Preparing Epi Kava

This is how we make kava on Epi. Different islands have different styles, but this one is ours.

First, clean and cut up you kava root. You need to be diligent about scraping all of the dirt off and then rinsing the roots a few times. As in most things, a bushknife is your best friend.

All around Epi you will find these home made kava rammers called ton-tons. It's a short length of PVC pipe, usually left over from some sanitation project, attached to a wooden base. After putting the diced kava root into the ton-ton, Simon is pouding the kava root with a metal pipe and mashing it.

After ramming the kava, the mash is poured into a bowl. You'll have to tap the ton-ton to make it all come out. A lot of villagers seem to have the big round bowls you see here. When old floating buoys come to shore, the villagers collect them and saw them in half.

The mashed root is still dry...

...so a few shells of water are added.

Just like coconut shavings, you need to work the kava a bit with the water and squeeze it a lot. Eventually, squeeze all of the juice and water out of the kava root into the bowl and set the root aside. This might happen a few times to get it the right consistency and strength.

The kava is then strained. I've seen a lot of people use a black women's skirt like this one. After the kava is strained, the skirt will be rinsed out and the kava may be strained a second or even third time. Unfortunately, there will still be a little grit in the stuff when it's served, but no one drinks kava for the flavor or the texture anyway.

Here we are sifting kava again.

Simon is squeezing out the last of the kava from the skirt sifter. He's gone through a lot of work just to make the stuff less disgusting.

Drink that stuff in a hurry, because it's nasty. Kava drinking doesn't have much ceremony on Vanuatu, unlike Fiji and a few other places. The shelter we were under was short so I'm sitting, but it's common for people to drink while standing after having walked a few paces away into the shadows and to drink their kava very quickly in private. After a few minutes of spitting, grunting, and maybe some swishing of water, they'll return, give back the shell and sit down.

My friends here, however, were eager to demonstrate every step of the process for the folks back in America so they asked me to come take a shot of them drinking a shell.

So, come to Epi, drink, storion, kakai, and be welcome.

-- Daniel --