Kava Tea Ceremony

This plant takes a social role similar to alcohol but can be intricate and formal similar to the Japanese tea ceremony.

Kava tea ceremony. Kava kava is a traditional herb native to the Pacific Islands where it has been used as a social and ceremonial drink and for its healthful properties. Kava party Internet Archive Book Images WikiCommons The kava tea was usually poured or sprayed onto a shrine and the remainder would be drunk by a kahuna or leader of the ceremony. These arguments trace the similarities of ceremonial and ritualistic procedures in each culture.

Kava Kava is also deeply imbedded in the culture. A 15 gram dose of kava would need about 300 mL of water. However in time kava was used for far more than formal ceremonies.

Piper methysticums history of use spans at least three thousand years. Due to the lack of written records in the Pacific Islands historians have postulated that this ceremony may have originated somewhere on the Asian sub-continent perhaps even with the Chinese tea ceremony. Kava was traditionally used as a beverage in important ceremonies and to greet visitors as well as for various health purposes.

In Tonga the installment of the king or a Noble title is not complete until a kava ceremony is conducted. Both kava and tea are grown on the island of Hawaii. Now that happiness is becoming increasingly widespread with the advent of kava throughout the US.

In Fiji a kava ceremony is a ritual in every village you will enter as well as a key feature on your Fiji resort things to do list. There is much emphasis on ceremony and community with a specific way of sitting pouring the tea and drinking it. Kava-kava is used in rituals for shamanistic practice celebration and welcoming a visitor in hospitality or served in kava bars for recreation or medicine to relieve stress anxiety and restless sleep.

I remember too at one of the International Kava Conferences that the Hawaii Awa Council helped to put on there was a kava ceremony that was done there at the beginning of the conference I guess that since I was the President of the Awa Council that I got the first shell it was a lot of. As the drink made its way down the hierarchical structure Hawaiian awa was used to calm the body and mind to kill pain to clean wounds and skin infections to. Throughout the region kava drinking has been part of prestigious ceremonial occasions since ancient times.