Question about strain color variation

[Chris_s29]

Could someone clue me in on why some vendors have huge color differences and a few others strains all look the exact same ? Example herbal rvas green for the most part have different shades and the reds all all different dark red/brown shades but some others like smiley for instance has red borneo and gold elephant that look the exact color as green Malay ? Do these very dark reds have other things mixed in to make them this brick or chocolate color?I've had a few of the dark reds that smell and taste sweet like cacao or something similar

[mivanqua]

Reds SHOULD look the same as the greens and whites. I was so bummed when I got my first ever online vendor order from Kraken and took a ( very expensive) spoonful out of each one and they all looked exactly the same! They look so.different in the pictures....Theoretically, all of the stem and vein has been removed. The darker the kratom, the more fermented it is. So essentially if you get a brown red, it's been fermented, on the way to being a bent.

[gumbyke1]

Okay, there are a lot of dirty secrets to unpack here. To be honest, there is so much dishonesty in the industry with marketing as the motive for it. A lot of it starts in Indonesia, and I believe that a lot of the US vendors here don't even really understand how it works, so don't be mad at them, lol. When I have more time, I will write up something more extensive, but in general, the color of kratom is almost fully determined by drying practices and light/UV exposure. There are only 1 species of plant and although there are different types of leaves THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DIFFERENT STRAINS . 99% of the kratom imported is Red Vein - the marketed vein color of kratom is really determined by how it was dried/processed.

At a generally high level, these are how most colors are usually made...

Green - indoor drying
Red - Outdoor drying
White - mixing red and green
Yellow/Gold - partial fermentation in clear bag or wet stack
Bentigue / Brown - heavily fermented, some with a lot of sun exposure. There are many different methods to ferment, some even add teas with cat's claw or tongkat ali.

No single drying method is always going to produce "better" kratom, but I personally have a preference. In my research I have found that you can harvest leaves from the same area and get very different characteristics depending on how you dry it. When I send out tests, I will sometimes send the same leaf (as same as you can get) but dried with different methods (string/dark vs shelf/dark vs sun shelf, etc...) to see if there are significant changes.

Unless you are buying kratom from a small-batch vendor that sees the process all the way from "farm to table" you are consuming leaves that have been collected from literally hundreds of miles around and put into big "piles" to be ground together. The huge majority of kratom that is imported into the US comes from hustlers in Pontianak who claim to be farmers. In reality, they really just city people with milling machines who buy huge bags of already dried and crushed leaf at the market and then take it back to their warehouse to turn into powder. They have no way of knowing the quality of the leaf they mill or if it is even all kratom, lol. In addition - most of them don't even use kratom and have no idea how to judge its characteristics. The ones that do use kratom just chew on a fresh leaf for a few minutes and then spit it out. This is how almost all of the kratom imported is made. After the powder is milled and packaged, the suppliers separate the kratom out into piles by the physical color of the powder and give them strain names. Most US vendors then sell it as whatever they were told it was. The big US vendors just buy kilos indiscriminately by the ton and separate it into "strains" by color when they receive it, following the same process as mentioned above. If you have ever wondered why when you order kratom it is so hit or miss... this is why. Follow the logic and you will understand that mold testing, contaminants testing, and mitragynine testing are more about marketing then actual safety or quality. If I import 1 ton of kratom and separate it out into 10 "strains" by color and then test 5 grams from each strain what is that telling you? Absolutely nothing, lol. Testing is a whole different topic though...


Maybe the one exception to this is when I get true Malaysian kratom (as in it is actually from Malaysia). In my experience, true Malaysian kratom does have a different effect. However, it's not a different strain, its different characteristics are most likely to different soil composition. With that said, 99.99% of the "Malay" strains sold in the US are not real Malay strains. Besides myself, I only know of one other person besides who has imported true Malay kratom. It costs way more to import because it is very illegal in Malaysian and they have some of the harshest drug penalties. If your vendor claims to have true Malaysian and they are charging more, I would ask them to provide some kind of proof. I darn sure ask for proof because of how much it costs whenever I order it, lol. On a side note - If anyone is interested in seeing how my Malaysian supplier has to transport his kratom, I have a hilarious picture to share (I don't want to post it here for obvious reasons). Dude is hard-core, lol.

Now, this doesn't mean that strain names are pointless, especially with small batch vendors. A good vendor will know where their leaf comes from and have a decent amount of control over quality and predictable effects. I am a small private vendor/importer (not currently accepting new customers) and I try to name my strains with some kind of competence. Usually, I try to reflect the general area it was harvested, but even then I'm guilty of just throwing a name on there when I'm not 100% sure of its origin. You have to give them names, people just won't buy it if you call it kratom leaf #12, lol.

