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Kava leaves for tea?
hkobayashi	I know stems have been used in the past, but recently I came across with this one: http://www.cieloherbals.com/cgi-bin/edc2/CEBstore.pl?user_action=detail&catalogno=KAVA "100% Organic Kava Tea Leaves and Root Chips This organic kava plant material is used to make strong kava tea. Use between 5 and 10 grams per cup of tea and steep to taste. The root chips assure you a powerful drink while the leaves mellow and flavor the brew. For true kava lovers!" I have done phytochemical analysis of kava tissues, and saturated forms of kavapyrones (kavalactones) such as dehydromethysticin and dehydrokavain accumulate in leaves (stem, too). I understand those compounds may be more potent than unsaturated their counter part. Has anybody tried this? Is this something bogus? Hideka
yee	Aloha Hideka, As I understand it, the use of kava leaves as tea is not regular and not common in traditional beverage preparations. In addition, caution is advised as one of our Hawai'i researchers has identified the presence of alkaloids in these upper plant parts. That said, earlier I had tried the leaves as a tea, and anecdotal evidence suggests that the Isa variety (PNG) of kava is most effective. In my opinion, the kava leaf tea is very smooth, not acrid to taste, and as your analysis has also identified, prevalent in DHK & DHM. Kava growers would love to market their leaves and stems as these are a massive by-product of plant harvest. The main stalks are used for propagation as desired. However, until we learn about this uncommon use of kava, we cannot advocate use of its leaf as tea. It appears your interests are similar to some of our University of Hawai'i researchers at the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Biosystems Engineering. If you're interested I could forward your name & this post to a respective graduate student. That way perhaps both of you could avoid redundancy or complement each other's research. And if both of you or others feel it's sensible we could open up a board on kava pharmacology, etc. At any rate, we're very pleased you can remain a part of this Hawaiian Kava Forum as it builds a body of knowledge of kava for the benefit of many... So don't go and leave us. [:)] mahalo, Jonathan quote: Originally posted by hkobayashi I know stems have been used in the past, but recently I came across with this one: http://www.cieloherbals.com/cgi-bin/edc2/CEBstore.pl?user_action=detail&catalogno=KAVA "100% Organic Kava Tea Leaves and Root Chips This organic kava plant material is used to make strong kava tea. Use between 5 and 10 grams per cup of tea and steep to taste. The root chips assure you a powerful drink while the leaves mellow and flavor the brew. For true kava lovers!" I have done phytochemical analysis of kava tissues, and saturated forms of kavapyrones (kavalactones) such as dehydromethysticin and dehydrokavain accumulate in leaves (stem, too). I understand those compounds may be more potent than unsaturated their counter part. Has anybody tried this? Is this something bogus? Hideka
hkobayashi	Jonathan, Thank you very much for your response. I think I mentioned this in one of my previous messages, and I am working on tissue culture and phytochemistry of kava. I am getting close to finish my Ph.D work on kava, so I am not looking for another degree at this point [:D] I contacted Skip some time ago, but I didn't hear back from people he mentioned. Hideka
Ed Johnston	Reply, from Ed Johnston I have made tea from the leaves of 'awa plants. Yes, it is certainly sedative and not so psychoactive. Personally, I do not recommend it because, in the past, studies have shown an alkaloid present in the leaf. Plus, this practice is not an often mentioned traditional practice in old Hawai'i (as is the use of root and stump), there IS some oral histories relating to Hawaiian mothers using crushed leaf to "calm an upset infant". quote: Originally posted by yee Aloha Hideka, As I understand it, the use of kava leaves as tea is not regular and not common in traditional beverage preparations. In addition, caution is advised as one of our Hawai'i researchers has identified the presence of alkaloids in these upper plant parts. That said, earlier I had tried the leaves as a tea, and anecdotal evidence suggests that the Isa variety (PNG) of kava is most effective. In my opinion, the kava leaf tea is very smooth, not acrid to taste, and as your analysis has also identified, prevalent in DHK & DHM. Kava growers would love to market their leaves and stems as these are a massive by-product of plant harvest. The main stalks