Kratom is the leaf of Mitragyna speciosa, a tree in the Rubiaceae, the coffee family, native to Southeast Asia. The leaf carries a set of compounds called alkaloids, and the dominant one is mitragynine. At our bars it shows up two ways, brewed as a tea or as a leaf extract, on a menu of its own, for adults only.
That is the definition. The rest of this page is the part that is harder to find written down plainly: where the leaf comes from, how it gets into a cup, and what the words on our menu actually mean.
What Is Kratom?
Kratom is a tree leaf, not a root, a berry or a synthetic compound. The tree is Mitragyna speciosa, it grows across Southeast Asia, and it belongs to the same botanical family as coffee.
Being in the coffee family does not make kratom coffee, and it does not mean there is caffeine in it. The family is a classification: it tells you what the plant is related to, not what the drink is like. Only one item on our tea menu has caffeine in it, and we name it further down.
The leaf contains dozens of alkaloids. Mitragynine is the one present in the largest amount. A second one, 7-hydroxymitragynine, usually shortened to 7-OH, occurs naturally in the leaf in trace amounts, and the FDA describes it as a minor constituent making up less than 2 percent of the total alkaloid content of natural kratom leaves. The concentrated and semi-synthetic 7-OH products sold in gas stations and smoke shops are a different category of thing, and they have their own post.
Kratom is also not kava. Those two share a bar in some places, including ours, and nothing else. Different plant, different part of the plant, different hemisphere, different menu. If that is the question you came in with, kava vs kratom is the page for it.
Where Our Kratom Comes From
Our kratom comes from Indonesia, where most of the kratom in the American market originates.
The trade used to run through Thailand. Thailand halted exports, and later reopened the trade through licensed exporters, which moved the center of supply to Indonesia in the meantime. Ours is Indonesian leaf.
Where a botanical comes from matters more than most menus admit, because the composition of plant material is not fixed. Differences between batches come from growing conditions, harvesting practices, processing methods, blending, and the natural variation in plant material. Anyone who tells you their leaf is identical from one batch to the next is describing a wish.
What People Actually Want to Know, and What We Will Not Tell You
People come in with questions about what kratom does for a person. We are not the people to answer those. We serve drinks, and we do not give health advice.
That is not evasion dressed up as policy. It is the line between what a bar can honestly know and what it cannot. What we can tell you, precisely, is what is in each drink, whether it is brewed leaf or extract, how much of it there is, and how it was made. Those are facts about a cup. What a cup does inside a person is a question for a doctor, and the honest answer from behind a counter is that it varies.
You will find plenty of writing online that answers the question anyway. We are not going to compete with it.
Why We Call It Tea, and the Two Sides of the Menu
We call it tea because the brewed version is tea in the ordinary sense: leaf steeped in hot water. That is the main way kratom is served at Kavasutra.
Our Brewed Tea is prepared in house from kratom leaf and served hot straight from the kettle, or cold and flavored. It comes in eight, sixteen and thirty-two ounces. The eight ounce is the one a Kavatender will point a first timer toward, because tolerance starts low and there is no reason to start high.
A Kavatender can tell you what any drink on the menu is made from. That is the part of the job people underuse. At a shelf display nobody can answer a question. At a bar, somebody can, and they would rather you asked.
Almost everything on the menu sits on one of two sides, and knowing which is which tells you more than any product name does.
Brewed kratom leaf is our Brewed Tea, made here from leaf, in the three sizes above.
Leaf extract covers items including #Boom, Shane’s Addiction, Stinger, the Stinger Can and Tea Drop. An extract has been concentrated from leaf, which is a processing step, and the stronger extract items are the ones we recommend to experienced kratom drinkers only.
One item refuses the split, and we are not going to tidy it away. Red Top is kratom tea and leaf extract, both, and it is the single item on the menu with caffeine added. A reader who knows the menu would notice if we filed it under one heading, and the honest version is the more useful one.
A few items sit on the menu without a description in our own training material, including Black Top, Pink’s Lemonade and PCG. They are real and they are listed by name on the tea menu. We are not going to write prose about them until we can do it accurately.
About the Red, Green and White Names
You will see kratom sold as red, green and white, with names like Green Maeng Da attached. Those names are used throughout the kratom marketplace, but the colour categories are not recognised as distinct botanical varieties by scientific research.
It is one species of tree. The differences between products come from growing conditions, harvesting, processing, blending and natural variation, and because it is a botanical product, the composition varies from batch to batch.
We use the marketplace names when people ask for them, because that is the vocabulary the market runs on. We do not present them as botany. Anyone selling you a colour as though it were a species is selling you a naming convention.
Who Can Order It, and Where
Kratom is 21 and up at our Florida and Colorado bars, and 18 and up in Arizona, where state law sets a different age. Our Denver bar does not serve kratom at all.
That is why this page sits behind an age check. Two more lines worth stating plainly: nothing on this website sells or ships kratom, and everything on the tea menu is served in the bar. Each location page states what that bar carries, and if a bar does not list it, that bar does not serve it.
If you have never been in and want to know what walking through the door is like before you order anything, start with your first visit.
Frequently asked questions
What is kratom?
Kratom is the leaf of *Mitragyna speciosa*, a tree in the Rubiaceae, the coffee family, native to Southeast Asia. The leaf contains alkaloids, of which mitragynine is the most abundant. At Kavasutra it is served as a tea brewed in house from the leaf, or as a leaf extract.
Is kratom a drug, a supplement, or a tea?
It is a botanical leaf, and which word applies depends on who is speaking and in what context. At our bars it is a drink, brewed from leaf or served as a leaf extract, from a menu restricted to adults. We serve it, and we do not characterise it medically.
Where does kratom come from?
Kratom grows across Southeast Asia. The kratom served at Kavasutra comes from Indonesia, which is where most kratom in the American market originates.
Does kratom have caffeine in it?
Not on its own. On our tea menu, Red Top is the one item with caffeine added, and Red Top is both kratom tea and leaf extract. Ask the Kavatender pouring if you want to know what is in a specific drink.
Are red, green and white kratom different kinds of plant?
No. Those colour names are used across the kratom marketplace, but they are not recognised as distinct botanical varieties by scientific research. It is one species of tree, and differences between products come from growing conditions, harvesting, processing, blending and natural variation in plant material.
What should I order the first time?
The eight ounce Brewed Tea, and tell the Kavatender it is your first time. Tolerance starts low and there is no reason to start high. The concentrated extract items are the ones we recommend to experienced kratom drinkers only.