oz. It makes most people get nauseous that’s no bueno.

Under 200mg kavalactones. I don’t want idiots drinking this stuff and crashing their car and suing me.

Things I’ve learned from my last failure;

Business insurance: nope, can’t get it even if I wanted to. But what I can do is throw all this liability on other companies which is exactly why I’m only doing B2B unless I know for a fact someone is over 21

Labels: clear, warning labels. I’m not sure if this legally helps me, but at least I can sayi tried if 15 year old billy buys a bottle and happens to already have liver issues and die.

Strength: STRONG IS NOT BETTER DAMNIT. I don’t care what anyone says, a strong drink almost never makes sense from a business standpoint compared to a mild one.

Marketing: I did way too much word of mouth marketing. This time I’m going all in on businesses, AdWords, SEO, the whole thing.

Production: This is the worse part. I wish I could just make this stuff in my basement like the failed chemist I am. But no, laws and regulations and sanitation. So I’ll use a ghost kitchen for a few hours, bust out a metric crap ton of bottles, package and seal them all in there so nothing can fall back on me.

I think that’s it. If you don’t like my formatting I don’t care. This is a diary that happens to be public.

Peace Love Unity Respect my business minded friends. Until next time.

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If I buy the kava tea bags from yogi and drink even 1 glass it makes me puke my ass off. When I was a kid I bought kava soda and that too gave horrible nausea and made me puke. How common is that for people that really any amount results in vomiting?

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Not sure how many other people this affects, but when I have sucralose in “sugar free” drinks, it tears my gut to pieces. Hell even mouthwash with sucralose fucks me up and I spit that shit out! If Kava already wrecks the gut, it might make it worse. Surely there are other sugar substitutes. Does sucralose affect anyone else like this?

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Absolutely. I have thought of this. I’m actually pivoting my idea. And will be adding ginger and peppermint to the product to prevent exactly this hopefully.

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Honestly never heard of this. But, there are other substitutes for sure. Testing will tell me if I need to significantly need to change the ingredients. The mix of Kava which fucks up more people’s stomachs than not and sucralose may prove to be a pretty nasty combo.

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I’d definitely wait to see if others chime in about sucralose before drastically changing. I’ve got a fairly sensitive gut and lots of things fuck me up. Just felt I’d share before you threw all your eggs in that basket.

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From Google:

What are the side effects of sucralose? To reiterate the many sucralose side effects, they include:

  • alters glucose and insulin levels.
  • increases risk of digestive problems.
  • alters gut health and damages the GI tract.
  • kills probiotics.
  • may play a role in certain cancers.
  • generates toxic compounds when heated.

A lot of sugar alcohols and sugar substitutes can really interact with the digestive system in negative ways. Calories aren’t bad by default, and personally I’d rather have sugar than a substitute sweetener just based on taste alone.

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just kind of a personal comment.
every few months i have a soda. i get either a craft
rootbeer or a mexican soda. both are made with cane
sugar. so myself will not buy another kind. used to make
my own soda. was same thing real sugar. btw c&h is cane
sugar. most others are made from beets.
good luck on your venture.

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I’m already all in. Just pulled the trigger on a bunch of equipment lol.

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Bought about 6 or 7 different kavas. Mostly noble I think. There’s some really good information on the kavaforum actually but it’s pretty dead as of late.

I got from three recommended and still (from what I see) in business companies;

Art of Kava:

-Temotu Purple Kava Single Cultivar

-Temotu Purple | Lateral Roots | (For the uninitiated, lateral roots contain more kavalactones, which means more potency, the reason I got the same type is because one SHOULD be significantly stronger than the other but it also produces noticeably different effects)

-Kelai Kava Single Cultivar

The reason I have so many singular cultivar instead of blend is because they produce clearer effects on the user from my experience and reading.

My main goal in testing so many is because I want a heady euphoric feeling in as strong of a root as I can get. If you look those up though you’ll quickly see how expensive this shit is for how much yield you would get. Not fun. Hopefully I can strike a business relationship with one that I fancy. But these companies and most domestic / USA shipping farms and kava companies are extremely anti commercialization. You’ll quickly notice that none of them have bulk pricing and none of them offer discounts.

Moving on.

Squanch Fijian Waka- another heady effect.

Bula Kava House:

-Melo Melo Kava ; unlike the heady ones ones this is mostly a heavy body high and sedative

-Waka Kava Powder: the same root as Squanch, different farm want to see the difference.

Once I have all of these on hand I will be testing them all with the traditional blender prep method and grog/ Bula drinking.

Because I don’t drink the stuff often or a lot. I’ll probably spread this over a week or two so I’m not feeling high all day because I don’t really like feeling high off anything.

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Also I pivoted to supplements for various reasons. Will be making pills as of now and maybe candies in the future but I don’t really love the drink making process and all the shit that goes into it like shipping costs.

Using gel caps. Idk how much of this I want to document specifically because I do want this to be a business and people with a lot more money can get this on large scale much faster. But I’m moving quick. So we’ll see.

Have ordered all necessary equipment. Including a very expensive ball mill, hope it’s worth it.

Will be working with my website builder on well the website next week. Along with contacting my label guy to get him in the loop. Business cards, logo design will be on Fiverr too.

