Tongan kava: the drink that crowns kings

Tongan kava is the lighter, more palatable corner of the Pacific, smoother and easier drinking than Vanuatu's deep, spicy and peppery cups (which is to say nothing of the truly face numbing Fijian wakas). Some Tongans argue their kava is heavier, and I must admit I have had some very rooting cups with the men out there and also in the states. But let's call a spade a spade here. In general the main kavas that gets exported from the Kingdom of Tonga is more on the easy going side, and those knockout varietals are not usually cultivated for anyone out of Tonga. You can't really claim something to represent your country unless you share it with the rest of the world to experience and understand that which it represents. As you can see I've had many spirited debates with some large Tongan friends, many of which I am deeply happy the drink of choice that night was around the kava bowl instead of the aggression inducing libation of alcohol.

And that's actually a beautiful thing and one which Tongans should be very proud of. Tongan kava is a truly smooth and refined kava, unique in its own way, and one that I turn to when looking for something I can truly depend on. It's fantastic and totally underated. Tongan kava also sits at the literal center of Tongan kingship as it was (and still is) used to crown the king of its kingdom.

Also Tonga is the country I would recommend you to drink for the room as much as for the cup. In places like Vanuatu where it is all about the cultivar and Fiji where it's all about the ceremony (Tonga is tied here imo), Tonga is about the gathering itself, the faikava, the circle lasting all night around the bowl. Kava is the starting point of the community here, the real thing is the talking, the singing, the stories, the teasing and laughs and the staying up far too late to create unbreakable bonds of love. If you ever get invited to a Tongan kava gathering, GO. But be prepared to be knocking back bowls for hours. The lighter, friendlier character of the kava is a big part of why it works for that. You are settling in for hour after hour, sharing bowl after bowl, and there's no way I would want to go that long with something less balanced than a refined Tongan kava.

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The girl named Kava

Every island's kava has an origin story, and I told the Vanuatu one over in our Vanuatu guide, the buried wife whose grave grew the first plant. Tonga has a "cousin" of that story, which I believe is one of, if not THE most famous kava myth in the whole Pacific.

Legend says, the great king, Tuʻi Tonga, was traveling, when he came to a small island where a poor couple named Fevanga and Fefafa lived. By the law of the land they had to prepare a feast for the king to honor his presence. The problem was they were poor, and had nothing to offer. Their one crop was a single kape plant, a giant taro, and even that had been spoiled because their daughter Kavaʻonau, who suffered from leprosy, had leaned against it and made it inedible. Obviously a plant a leper had touched could not be served to a king.

So they did what any loyal family would have done. They sacrificed their own daughter and prepared her to feed him.

The king understood what they had done the moment it was set before him and he of course refused the meal. Choosing instead to have her buried with respect and dignity. Out of her grave two plants rose. From her head grew a kava plant, bitter and mysterious yet beautiful. From her feet grew sugarcane, sweet and nutritious. Over time the people eventually caught a rat nibbling the kava root and growing unsteady, then chew the sugarcane to recover. To this day Tongans still chew sugarcane to chase the bitterness of kava.

Although it's a very dark story, it really is archetypal in nature and should be read more for its psychological significance. You see parallels of things like this as well in religious structures such as the biblical stories. Here is a child sacrificed out of duty to the crown, which is akin to the true test of the "still small voice" of God calling to Abraham for the sacrifice of his first borne. A king refusing the sacrifice and honoring her instead, much like the angel appearing to tell Abraham to honor and not kill his son for he had passed the test. There seems to be this necessity of suffering of sacrifice, to be staying on the path of righteousness. The sacrificial action or intent of it used to prove worthiness of the divine individual. The story is deeply symbolic.

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The kava that makes a king

The highest, most sacred ceremony in all of Tongan life is the Taumafa Kava, which means quite beautifully, "to eat kava." It is the ritual performed during the installation of the sovereign king, to make a man the "Tuʻi Kanokupolu", the reigning king of the Kingdom of Tonga.

It's a powerful ceremony and even the seating is something to think about. The positions of each member is a map of the entire Tongan society, every chief placed according to rank and to historical events that fixed those places centuries ago, and the whole intricate protocol is run by the king's own clan, the "Haʻa Ngata." You do not become the king of Tonga and then have a kava. The kava ceremony is HOW you become the king.

Tonga is the only nation in the entire Pacific that was never formally colonized. Fiji was ceded to Britain, Vanuatu was carved up between Britain and France, Hawaiʻi was annexed against their will to the United States. Tonga held onto its own crown the whole way through, and it is still a kingdom today with a living monarch. And it also held onto the kava ceremony that crowns that monarch. I do not think those two facts are unrelated.

There is a Tongan idea called "pukepuke fonua", which means something like to hold tightly onto the land, to grip your own culture, to refuse to let it be pried out of your hands. Or as a more nationalistic friend says, "Our land, our ways, and our people." So it makes sense in a way that by holding onto the kava, they held onto the crown, and by holding onto the crown, they held onto the country, and that can be re-organized in any way because it's all related. What I'm basically saying is this ancient ceremonial drink is just as much a part of Tongan traditional and modern identity as the idea of their entire governmental structure.

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What Tongan kava is like

Tongan kava is typically lighter and more palatable than Vanuatu's, which is deeper and more peppery. If you have only ever had a heavy Vanuatu cup and found it a bit too much, a good Tongan kava can feel like a blessing. This lighter character is exactly why it works so well for the faikava or Tongan social gatherings, where you are settling in for hours and sharing bowl after bowl. A cup that is smooth and sociable lets the night festivities and connections roll on instead of one that would be heavy and sedating. (Although there were a couple times a few of us were splayed on the couches after the second batch. I had photos of the mosquito bites to prove it)

Tonga's kava grows across its island groups, from Tongatapu in the south up through Haʻapai and Vavaʻu, and like everywhere in the kava world, not all of it is noble. Tudei, the rough two-day kava, exists in the region too, which I swear is the heavy ones the boys would batch up from time to time although they never admitted it. For Tongan kava, just make sure to find noble kava from people who know their sourcing.

Again! I am not a medically trained physician and I am not making health claims, I am just describing culture and how the cup tends to feel. None of what I say here is representative of drinkroot or the team, and none of it should be used for medical advice. These are all just my opinions.

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Is Tongan kava heady or heavy?

It leans light and sociable. Tongan kava generally lives toward the smoother, brighter, more drinkable end rather than the deep, stuck in the couch end, which is what makes it such a good fit for long social sessions and for people who found heavier kavas a bit much on the first try. This is all assuming you've had a Noble Tongan kava.

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Where to start

We have an great Tongan kava supplier but only do shipments a couple times a year so if we're out of stock we do apologize. You can find our Tongan blend here Malohi Traditional Grind. But if that lighter, smoother, sociable feeling is what calls to you and our Malohi is out of stock, our Raw Epicure is the closest match we make, smooth and euphoric-like and easy to keep drinking through a good evening, and Lumina is right there with it on the creamy, gentle side, more bright than a classic Tongan but still great. If you are brand new and want to find where you sit on the wider map, the Variety Pack lets you taste across the range without committing to a full jar. And it helps to read the Fijian and Vanuatu guides too, since Tonga makes the most sense as the lighter end of that same spectrum. New to all of it? Start with our first timer's guide.

I am still learning new things about every origin season to season, but Tonga taught me the cup is really just a reason to sit down together and connect. And in Tonga, apparently, a reason to make a king.

From our ohana to yours, mahalo nui.