Your resource for becoming an educated and responsible user of these wonderful and transformative plants. We encourage everyone to read through it before making New Brew a part of their lives.
We started New Brew with the mission of reintroducing plants into the ceremony of drinking here in the US. Our first beverage features two of them – kratom leaf and kava root – that we believe have a place in that ceremony. Kratom and kava are powerful plants with real effects, which is why they have found a place in human cultures for thousands of years. But they are new to most Americans.
That’s why, beyond providing access to these plants, New Brew’s mission is also to educate and inform the public about their origins, history, and benefits as well as their potential risks. In doing so, we hope to dispel some of the myths and misinterpretations that persist around them.
As we’ll see, a lack of education and the absence of clear standards for manufacturing, dosage and labeling - along with disinformation campaigns designed to suppress these plants - have conspired to keep them relatively unknown and poorly represented.
New Brew hopes to change that. We believe that an honest accounting of the history and science around kratom and kava shows them to be safe and natural alternatives to other functional substances. But this is only true if, as with other potent plants, they are used responsibly and in moderation by informed adults. The problem is that most Americans are not only uninformed about kratom and kava, they are misinformed..
So - welcome to the kratom and kava corner - your resource for becoming an educated and responsible user of these transformative plants. We encourage everyone to read through it before making New Brew a part of their lives.
Kratom is tropical evergreen tree in the coffee family of plants that is native to mainland Southeast Asia. The leaves of the Kratom plant contain a broad spectrum of 40+ alkaloids, including mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, the two most associated with its medicinal properties.
Somewhere between 20 and 40 million Americans use Kratom today, a passionate and Diverse user base that includes many people looking for a healthier alternative to alcohol and synthetic drugs. While Kratom has been banned in a handful of countries and US states, new research has led authorities to recognize it’s therapeutic potential and reverse course on many of the bans and move toward instituting common sense regulations for age limits and quality standards.
Kava is a shrub in the pepper family native to Vanuatu and islands in Polynesia. Its roots contains lactones responsible for its unique effects. Of the 15 lactones isolated from kava, 6 major lactones (kavalactones) are known to provide psychoactive activity: kawain, methysticin, demethoxy-yangonin, dihydrokawain, dihydomethysicin, & yongonin.
Kratom has been used for hundreds of years in southeast Asian countries, typically in the form of raw leaves into a strong tea. Kratom tea is enjoyed as a productivity tool as well as for natural pain relief.
Kava root has been a centerpiece of social life in Melanesia for thousands of years, an agent of kinship and community high valued for its ability to calm nerves and reduce inhibitions. It is typically made by grounding and pulverising the roots of the kava plant and mixing with water. “You cannot hate with kava in you, so it is used in the making up of quarrels, and in peacemaking,” remarked one anthropologist in an early 1930’s look into its roles in the culture of Vanauatu
Since the DEA backed away from its proposed scheduling in 2016, Kratom has been on a clear trajectory towards being regulated and accepted as a mainstream substance for adults. We see evidence of this trend in two key areas: Mounting clinical evidence testifying to Kratoms’s safety, and the reversal of bans and increased adoption for the Kratom Consumer Protection Act among US states. New Brew is working directly with the AKA to support the KCPA in California and nationwide.
In 2021, the World Health Organization’s Executive Committee on Drug Dependency announced it was taking steps to take a position against. After further research, the WHO ECDD voted 11-1 against such a move, citing lack of evidence for risks.
Kratom is legal in the United States at a federal level. It is not covered by the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Kratom is not regulated by the FDA (see The FDA and Kratom from the FDA site). The absence of clear guidance from the FDA has suppressed broader adoption.
Kratom is listed by the DEA as a “drug of concern.” In 2016, the DEA threatened to prohibit kratom's sale and use; advocates and lawmakers subsequently pushed back, the DEA reversed course 2 months later, and the stricter scheduling of kratom that would have prompted that sort of ban never occurred.
The CDC does not have regulatory power over Kratom, but it has contributed to the misperceptions on the issue. Rudimentary google searching on kratom will surface a headline “CDC reported 91 kratom over dose deaths in a recent period.” According to Johns Hopkins Professor Jack E. Henningfield, “In actual fact, CDC stated that this is what medical examiners stated and then CDC pointed out that most of the deaths for which there were data involved other drug use, and the few that did not find other drug use might have missed other drugs because they did not properly test for them…media reports misrepresent the CDC article and there is no question that the risk of kratom is far lower than carried by opioids and other drugs that it is substituted for by many people.”
