Our quality
Where the kava comes from, how it is made, and the certificate for your batch.
The source
Kava from The Kava Society
Our kava comes from The Kava Society, widely recognised in New Zealand and beyond as the supplier of the highest-quality kava on the market. It started in 2011 as a kava appreciation society at the University of Auckland. Its founders sampled hundreds of kavas across the Pacific and found no New Zealand supplier that could give them the quality or the range they wanted. By 2013 they were travelling to the islands themselves, building relationships with skilled growers and processors, and sourcing everything directly from where it was grown. Every batch has been tested and analysed since.
With their Vanuatu partner, Root and Pestle, they pioneered the export of verified, pure single-cultivar kava. Growers in Vanuatu have always known which cultivar they were growing and which they preferred. Export kava was another matter: blends, or cultivars sold under the wrong name. The Kava Society and Root and Pestle changed that. Every bag holds one named cultivar, identified in the field, confirmed again at the factory, and checked by UHPLC chemotype before release. The certificate is published for every batch. No other kava supplier in New Zealand does this.
They also developed their own green processing. Freshly harvested root goes from garden to sealed bag within days, often hours, using methods refined over years to keep the aroma and character of the fresh plant. Most export kava is village-dried before it reaches a processor; theirs never is.
Kava Europe is The Kava Society’s exclusive distributor for Europe. Everything we ship is grown organically, as Vanuatu law requires, from noble cultivars, the only kind Vanuatu allows for export. In the EU it is sold as a natural textile dye and a botanical home fragrance.
What that means
Fresh root processing
Harvested to order from mature plants four years and older. Washed in purified water, then dried under controlled temperature in a HACCP-certified facility, never in the sun.
Tested and traceable
Cultivar identified in the field and confirmed at the factory. Every batch UHPLC-tested and traceable to a named cultivar and growing region.
One ingredient
Noble kava root and nothing else. No fillers, no additives, no extracts.
Sealed in Vanuatu
Weighed on calibrated balances, purged with nitrogen and vacuum sealed, with batch and production date on the label, before it leaves Vanuatu.
Every batch
Certificates of Analysis
It is common now for kava vendors to say their kava is tested, certified and noble, and to sell it under cultivar names. Those are the words buyers look for, so everyone uses them.
Try to verify them and the trail usually ends. Credible test results covering the batch actually on sale are hard to find. Evidence of a process that can confirm a cultivar is harder still, and so is any sign of a facility working to a recognised safety standard.
This is where our kava is different. Every Kava Society batch is numbered and tested on its own, and the certificate is published. The chemotype on it confirms the cultivar, and the microbiological results sit alongside it. The facility itself is HACCP certified.
The chemotype is the root’s chemical fingerprint. The root contains a family of compounds called kavalactones, and their relative proportions vary between cultivars and between batches. The chemotype is a six-digit code recording the relative abundance of the six major ones: desmethoxyyangonin, dihydrokavain, yangonin, kavain, dihydromethysticin and methysticin, in that order. A Bir Kar Instant certificate, for example, records a chemotype of 423156 with major kavalactones at around 7.81 percent of dry mass.
The database covers batches from March 2024 onward. We keep it as complete as we can, so please forgive any gaps. If a result is missing, contact us and we can usually send the raw data.
Find your Certificate of Analysis (COA)
Select your cultivar and type, then enter the date printed on your package, to open its Certificate of Analysis.
You will find this date printed on the base of the package.
Ready to order
Shipped from within the EU
Dispatched from Poland within two working days. No customs procedures or import charges inside the EU customs union.