are used for propagation as desired. However, until we learn about this uncommon use of kava, we cannot advocate use of its leaf as tea. It appears your interests are similar to some of our University of Hawai'i researchers at the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Biosystems Engineering. If you're interested I could forward your name & this post to a respective graduate student. That way perhaps both of you could avoid redundancy or complement each other's research. And if both of you or others feel it's sensible we could open up a board on kava pharmacology, etc. At any rate, we're very pleased you can remain a part of this Hawaiian Kava Forum as it builds a body of knowledge of kava for the benefit of many... So don't go and leave us. [:)] mahalo, Jonathan quote: Originally posted by hkobayashi I know stems have been used in the past, but recently I came across with this one: http://www.cieloherbals.com/cgi-bin/edc2/CEBstore.pl?user_action=detail&catalogno=KAVA "100% Organic Kava Tea Leaves and Root Chips This organic kava plant material is used to make strong kava tea. Use between 5 and 10 grams per cup of tea and steep to taste. The root chips assure you a powerful drink while the leaves mellow and flavor the brew. For true kava lovers!" I have done phytochemical analysis of kava tissues, and saturated forms of kavapyrones (kavalactones) such as dehydromethysticin and dehydrokavain accumulate in leaves (stem, too). I understand those compounds may be more potent than unsaturated their counter part. Has anybody tried this? Is this something bogus? Hideka
hkobayashi	quote: Originally posted by Ed Johnston Reply, from Ed Johnston I have made tea from the leaves of 'awa plants. Yes, it is certainly sedative and not so psychoactive. Personally, I do not recommend it because, in the past, studies have shown an alkaloid present in the leaf. Plus, this practice is not an often mentioned traditional practice in old Hawai'i (as is the use of root and stump), there IS some oral histories relating to Hawaiian mothers using crushed leaf to "calm an upset infant" I have read kava has been used as an abortifacient and leaves have been used for treatment of venereal disease(s). Since there are so many kinds of alkaloids, the precense of alkaloid in leaves shouldn't be much more than a caution unless we know it for sure. There are many beneficial alkaloid we consume in food. For example, capsaicin is an alkaloid, but that's what makes pepper hot.
hcbitt	quote: Originally posted by hkobayashi quote: Originally posted by Ed Johnston Reply, from Ed Johnston I have made tea from the leaves of 'awa plants. Yes, it is certainly sedative and not so psychoactive. Personally, I do not recommend it because, in the past, studies have shown an alkaloid present in the leaf. Plus, this practice is not an often mentioned traditional practice in old Hawai'i (as is the use of root and stump), there IS some oral histories relating to Hawaiian mothers using crushed leaf to "calm an upset infant" I have read kava has been used as an abortifacient and leaves have been used for treatment of venereal disease(s). Since there are so many kinds of alkaloids, the precense of alkaloid in leaves shouldn't be much more than a caution unless we know it for sure. There are many beneficial alkaloid we consume in food. For example, capsaicin is an alkaloid, but that's what makes pepper hot. Aloha H Kobayashi, Regarding the leaf tea and stem peelings the alkaloid pipermethystine is present in leaves and stem peelings of most varieties tested. Preliminary data suggests that this alkaloid is toxic. I would not consume leaf or peelings in any form. HC 'Skip' Bittenbender H.C "Skip" Bittenbender
hkobayashi	I found Rudolf Hansel's article at European Journal of Herbal Medicine webpage (http://www.nimh.btinternet.co.uk/ejhm/). It says, "The rhizomes (!) and stems of Piper methysticum contain not only the familiar kavapyrone and chalcone pigments, but also dimeric yangoine [sic] derivatives, together with very small amounts of stigmatendione and an oxaporphinal alkaliod (cepharadion A). I don't know the toxicity of cepharadion A, but "rhizomes" contain an alkaloid after all. Since this article was translated from German, it could be a mistake. I found a couple of typos in the citation (e.g., Lobot. V. Lovesqne J.).
hkobayashi	I also found this off net: "Smith (1979) isolated the alkaloid pipermethystine as a major component in the leaves and a minor compound in the stems and roots of the plant (Figure 1). The alkaloid cepharadione A (Figure 1) was isolated in only trace amounts (< 10 ppm) from the kava rhizome (CHUANG, 1979)."