Under the muted lights of Mai Kai Kava Bar in Gainesville, coconut cups line the countertop. A few customers pull up tall stools to the bar, unpacking their laptops as they order off the menu.
Mai Kai co-owner Erin Hart shuffles behind the counter as the music from speakers echo throughout the bar. There are no bottles of alcohol around. Mai Kai is a kava bar, and the patrons are ready for their fill as soon as the doors open.
As more Americans contemplate leaving alcohol behind, kava has become an alternative to drinking by offering similar effects without the consequences. Over 30 kava bars are scattered across Florida as it grows in popularity. While unregulated in the United States, kava bars in Florida wish to make the thousand-year-old beverage as accessible as possible.
"We really wanted a place where everyone feels like they're welcome," Hart said.
Kava is a nonalcoholic beverage originating from the South Pacific islands and is made from the roots and stump of piper methysticum. The plant is native to Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, where it has been used as medicine and in traditional ceremonies for thousands of years.
Often described as a "buzz," kava can create a relaxed sensation, act as a muscle relaxer, reduce pain and help alleviate insomnia and anxiety.
There are over 150 variations of kava all with different characteristics. Chengguo Xing, a professor in the University of Florida's Department of Medicinal Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy, researches different kava varieties. Alongside his team, he evaluates whether kava can prevent cancer in smokers who turn to the beverage to wean off nicotine.
"Just like there are different apple trees," Xing said, "there are different plants that produce kava."
The two most notable kava variations are noble kava and tudei, or two-day, kava. Noble kava is typically used by kava bars. It has milder effects and helps reduce anxiety. The effects of tudei kava tend to last 48 hours and can feel like a hangover.
Many kava bars promote the beverage as a way to drink less alcohol or give it up completely. It's consumption aligns with a rising trend among Americans: sober curiosity, or the reevaluation of an individual's relationship with alcohol while considering going sober.
In January 2025, Circana, a market research company, found that 49% of Americans are trying to drink less alcohol. Gen Z has spearheaded the sober curious movement. But leaving alcohol behind can be a challenge as 30% of nondrinkers feel judged.
Kava connoisseurs like Kenneth Hoyumpa believe kava is the solution.
"The first time I really felt it, I enjoyed the feeling," Hoyumpa said. "Kava really promotes a sense of belonging and community."
Hoyumpa, 49, is the co-owner of Grassroots Kava House, a kava bar in St. Petersburg. The bar has been open for eight years and offers a variety of kava drinks, mocktails and coffee.
He discovered kava after visiting The Nak, the United States' first kava bar, located in Boca Raton.
"It was a weird time because everybody around me was basically drinking it for the first time. People were just trying to figure out what it was," Hoyumpa said.
He describes kava as the opposite of coffee.
"You're drinking a lot of coffee, it will very much wake you up," he said. "Kava, you drink a few, and it'll very much relax you."
It helped him reduce how much alcohol he was drinking and transition to a beverage that wouldn't compromise his health as severely.
"I was a heavy drinker," he said.
He enjoyed the judgment-free community that removed the pressure of having to drink alcohol in a social setting, he said. Since first visiting The Nak when it opened in 2002, Hoyumpa has seen the community grow to over 300 kava bars across the U.S.
As he immersed himself in kava bar culture, he met others like him. "I know a lot of people that have found kava as a means to help them through alcohol and drug recovery," Hoyumpa said. "It's for people looking for a social venue that's not all alcohol related."
Jimmy Everett, 32, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, stands inside Mai Kai Kava Bar with a plastic cup halfway full of kava. He considers himself a regular, especially because he's been visiting the hole-in-the-wall since 2022.
He learned about kava after he quit drinking. Now, he enjoys sipping his cup, appreciating its subtle feeling without the risk of getting sick.
"Try have a couple of shells and see how you feel," Everett said. "And if you don't like it, then maybe it's just not for you."
Erin Hart, 39, often helps make the batches customers order as they unwind from their workday. She opened Mai Kai with her partner and co-owner, Heather Casey, 43, in 2017. Casey's family has opened two kava bars in Georgia: Her mother started one in Blairsville in 2018; her brother in Athens in 2021.
"UF seemed good with Gainesville, and they didn't have any [kava bars] here, so we thought we could help people in this town," Hart said.
With its calm lighting and casual atmosphere, many customers use the bar as a place to study or socialize. Through her conversations with newcomers and regulars alike, she's discovered how people have used kava to move away from alcohol.
Hart was one of those people herself.
"I used to drink pretty much every night," she said. "I noticed that I started drinking less."
Casey felt the same way. She didn't know what she was getting into when Hart invited her to a kava bar. She thought it would be the same routine of long nights out, but kava felt different. Twelve years later, she's cut her drinking in half.
"I was on that verge of getting that DUI," Casey said. "I was going out all the time."
The more kava she drank, the less bars she visited.
Her philosophy is to make sobriety inclusive. For people who may not enjoy kava's flavor, their menu offers all sorts of mocktails and flavored syrups to make the experience more palatable. Mai Kai doesn't cater to one age group, Casey said, the most common age group are consumers in their 20s to 40s.
"More people are learning that you can have a healthier lifestyle and still have your social aspects," she said. They encourage alcohol-free socialization through "bad movie nights" and open-mic nights where customers interact with other kava drinkers.
While many of Mai Kai's customers ditch alcohol for kava, the beverage is not an instant path to sobriety. A lot of its risks are still undiscovered, and research on kava is limited.
The most widely recognized risk is that kava is hepatotoxic, causing liver damage. In 2002, the United Kingdom banned kava due to cases of liver toxicity reported across Europe. UCLA Health writes that many of those cases were found in people who had liver diseases or combined alcohol with kava, which is highly advised against. Xing said the risk of liver toxicity is estimated to be extremely low if kava is consumed using the proper methods and dosages.
"To test that hypothesis is very challenging," Xing said. "We just don't have enough resources, enough sample size, to test it."
To him, there is not enough evidence to restrict kava due to its potential risks. "Just like some mushrooms are poisonous, we shouldn't ban all the mushrooms, right?" he said.
For kava bar owners like Casey, monitoring those potential risks is important. But she wants to shed more light on the benefits kava and ensure Mai Kai is soul-centered, not substance-centered.
"I just think it's a positive tool in harm reduction and addiction recovery," Casey said.
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