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Written by Kava Economist
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Sunday, 03 August 2008 |
KAVA & THE "ALMIGHTY" U.S. DOLLAR
Well, it's time for a quick lecture on kava economics peeps. I had to pay for a shipment of kava last week coming from the Republic of Vanuatu and I got a great surprise. As you can all imagine, U.S. dollars are not used in Vanuatu for currency and we do not pay for kava in U.S. dollars either. I know it is hard to fathom this but if you ever travel to Vanuatu you cannot spend a U.S. dollar anywhere, no one will take them. You have to first transfer your money into Vatu, the local currency in Vanuatu. Now the Vatu is not the strongest currency in the world either but the value of the U.S. dollar has remained pretty solid since 2000 when we started buying kava. I remember that the value of the U.S. Dollar was 115 Vatu to one on my trip there in 2004. By the time I had returned again in 2006 the value had dropped down to 108 to one. When I wired money there last week I was informed that my money transferred at 92 Vatu to one U.S. dollar. In short, this is causing the price of the kava to rise because we are losing money in the transfer of the currencies. The price of the kava remains high, but unchanged in Vanuatu as of this time. We will have to raise the price of the Vanuatu kava (and the PNG and Tongan as well because the same thing is happening in those places) to compensate for this drop in the U.S. dollar. Hopefully the economic situation in the U.S. will improve soon and the dollar value will go back up again and we will lower the price of Vanuatu kava accordingly at that time. |
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Written by Kava Blogger
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
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Nakava wins Award in Boca Magazine
July 19, 2008
 Well, we got a good surprise in the mail today. Boca Magazine has given us an award in their yearly Best of Boca & Beyond competition. The kava bar has won the award for being the Best Place to Drink to Your Health in Boca Raton, Florida. We didn't even know we were in the running but we will take the award just the same. We have had several customers show up to drink kava from this article so we are happy that we were chosen.
It's proof that the word about kava is slowly spreading in the U.S. after almost 7 years of working hard to make it happen. Any of you that live in Boca or have been to Boca know that this a very special town and thinking that Boca people would drink kava was totally unfathomable to almost everyone. If we can get the Boca people to drink kava anyone, anywhere, at any time should be able to get people to drink kava.
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Written by Kava Blogger
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Sunday, 13 July 2008 |
Nakamal At Home Dot Com's First Blog
Well, it's July 13, 2008 and we are finally publishing a kava blog. We drink a lot of kava around here and sometimes our ambitions outweigh our motivation.Well, they always do, who am I kidding?
We have just received a beautiful shipment of kava from Papua New Guinea. This kava was prepared for the Fijian market and came to us a little differently than we are used to. The lateral roots came to us in a rope like fashion that we have never seen before. This kava is a little lighter than what we normally get from PNG because the kava was peeled and soaked overnight which means less bark and a lighter kava beverage in the end. You will notice that the taste is a little less pungent than our normal PNG kava. The potency of this batch is on par with what we have been importing for years and we are sure our customers will like it. The customers at the kava bar have enjoyed it.
 This is a photo of the kava from PNG being prepared for export to us. This is about 100 kilograms of lateral roots from the Madang region which is famous for its kava.
Stay tuned for more kava blogs from Nakamal At Home dot com. |
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