Q&A with Michael Louze, Kava Expert and Wholesaler

Tell us about yourself and your first encounter with kava.

My name is Michael Louze. I was born in Paris and moved to Vanuatu as a kid, following my parents shortly after the country's independence in 1980. My father was a teacher supervisor, training the newly recruited teachers of the newly-born country.

As a kid, with my brothers, we would now and then follow my father to official functions, where kava was often served. When we were indeed too young to be allowed to drink, we used to stay quietly outside in the dark, watching the drinkers' facial expressions, the mimics, the spitting, the shouting, with keen interest.

Kava consumption had been frowned upon by many churches during the condominium period, and the renewal was just starting; kava was becoming the national drink, and its consumption in town was supported by the Government, which was encouraging farmers on regular radio programs to plant more and more kava to sell to Port-Vila. But at that time, only a few kava bars were operating in Port-Vila, only a couple in some popular neighborhoods in Anabrou and Nambatri, started by some entrepreneurs from Pentecost and Ambae.

When did you try it for the first time? 

Kava bars were not as numerous as today, and kava was not yet as popular; many churches opposed it, and many preconceived ideas were circulating.

I first tasted it during a trip to the Maskelynes Islands. My younger brother Olivier, who now resides in French Polynesia, where he is quite a well-known artist, and I had two shells of kava in a small Nakamal. I remember the taste was very bitter and strong, numbing our mouths almost immediately. I cannot recall more details about how I felt after those first shells; I remember this kava had the sweetness of the forbidden fruit of adulthood. We were probably 13 or 14 years old, and we had drunk kava; what a day! Saying that, my father was not impressed at that time, and saying he wasn't happy would be an euphemism!

How did you become interested in kava?

I left Vanuatu in 1993 and studied in Paris for four years. But big city life and cold winters were not my cup of tea. I dearly missed Vanuatu, the outdoor life, and our general freedom in the islands. I didn't finish my Uni Diploma and decided to attend Agriculture School in Guadeloupe. It was my second time in the West Indies, as I had gone there on holiday a couple of years earlier, and I felt at home there, too. This was where our family originated on my father's side. Those Caribbean Islands may have a very different history than our Pacific Islands. Still, they are very similar regarding agriculture and economic challenges, and it was very interesting to compare.

Plane tickets were expensive then, way more costly than today. It was more challenging to travel than it is now. Still, I managed to get sponsors for my brother and myself to travel back to Vanuatu and make a photo documentary during one of the summer holidays. We went to Ambrym Island, then hiked across Santo, fishing and hunting along the way and sleeping in the bush; we had a great time! It was during this holiday that we both had probably our first real kava sessions, drinking kava in the villages, quietly sitting by the warmth of a fire, shadowed by the big banian trees, stars shining in the sky above us, chatting quietly with everyone, away from the world’s craziness, listening to the kava talking to us.

We were in the late 90s', it was the kava boom in the Pacific islands and Vanuatu. Kava was exported in container loads to Germany, France, and America; it was wild! For the first time, the farmers had a crop giving them a decent sort of money, much more rewarding than the colonial crops of the past like copra and cocoa. Several of my friends' families were involved in the kava business, farming, and exporting; kava was big news! 

And, of course, I was returning a good stock of kava powder to the West Indies. Rum was cheap and good there, and we were partying hard, but the kava sessions I organized were always a welcomed, peaceful break that all my friends appreciated.

In those years, we had no mobile phones or laptops, but it was the beginning of the Internet, and suddenly, we had access to so much information from a computer at school! I spent hours in the school library, looking at reports, reading the narrative and the information on kava shared on their websites by many new American companies promoting its virtues and talking about its active components. It was new to me, and I compiled all the information available on kava, organizing them in a report that I ultimately submitted as part of my diploma course. I was planning to become a kava farmer and exporter, selling kava to the surfers of the world, haha.

Because of my university background in Chemistry, one day, pretending to be smart, I took over the school lab, pretending to know precisely what I was doing: diluting kava powder overnight in ethanol, sieving it the next day, placing the ethanol now full of the soluble lactone in a glass janitor, and evaporated the alcohol slowly, and I obtained a yellow, dark resin of lactone extract. The next day, my partner in crime told me how impressed he had been with the strength of it!

