Tired of hangovers? Loud, smoky bars? Looking for a fun, healthy nightlife alternative or a place to meet fun, open-minded new friends? A small yet dedicated – and growing – new group in Knoxville says kava is the answer.
Folks familiar with the fringe areas surrounding downtown, the Broadway corridor or the Fourth and Gill and Historic North Knox neighborhoods – or anyone who peruses local publications, social media outlets and influencers to look for the next new thing in terms of local restaurants, bars and small businesses – may have noticed that the small end-cap space at the corner of Broadway and East Glenwood (where the original K-Brew got its start) has a colorful, mysterious new tenant: Noble Kava.
Back in October, a video of a friendly, energetic young man with a shock of curly black hair and circular spectacles surfaced on WBIR and started circulating on social media. Speaking enthusiastically about a new type of herbal drink that he likened to “liquid Valium” and saying that his business would serve the elixir, buzz about the establishment began to build.
Signage went up at 1328 N. Broadway, and a soft opening found folks trickling in. The video was followed by more articles and TV news spots from WBIR during the grand opening in January, which the staff say was surprisingly packed. Word of mouth has led to a steady stream of curious new customers entering through the door in the time since then.
The man from the video is owner Andrew Procyk, who lives in Asheville and rarely is seen in the shop, and he seems to have taken on the same mythical, rumor-inspiring qualities among the shop’s patrons as Jay Gatsby did amongst his literary party guests. Some speak of the loss of his Asheville shop in a divorce, others converse about his epic and creative fight to keep kratom legal in North Carolina. Still others talk about his trips to distant lands like Vanuatu and Tanna to procure the kava first-hand, becoming initiated into the local tribes in the process.
BLANK played phone tag with the elusive Procyk for several days – although we would learn all about these exploits in due time. In the meantime, though, we got to know his Knoxville ground crew and details concerning the burgeoning local kava community/scene.
After establishing the Knoxville branch of Noble Kava, Procyk left the business in the able hands of manager Michael Green, a local musician, volunteer/community organizer and experienced retail manager (formerly of the Hookah Hookup) and his knowledgeable team of “kavatenders,” including Jake Loftis, who says he’s been researching and using both kava and kratom for years, having ordered the products online back when “nobody knew what it was,” as he says. Loftis’ own testimonial on behalf of the shop may just be one of its best: “I came here every day since day one and begged for a job,” he confesses. “I just had to be a part of it.”
A large part of the job daily at this point is the educational aspect. Each day, new customers come in never before having used kava or kratom. In BLANK’s few visits to the shop, it was easy to witness the joy the kavatenders take in sharing the details of these heretofore obscure plants and turning folks onto their benefits. “It’s cool because we can expose more people to it and normalize it and get the word out there,” Loftis says.
According to the kavatenders (and backed up by a some basic pharmacological research), kava is a dried powder ground from the root of the kava bush, a plant that grows naturally on a handful of islands in the South Pacific. Kavalactones are the active ingredients in the plant that are released when the powder is brewed in hot water, vigorously kneaded in a mesh bag until the loose consistency of wet sand is achieved, further diluted and then set to cool.
The effect of kavalactones on the overwhelming majority of users seems to be positive, as they produce a mild sedative and euphoric feeling, with some anesthetic quality (a tingly, mouth-numbing sensation). Slight nausea can sometimes accompany the kava, though, and some users don’t enjoy the earthy flavor or cool temperature. (More on that in a minute.) It is typically served at Noble Kava in a shell bowl with a pineapple slice chaser. Recently, the shop introduced different syrups to help make various “mocktails.”
Kratom, on the other hand, is a tea made from a leaf powder that is known to be a natural painkiller and a stimulant. It is served hot, often with almond milk and sugar, and it is described by many users as much more palatable and less likely to induce nausea. Since effects of these two products vary, the choice depends on what mood the user may be in search of.
“It’s like we sell natural tools to help people live a better life,” Loftis says. He also touts the mild effects as a plus; the substances they’re selling make for a quiet, relaxed experience at Noble Kava. Consumption of the products sends customers out into the world in a peaceful state of mind, but not one in which one might “endanger yourself or others when you leave,” according to Loftis.