Kratom with Dr. Chris McCurdy
A LEAF OF FAITH
Contested research has caused some regions to pass laws restricting kava’s use and distribution, including the UK, Poland, Canada and Germany. A 2002 German study linked kava to liver damage, leading to the a now-reversed regulatory ban in Germany. The research also prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue a consumer advisory that year for supplements containing kava. Those findings, however, have been largely disputed since.
“One week before the release of the publication of the Duke University Medical Center study showing that kava proves every bit is effective in the treatment of mild to moderate anxiety as benzodiazepine class of drugs, all of a sudden overnight, headlines break about something nobody had ever heard about: 21 cases of kava-related liver toxicity. It tanked kava overnight. Several groups of medical researchers and specialists later went through that report and discovered that of the 21 cases, 20 of them could be summarily explained away with people using benzodiazepines and a lot of alcohol, and then subsequently also taking some kava.”
- Chris Kilham on the Psychoactive podcast with Ethan Nadelman
New Brew produces a non-inebriating bliss, with a symphony of effects that include a positive attitude shift and a balanced feeling of calm, clarity and connection.
Please take care when trying New Brew for the first time. text-fill and Kava are new to most Americans and affect everyone differently, so listen carefully to your body when you try New Brew and decide whether more is the right call. Sip to assess your tolerance.
New Brew can be enjoyed at any time of the day, morning through evening. The most common time to enjoy New Brew is in the afternoon and early evening as you transition to another phase of the day - before a workout, after work, in lieu of a cocktail or another cup of coffee.
New Brew is an adult beverage. New Brew employs two primary active ingredients: text-fill leaf and Kava root, which are the keys to the formula’s unique potency. While text-fill is currently unregulated by the FDA, there is an emerging scientific and legal consensus that text-fill leaf should only be used by adults 21+ and over. New Brew strongly supports emerging standards stipulating that text-fill only be used by responsible adults.
Yes, but we recommend starting with one to see how you feel. One of the best parts of New Brew is that unlike drinks with alcohol and sugar, a small serving produces a sense of satisfied contentment. You might find yourself without the urge to keep consuming. Sip it slow to assess your tolerance, as everyone metabolizes New Brew differently, based on a range of physical and circumstantial factors. Most people will feel the effects after one serving.
Definitely. In fact, New Brew’s founders created the product after experiencing how these ingredients helped them transition away from their use of and reliance on alcohol. A large part of the New Brew community shares an interest in natural alternatives to alcohol and other mainstream vices.
Definitely. But to be clear, New Brew’s 30mg serving of caffeine is not a 1-1 replacement for the energy jolt you get from coffee – it’s really apples and oranges. New Brew’s ingredients produce a more balanced, connected and focused state of mind than coffee, without the jitters and crash.
Yes, but not the same kind of energy you get from coffee or energy drinks. There is 30mg caffeine in a single serving - about a quarter of a cup of coffee - which is primarily from the natural tea used in our formula.
It really depends on the individual. The formula for New Brew is not designed to help with sleep and for some people the small amount of caffeine in the product may make falling asleep more difficult.
Anything that makes you feel good can become habit-forming, including caffeine, sugar and New Brew. Only use New Brew in the recommended quantities, and be thoughtful about your consumption. If consumed responsibly, New Brew has not been shown to cause any serious physical or social harm.
The ingredients in New Brew can be an excellent tool for Harm Reduction, as a healthier alternative to other common vices. However, those in recovery or practicing strict abstinence may want to avoid New Brew because of its genuine mood-altering effects.
text-fill and kava are both proving to be safe for use by adults when sourced reliably, manufactured properly and taken in responsible amounts. text-fill has long been misrepresented as an unsafe plant, but new clinical evidence is dispelling that stigma. In a recent example, a 2020 peer-reviewed clinical study found that, “across a wide dosing range, text-fill was very safe and did not affect respiration or coordination.”
New Brew’s active ingredients are locally sourced from their native habitats through a single GMP-certified supplier who owns and manages their own plots of land where the plants are grown. New Brew’s text-fill currently comes from Indonesia and New Brew’s Kava currently comes from Vanuatu.
Yes. New Brew’s active ingredients are all 3rd party lab tested, in compliance with the standards set forth by the American text-fill Association (AKA). Each batch of New Brew is then lab tested for safety after production by our GMP-certified manufacturing partner.
2022
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