I returned to Vanuatu again in 1998 as part of my school curriculum, working at the Agriculture Research Center in Santo. We were young and partying almost every day, and transiting in Vila, I had a car accident, trying at 2 a.m. to outrace some cattle running on the side of the dirt road by pressing the speed instead of slowing down. All was okay until one of them decided to cross the road. No one got hurt, but I was happy to leave the big city lights the next day to go to Santo, where life was much quieter. As we celebrate independence, those summer months of July and August are very festive in Vanuatu, and Luganville seafront - Unity Park - was covered with dozens of tiny booths serving kava every afternoon until late, which we supported actively. During this summer, I met Vincent Lebot for the first time and read his latest publications.

So after you finished your diploma, you returned to Vanuatu and started working on kava?

No! When I got my Diploma, my teachers and parents pushed me to continue school, but I wanted to work, so I returned to Vanuatu and worked with the VARTC Research Center. I was based in Tanna Island first, working with the coffee cooperatives. Tanna is a great island, vibrant with traditions, a great place to work and to drink kava! Kava is sacred in Tanna; its consumption has always continued. The missionaries and the colonial power had tried to stop it but to no avail. Today, it is the last place I know where kava is still chewed daily the way it was prepared 200 years ago in most of the Pacific kava-producing islands. 

I was not involved directly with kava, only with coffee, but my interest was still there, as most farmers I was working with were also growing numerous kava plants. Vincent was starting to establish a kava collection at the Research Center in Santo, and when he came down to Tanna, as I had a vehicle, I drove him around. We went collecting kava cultivars in a couple of villages in the Middle-Bush. He was accompanied by a student, Patricia Simeoni, who later became his wife and would write 15 years after the most comprehensive book published on kava, "Buveurs de Kava." One year later, I did a similar kava collection on Malekula island for the Research Station.

So, how did you first become involved in the kava industry in Vanuatu?

After working on another island, namely Malekula, the second largest island of the archipelago, with some cocoa cooperatives, helping them to produce top quality organic certified cocoa and export it to France, I decided to move to the private sector; I wanted my work to be more impactful. 

I became assistant manager at PRV plantation. It was still the kava boom, and we were establishing some big kava plantations on Fanafo, probably the biggest in the world at that time, trying to get the best density, shade, and cover crop, trying to put the best of the traditional knowledge with commercial requirements. Those plantations were established in partnership with a big German pharmaceutical group, Schwabe. As the farm struggled with all the old colonial crops (cocoa, copra, etc.), we considered kava the commodity that would financially save the company. But things went differently than planned. The future looked bright on paper; we were doing our first harvest and exports, filling containers, when suddenly the German Authorities banned kava. It was over. We could now only export kava on tiny regional markets, and the price collapsed. Without kava, I could not see any future in this job, and I resigned.

After wandering around, I started to work with a big Santo cattle farmer and cocoa exporter, Peter Colmar. He had been involved in kava export previously and had stopped, and when I started to work for him, we decided to give it another go. There was only one buyer in Santo then, Ahman Leong, and the prices paid to the farmers were low, less than $2 per kg! The price slowly rose as regional markets picked up, and our kava was sent mainly to Fiji and New Caledonia. 

In 2010, we moved from Santo to Port-Vila, as my kids were getting big and entering college, and I started "South Seas Commodities, "which has been operating for 13 years.

What changes have you witnessed in Vanuatu because of the kava industry over the years? 

Of course! As I mentioned earlier, in the 1980s, only a few kava bars existed in Port Vila. Similarly, there were zero kava exports. Forty-three years later, kava is driving the economy of Vanuatu. The latest statistics report showed that kava exports represented 75% of the total exports in the first quarter of 2023. Adding the export and domestic trade, you will find out that kava is the commodity or the activity generating and circulating more money than any other one, much more than tourism or cattle. Most of the income goes directly to the grassroots farmers in the rural areas. Many islands have developed because of the kava trade; farmers have a crop empowering them for the first time, unlike the pre-independence colonial crops with low and highly fluctuating value. 