“A lot of people come in here when detoxing from opiates,” Green says, hinting that their shop may fill a hole for folks who want to be responsible, but who may still need to scratch that itch, still need to feel a little something and don’t want to “white-knuckle” through stress. “It has a lot of the same benefits without all the negative side effects,” Green adds. “A lot of people use it because they are trying to quit drinking, so they’ll use it instead.”
“We try to embrace the etho-botanical aspect, as well,” Green continues, motioning toward the rack of green, chai and other herbal teas and superfood herbs like spirulina with which they can “bomb” the drinks for added health benefits. The shop also sells CBD oil, flower and pre-rolls, and it also will be offering essential oils soon.
Plans also include either expanding the current space or moving to a bigger space, as well as encouraging community events like poetry/music open-mic nights and other performances. Green also makes a point to say that while customers must be 18 to use kava and 21 to use kratom, the shop is open to all ages. They have coloring books and other activities available for children, and the environment is calm, welcoming and family-friendly. The business may even show up with samples at some local festivals to spread the kava gospel.
“We’re trying to make it as successful as possible,” Green says.
On two separate evenings at Noble Kava, BLANK witnessed folks staying for multiple rounds of both kava and kratom; purchasing CBD in the form of drops in their drinks, raw flower and the pre-rolls; and buying raw kava and kratom powder weighed on scales to take home and make themselves.
Folks sat at the bar and made quiet conversation with each other and the kavatenders, who were happy to share their expertise, and some groups of friends camped out on a spacious sectional couch, strumming a house guitar along with the house music (mostly reggae, dub, classic psych-rock and modern indie) and coloring in adult coloring books.
One couple who has been extremely engaged in the kava community in Knoxville and is helping with the mission to grow it is Noble Kava vendors Charity and Eric Edwards, who comprise the kava/CBD business Kava Koncoctions. The first thing the couple mentions is their respect for the plant: “I don’t want this to be about people trying to get [messed] up on kava,” Charity, a cancer survivor, says. “We honor … the plant medicine of it all. We’ve healed ourselves with it.” The second thing is the social aspect: “We travel in packs,” Eric says. “We like community.”
The couple runs the Knox Flow Arts community group of dancers and yoga practitioners, and they moderate the bi-monthly Knox Flow Jams, healthy movement meet-ups for hoopers, fire-spinners and anyone else who wants to be free from judgment and have fun. “We create the club away from the club,” Eric says. “You get into using Flow as an exercise, and you find that you get centered and aren’t worried about your daily problems.” They’ll meet at festivals or around town at parks or even for gatherings in the couple’s home to have what they describe as good, healthy community-based fun.
Charity is former bartender and server (most recently at Babalu), and Eric says he works his day job “in Western medicine.” They live in Farragut and have a daughter who recently graduated high school. Up until a few years back, they say they would have described themselves as the typical West Knox family, treating their ailments – including Eric’s anxiety and Charity’s cancer – with pharmaceutical medicine and treating their bad, stressful days with junk food and alcohol.
“If you’re at a … job you hate, the first thing you do instead of thinking macro or keto may be to get a cheeseburger,” Charity says. “They’re neglecting what’s happening in the gut.”
“[We’re] learning to heal to something instead of putting a Band-Aid on it,” Eric says. “It’s the emotions that’s putting the food in your mouth.”
So the couple has begun their training towards becoming licensed health coaches. Charity got the idea for Kava Koncoctions when she and Eric had been traveling around with their fire-spinner friend, visiting kava bars around the country and noticing that “nobody was making cocktails, nobody was really doing anything with kava.” She had grown uncomfortable at her job serving cocktails that included processed ingredients. “I was watching people get wasted on these ridiculous drinks I was making them,” she says. “I didn’t want to serve toxins over the bar anymore … It just didn’t vibe anymore.”
The couple began to make homemade blends of kava with natural ingredients and bottling them for friends. When Noble Kava came along, they became frequent vendors and customers. “It’s kava for people who don’t like kava,” Eric says. They point out that their products are vegan, gluten-free, use reverse-osmosis water and are custom-made from home. “We’ve honored the grassroots of it,” Charity says. “I want with my mixology to keep it small … I want to work smarter, not to keep working harder as I get older,” noting that it’s nice to be able “to chill and relax without the hangover.”
