![]() ![]() In 2014 a local drinks company started selling Tăki Mai, an 'anti-stress' shot drink with kava extract. After a few drinks you might feel a slight numbness on the lips, but stronger mixes can induce drowsiness (kava from Kadavu is said to be the most potent). Bear in mind that once a kava session starts, it doesn’t end until the tanoa is empty. You needn’t drink every bilo you’re offered, but it’s polite to at least drink the first. On drinking, everyone claps three times, and the bilo is passed back to the server. Clap, then accept the bilo and drink it down in one: bear this in mind if your hosts offer to fill your cup ‘low tide’ or ‘high tide'. You’ll be offered a bilo (coconut shell cup) with the drink. The resulting infusion looks a little like muddy water. The powdered yaqona is wrapped in cloth and mixed with water in the tanoa. Never walk around across the circle or turn your back to it, or step over the coir cord that ties the white cowrie shell to the tanoa (it represents a link to the ancestors). Visitors sit cross-legged facing their hosts and a large central wooden bowl ( tanoa). When visiting a village, you’ll usually be welcomed with a sevusevu ceremony, centred on yaqona drinking. The ritual aspect of kava remains important. Before the arrival of Christianity, yaqona was a ritual drink reserved for chiefs and priests nowadays gathering around a kava bowl for conversation with friends is an essential part of Fijian social life. This drink (more correctly called yaqona, and colloquially called 'grog') is made from an infusion of powdered roots from Piper methysticum, a type of pepper plant. Few visitors will spend time in Fiji without being offered to join a kava ceremony at least once. ![]()
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