Farmers purchase boats, vehicles, water tanks, and solar systems, build cement houses, and pay their kids' school fees. Anyone traveling to Pentecost Island 30 years ago and traveling again today will realize the changes; this is only the beginning! The second kava boom, which is happening now, by showing everyone the success of the kava farmers, contributes to helping to curb urban drift and to keep our youth in the rural areas. Most of our youth on the island will become farmers, and it is great when everyone can see that because of kava, farming is a great career path! 

Are there any significant shifts in production or trade that stand out to you?

I can think of 3 examples: 

1) Prices

Prices paid to the farmers in twenty years have multiplied by 10. There is no commodity on a big scale that is more rewarding for our farmers. It is true that a couple of years ago, it was even higher, but this was because of the shortage increased by a few cyclones and drought.  

2) Powder

Powder was often, in the past, a way for the processors to sell all their second-grade products, so of course, the customers didn't like it, and the powder was never popular before, and big players were not interested in it. Forney Enterprise was the first one in Vanuatu to produce a high-quality powder on a big scale for the export market. It was more expensive, but the quality was there, and it was successful because of this and the fact that it was also easier for consumers to prepare than to work with the chips and the roots. 

3) Exporters

The level of professionalism of our exporters has increased a lot. Anyone who visited export facilities 15 years ago and re-visited them today will be highly surprised by the improvements. Biosecurity has imposed over the years regulations that have weeded out the fly-by-night operators just in the industry for quick profit and money. It must continue this way, as it is pushing our quality up all the time, and this is the sort of change differentiating us from the other producing countries.

How have the agricultural practices evolved over time? Could you share some unique or traditional kava cultivation and preparation methods prevalent in Vanuatu?

From subsistence farmers with a few kava plants for their consumption, many have become dedicated entrepreneurs and commercial farmers. And, of course, it comes with challenges and issues. It would take a full chapter to discuss all of this!

Food security is one of the challenges, as some farmers would only grow kava and purchase food and rice from the shop with kava money.

Education is another challenge, as education has always been associated with work in cities, offices, and governments. Still, suddenly, farmers are realizing they can make much more money staying on the island and farming kava, so why pay their kids' school fees? And the kids are also seeing this. Vanuatu needs to change the education curriculum to adapt to this situation.

Land availability can also be an issue in certain islands.

The planting methods are changing. Commercial plots often have a higher density of plants, are sometimes monocropping, are in full sun, hilling of the plants is no longer done, weeding is less regular, and in general, kava plants are less looked after as they are in a pure traditional setting because of the numbers and the fact that they are often farther away from the village. This can lead to issues, spreading diseases like die-back, the prevalence of nematodes, etc. Kava is a very sensible plant that needs much attention to thrive. 

It seems like the best kava varieties are the most sensible and the least resilient, and therefore not the best from a commercial farming point of view, and some of those varieties are less and less grown, only kept for the farmers' consumption and planted close to his home.

Vanuatu is known for its diverse kava cultivars. Do you have a favorite kava variety? What sets it apart in terms of taste, effects, or cultural significance?

Most of the time here in Vanuatu, where kava is consumed from the "green" kava and not from dry or powdered kava, the freshness and the way it is prepared is far more important than the cultivar itself. If it is a good, noble kava that was just harvested and stone ground, it will likely be a great kava! This is why kava is always much better on the islands than in the kava bars.

If I had to choose the cultivars I would drink in Vila, I often would go for Kelai, a cultivar from Epi. Why? Because it makes me sleep like a baby after! But this is very personal, as everyone is looking for something different when drinking kava.

In your experience, what role does kava play in Vanuatu's cultural and social life? How has this role evolved or remained consistent?

I regularly hear the narrative that kava is getting abused, has lost its cultural signification, and should not be consumed the way we are today. The fact is that kava is still consumed traditionally on our islands, still shared during custom ceremonies, and the "modern" drinking is not impacting the tradition. Tradition evolves as the world is changing, and it is not necessarily bad!

A few decades ago, kava was still not widely socially accepted, but today, there are no traditional events, cocktails, or meetings without kava. Of course, beer and wine will also be served, but kava will always be there; it is Vanuatu's national drink! And many people will go solely for kava, showing it is possible to have some much healthier alternative to alcohol and sugary beverages at such events.