So … back to Procyk, the charismatic man who some could credit with really starting the movement locally – and definitely kicking off the Knoxville craze by providing a brick-and-mortar business to be the centerpoint around which the kava community could coalesce. Speaking to him over the phone, BLANK attempted to ascertain how someone who perhaps was one of the earliest proponents of the substance in the continental United States got interested in kava.
“Hmmm … Where to start?” Procyk laughs, taking a break from serving his daughter ice cream to step out onto the porch of his Asheville home and launch into a highly enjoyable conversation that was part informational Ted Talk, part origin story and part impassioned plea on behalf of what he sees as wonder drugs for mankind.
“I couldn’t support the family teaching about drugs, so I had to start selling them,” he begins. Procyk says he was an adjunct professor of sociology at Florida Atlantic University in the early aughts, teaching courses about drugs in society among other topics. Around that time, he was taken to his first kava bar, which at the time was one of the only ones outside of Hawaii and locales in the South Pacific.
“I had it the first time; it didn’t really ring my bell. The second time, because of the reverse tolerance, I started to get it. The third time, I had to hand my wife the car keys … But it has none of the awful judgment lapses, you sleep hard, you wake up feeling great.”
He went on to found Noble Kava in Asheville, which he says was the 10th kava bar in the country – but the first outside of Hawaii and Florida – and grew it through promotions and community activities to be the biggest in square footage and sales in the country within a few years.
One of the wildest stories Procyk had to tell involved the last-ditch efforts he and his ex-wife undertook in order to save the kratom community from legislative efforts to make the plant illegal in North Carolina a few years back. Procyk says they loaded up buses of supporters to go and speak on behalf of the plant and its uses, and he’d even paid for a toxicology study. But what pushed the effort over the goal line was his ex-wife’s genius idea: Give kratom samples in Starbucks-style paper coffee cups to the state senators’ aides and chat them up prior to the deliberations. He says the aides fell in love with kratom and convinced their bosses to easily vote down the motion.
Another seemingly incredible story of Procyk’s involves his travels to the islands of Vanuatu and Tanna to get the kava directly from the source and learning about it from the tribes there. Tanna is said to have the strongest strain of the plant, and he says virgin boys spit-strain the root into a pile.
“You’ve got to put it out of your mind what you’re doing,” he says. “Two tanna shells, and you are in outer space.”
Procyk says that he was there in 2015 when a cyclone knocked out much of the local tribe’s crop, and he stayed for several months helping them rebuild their village and replant the crop, earning him an honorary initiation into the tribe – something that humbled him and made him feel guilty for approaching kava as a business.
“It’s kind of nice, but kind of worrying. Because as long as the people who make my living nice can’t [use] a toilet bowl with running water, it’s hard for me to drive a luxury car,” he says. So he tries to keep prices low, go back yearly to help out, give back to their community and remember to live simply himself.
Procyk later opened a second location in Boone; recently, after losing that business in his divorce, he opened this location in the Scruffy City.
“Knoxville seems to have the same crunchy, underground community [that Asheville did]. There’s a lot of great people that just want an alternative to Beer City USA and what attracts tourists.”
One thing Procyk wants to reassure local customers about is the safety of his products. He is honest that he is still sensitive about past attempts by some state governments to make kratom, in particular, illegal, and he remains sensitive, too, to the rumored reputation it has as a dangerous or addictive drug.
“We’ve probably done millions of doses, easy [across all of his businesses], and we’ve never had a single adverse effect reported to us to report to the FDA,” he says. “I love the hell out of my customers at all of my places. If you compare them to a bunch of drunks, it’s almost funny. Neighborhood watches were worried, and it was totally dispelled.”
Procyk cites an American Kratom Association study that estimates 5 million users taking 1.6 billion doses a year with a few dozen kratom-related deaths occurring. Most of those, he says, were related to other drugs being present in those individuals’ systems, seizure disorders or other outliers. The same report found that Tylenol served up 1.2 billion doses of acetaminophen in the same time period, with between 50,000 and 60,000 cases of hospitalized overdoses reported.
“The safety record is still better than that of Tylenol and better than that of peanuts,” Procyk says. “So it’s crazy to call it dangerous.”
Like the others interviewed, Procyk comes back to the idea of community, likening a kava bar to a hippie version of Cheers. “You will know everybody in the scene, and even if you don’t, people will be willing to talk to you. They’re really a friendly bunch.”
