Welcome to Ozkava!
Our product line starts with our Gold Blend of noble kavas from Vanuatu. We hope to add single cultivars later in the year. Some information about us appears below. To learn more about us, go to The Ozkava Difference page or go to our Frequently Asked Questions about Kava (FAQ).
Knowledge & experience
Peter, the proprietor of Ozkava, began consuming kava in 2012 and was immediately sold on the experience. The resulting mild euphoria, serenity and body relaxation was far more enjoyable than the effects of alcohol. Furthermore, sleep quality was much better than the intermittent and restless sleep that occurs with alcohol — and there no hangovers (as long as the variety is noble kava)!
It has been our dream to sell kava in Australia since 2012. Until the law changed, kava could only be legally obtained in Australia for sale or personal use by physical importation i.e. it had to be personally brought in by an adult passenger. So Peter and his associates engaged in multiple shopping trips to obtain kava from Vanuatu, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga and the U.S. (until the borders closed with Covid-19).
In October 2019 the Australian Government announced a pilot program to permit the importation of kava to Australia for sale or personal use. Our planning for the changed rules began with the business registration of ‘Ozkava’ in February 2020. The pilot importation program was due to commence in December 2020 but the date was later changed by the government to 1 December 2021.
Peter has been a member of Kava Forums (and its predecessor) since 2012.
The kava shrub and kava powder
Kava comes from the pepper shrub Piper Methysticum. The age of the kava plant is important to kava consumers. Immature plants are quick to grow but low in the psycho-active ingredient of kava, which are the kavalactones. The kavalactones are concentrated in the rootstock and roots and in traditional usage the kava was extracted from the roots mostly by chewing or grinding the roots. A beverage was made by infusing the kava in cool water.
If kava is required for export, the basal and lateral roots of the kava shrub are peeled, washed, dried and ground to produce kava powder, typically medium grind.
Ozkava only sources kava from mature shrubs. How do you know if you buy kava that it has come from immature shrubs? If your kava makes a weak brew then an immature shrub is the most likely explanation. More serious explanations are the kava was processed by using aerial parts of the shrub (a potentially dangerous practice) or worse, the kava has been contaminated with fillers such as flour, rice husks, sawdust or even cement powder. Fortunately such contamination is now rare and cannot occur with our kavas for the reasons explained here.
Kava contains no alcohol nor is it distilled or fermented.