If anyone is good with AI logos let me know I’ll pay for your services.

I think that’s all the developments so far. Originally I was going to try to reinstate my old LLC and file this new one under it but I remembered it’s probably impossible to do that. So I’ll be setting up the LLC and banks etc this weekend and beginning of next week.

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Fuck. Much research. Reading through the cGMP from the FDA. I’m fucked. The reality is. There is no way in god’s green earth I can do this legally not from A kitchen not from my house not from anywhere except inspected fda compliant facilities. Which means I need to private label this shit after I spent thousands on equipment. Pissed.

I still need to create the formula I guess so it isn’t A total waste. But selling this shit is basically A one way ticket to jail or at the very least a strong insinuating letter from the FDA. So I’m going to create the formula. Sell a couple locally but not online. And then go to private label with the formula and hopefully someone on this planet can make this shit because turning kava into a liquid then a powder through dehydration is… HARD. Who tf has a dehydrator and a strainer in their facility. Fuckin fuck fuck. I don’t have one million dollars to create this shit myself. Ugh. Anyway I will prevail just a huge realization that sucks ass.

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Have you seen this thread?

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I was actually going to say the same thing. Sucalose messes up my gut, I dont know if its affecting the microbiome or what but Its awful.

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I have. I do not have the knowledge or the ability to do any CO2 extraction. In addition, I could actually just bulk buy Kava extract. The problem is, even though the kavalactones seem to be significantly higher at first, there is a general consensus that kava extract does not ever feel the same as kava produced traditionally. I’m not a chemist, so I don’t know why, but I assume that somewhere in the process (which is often actually done with ethanol on the market extracts) a critical component that aids in the effect people get is reduced.

Instant kava, what I’m making has the unique advantage of being traditionally made kava, with no chemicals, and still being semi-soluble. And incredibly potent. My method is probably primitive because once again I am not and do not plan on learning Ph.D.-level chemistry lol.

And because I am making a powder and not a liquid or… vape (someone asked if the extraction was smokeable LMAO) I think that CO2 extraction would still require an extra step to get into non-gel pill form.

I started rambling I think, ADHD. Basically, I looked into extracts and right now it is not one of the better methods for my final product + even if I wanted to do it, I couldn’t because I don’t know how.

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I looked a bit more into contract manufacturing. Because of the process I am using (making kava traditionally then using that to create something completely different, then mixing that with other powders, and finally putting it into a capsule) I will almost certainly require the use of different facilities, uh oh.

As of right now, I think that the only way the first process can be completed is through a supplier that already produces kava products, and hope that one of them would be willing to work together. From there if they do not have the ability to dehydrate, it will need to be sent to a facility that can then turn the liquid into a powder. From there the powder can go to a supplement facility, to be mixed with the other ingredients to finally be pilled and bottled. Price for sure. Because this is not all in one building and because each manufacturer has MOQs, I am looking at a rather high price per bottle just to get it to my door.

So, for now, that’s where I am at. I will call a bunch of manufacturers when I have time this week to see if any of them can fit my needs. Also will call up an office space near where I am to see what insurance I need and the price of their 100-250 sqft units. If the requirements are crazy high I will just use a virtual office for now (google is gonna hate me) until I can get everything else.

Full steam ahead focused and poised. Sleep is nonexistent. I’m taking 15 credits and I work 2 jobs at 60 hours a week. HOLY.

EDIT: For clarification, it would look like this

Facility 1: Kava Root to GROG > Facility 2: Grog to Instant Flakes > Facility 3: Instant Flakes to powder + other ingredients to pill and packaging. ; this assumes that a pharm/supp manufacturer can turn a raw ingredient into a powder if they can’t they suck but I have a strong feeling they can.

A 3 facility supply chain in theory shouldn’t be too hard especially if the first 2 can be combined. The problem is cost (it always is). The most pricey would probably be the GROG to Facility 2 because shipping liquids is a bitch, if they can be in the same state and even city it would significantly reduce costs.

To say the least, I am getting into THE WEEDS. A lot of this shit simply isn’t googlable (my best friend). So if anyone has any input at all on this process please let me know.

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Im not sure what I am missing here, but why brew it into a drink at all if your end goal is powder for capsules? Why not just get high quality kava root and powder it and pack capsules with that?

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Hey man, typical kava extract is very different from standard grog for two key reasons.

Singular extraction methodology - i.e., polar hydrophobic lactone extraction
which is missing the non polar, hydrophilic kavalactone sections in entirety.

If going from root to grog to powder, consider doing two washes - a first wash with your root being “shredded” - (high sheer force helps) within acidified/distilled water
and a second with EtOH, mix your yields and see what you get.

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Ah yes.

Kava powder is typically the entire root. Including all of the fibers bark etc. Taking that shit will destroy your stomach like nothing ever felt. It has to be processed into something. The “traditional” method is kneading it with water in a strainer bag to get all of the active ingredient out. But that left over water taste gross

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I was thinking about this. The etoh should definitely bring out everything missed. And it should entirely evaporate out. My biggest fear is; not having my dehydrator go boom when the alcohol heats up in a tiny enclosed space.

Think this is a reasonable fear? If so, what do you think I can do to mitigate.

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