Preparing Kava Root the Traditional Way
Kava is consumed in various ways throughout the Pacific Ocean cultures and some parts of Micronesia and Australia. Traditionally, there are three ways of preparing it: chewing, grinding, or pounding.
Chewing the kava means chewing it with ones’ mouth, depositing the products into a bowl, and finally mixing it with water before draining it through the cloth-like fiber of a coconut tree. Grinding is traditionally done by hand against a cone-shaped block usually made up of dead corals – the coral is used as pestle and the hand acts as a mortar. The ground root is mixed with only a little water because the fresh root also releases moisture during grinding.
Pounding is usually done in a large stone or boulder with the small log pounding the kava. The product of the pounding is then added to cold water and drank as quickly as possible. The extract that is produced by chewing, grinding and pounding is an emulsion kavalactone droplets in starch. Chewing makes the strongest effect since it creates the finest particles.