Because of its appearance, its very distinctive taste, and the fact that it was the "native's beverage," kava is still facing challenges to be socially in some of our markets and amongst certain people. Still, things are slowly changing as more and more people realize the health issues and the impact and damage on our society of alcohol consumption.

Today, in Port-Vila, many people drink kava daily for a couple of hours to unwind after a long working day. Of course, this is not traditional; we consume it in a cup instead of a shell. Kava is prepared in buckets and sold, but it has become the norm for most citizens. Sometimes, we should not only think about the bad sides - as there are bad sides in everything that gets commercialized - but simply about the good sides and about what would be the alternative if this product was not there.

What challenges or issues have the kava industry in Vanuatu faced? How have these challenges been addressed, and what's your perspective on the industry's resilience?

Challenges are numerous: Cyclones are impacting us. Kava is still banned in many countries. Production is spread over many islands, with poor road infrastructure and no wharves, so logistics is challenging. As for any commodity, kava prices fluctuate with the law of offer and demand, and it is not easy for everyone to understand it. Kava is produced mostly by small semi-subsistence farmers in remote rural areas without running water, poor infrastructure, etc. As we export to bigger markets, requirements for quality and packaging get stricter, and of course, it is challenging to address the issues arising. We are also shifting from basic artisanal small-scale processing units to state-of-the-art bigger operations, which have challenges, too.

Since 2013, we have had a Kava Industry Association, VKIA, where all the industry stakeholders, both from the Private sector and Government, sit around the table and discuss those challenges and what should be done to address them.

What advice would you give to individuals, both within Vanuatu and globally, who are interested in entering the kava industry, whether as growers, processors, or exporters?

If you do it solely for the money, you will fail. You need to have passion, and you need to understand the full value chain. With kava, you learn new things every single day.

Can you share any memorable or heartwarming stories from your time in the kava industry?

I have been traveling the islands for kava for the last 20 years, so the stories are too numerous: cyclone destructions, new roads, boat trips, success stories of kava farmers from Big Bay and South Santo buying properties in town, kava is everywhere, all the time.

Have you observed any shifts in consumer preferences or demands for kava, either domestically or internationally? How has the industry adapted to these changes?

The industry, like any industry, is constantly adapting. I will talk about the latest issue: In the past, most of the chips were being sent to New Caledonia, where people enjoyed their less bitter, more mellow taste, and the roots were sent to the USA, with Fiji importing a blend. This year, there has been an increase in the demand for extracts on the US market, triggering an increase in demand for roots by the buyers /extractors. So the need for roots has increased much faster than the demand for chips, which are 75% of the kava! Of course, it is creating an imbalanced situation, and we are now trying to find solutions.

The kava industry is one of the best-regulated sectors in Vanuatu, with its Laws, Strategy, Export Quality Standards, Testing Standards, Growing Guide, etc. The Government had set up these systems in consultation with the private sector, and we are happy to follow them, as we know that they benefit the industry and all the stakeholders. Of course, there are issues, but as long as everyone cooperates and works hand-in-hand, we should be able to overcome those challenges. Given the importance of the kava in our economy, it is a must!

Are you drinking kava every day? 

Yes, I am; I stop by my favorite kava bar every day after work and have 2 or 3 shells with some friends, relaxing and discussing the day's events before heading home.

Kava has also been a great alternative in big social events where alcohol is generally consumed. There is no such thing as peer pressure and people forcing you to drink alcohol in such circumstances because people respect your choice of drinking kava.

Do you have any resources that you'd recommend to those looking to immerse themselves in the kava culture?

I invite every kava lover to learn French and purchase Patricia Simeoni and Vincent Lebot's coffee table book "Buveur de Kava," the most comprehensive publication on kava so far (and by far). But suppose kava has contributed or helped someone. In that case, they should come over to Vanuatu and enjoy the laid-back ambiance of the kava bars in Vila and Luganville or the holiness of the kava consumption in nakamals in Tanna, Pentecost, or Maewo. Kava is here to stay; this is only the beginning of the kava revolution!