I want to close this rant by saying I am not slamming US vendors or Indo suppliers. It's so ingrained in the industry that you kind of have to go along with it. Also, I would bet that most of the US vendors do not even know how it works, they just order away. I also know from being a customer that there are some awesome US vendors that do things differently and have quality control... some of those fine folks are active on this forum! I would bet that a lot of people in this forum know all of this, but it's such a drag to talk about. I know other people will think this whole post is BS because the marketing is so ingrained in the community, but believe what you want.

*I didn't mean to write such a long response, I might post this on a separate topic later so that folks can see it, lol. This is all stuff I have wanted to share for a long time but just haven't had the inspiration to sit and type. Thank you Chris s29 for the inspiration! I just get annoyed when people new to kratom are getting jerked all over the place while trying to make sense of this leaf. None of it makes sense.... just find a good vendor and pray for the best.

[Chris_s29]

Thanks for that great info

[brave777]

gumpy, you answered a lot of my wondering questions.... I would never know green and red combined makes it white and how they dry leaf so many many different ways. So glad your here. Least i wont miss inform my friends any more, telling them trees grow different color veins.

We sure do need more people like you to educate us.

Now this been bothering me a lot, Red elephant leaf, is it a hoax, the shape of it as big as your full chest size?
here is a link to that big leaf pic

https://kratomguides.com/elephant-kratom/

Thank you!

[gumbyke1]

gumpy, you answered a lot of my wondering questions.... I would never know green and red combined makes it white and how they dry leaf so many many different ways. So glad your here. Least i wont miss inform my friends any more, telling them trees grow different color veins.

We sure do need more people like you to educate us.

Now this been bothering me a lot, Red elephant leaf, is it a hoax, the shape of it as big as your full chest size?
here is a link to that big leaf pic

https://kratomguides.com/elephant-kratom/

Thank you!

Well technically the kratom tree can have different color veins, but its rare and more a result of the leaves being very young or in the canopy. With that said, almost all kratom you import is red vein. Some white vein may be mixed in there, but it is at very tiny quantities. No suppliers actually separate out any vein colors and if they did it would be pointless.

Regarding elephant leaf, its completely made up for marketing. Like I said, most of the imported kratom is supplied by guys who don't have the slightest clue about what kind of leaves are in the hundreds of bags of crushed leaf they bought at the market. I obviously can't say with certainty, but the photo you posted does not look like mitragynine speciosa to me. You can get some rather large kratom leaves, but I have never seen one that big.

[FireK]

Thanks gumbyke1 for sharing all the Info!

[trigger]

gumpy, you answered a lot of my wondering questions.... I would never know green and red combined makes it white and how they dry leaf so many many different ways. So glad your here. Least i wont miss inform my friends any more, telling them trees grow different color veins.

We sure do need more people like you to educate us.

Now this been bothering me a lot, Red elephant leaf, is it a hoax, the shape of it as big as your full chest size?
here is a link to that big leaf pic

https://kratomguides.com/elephant-kratom/

Thank you!

Well technically the kratom tree can have different color veins, but its rare and more a result of the leaves being very young or in the canopy. With that said, almost all kratom you import is red vein. Some white vein may be mixed in there, but it is at very tiny quantities. No suppliers actually separate out any vein colors and if they did it would be pointless.

Regarding elephant leaf, its completely made up for marketing. Like I said, most of the imported kratom is supplied by guys who don't have the slightest clue about what kind of leaves are in the hundreds of bags of crushed leaf they bought at the market. I obviously can't say with certainty, but the photo you posted does not look like mitragynine speciosa to me. You can get some rather large kratom leaves, but I have never seen one that big.

Not to dispute you - you could very well be correct, but you can’t possibly know this for certain (that no suppliers/farmers actually separate the leaves). I think the strain colors mist have come from the fact that actual leaves do have these colors and the effects are different. And it’s probably entirely up to the age of the leaf. And yeah, I imagine pretty much all kratom leaves are harvested or trimmed off once mature with red veins. The vein color schemes had to come from somewhere - most likely from people who pluck and chew fresh leaves. We aren’t getting the same thing because we are just getting old mature dried out and ground up leaves - given names as marketing. But then perhaps it is possible that there’s a small batch farmer somewhere sorting out leaves as they are harvested. Does it or would it make a real difference? I don’t know. I’ve wanted to go there myself to visit a bunch of farms.

You paint a bleak picture for people. Even those of us who already know strains are mainly bullshit and marketing. Regardless of how we get there, there’s no question that reds and greens and even whites give expected effects. Depending on the vendor, the reliability is higher or lower. It’s different enough overall that I can’t imagine it’s all just put into one giant pile and is all the same.

Now the four blind test samples you sent me - I would believe you and not be super surprised if you told me they were all the same thing. They were all really good. And I don’t think I noticed a dramatic difference between the ones you said were red and the ones you said were green. 3 out of 4 were super strong and very similar if I remember correctly.

One of my favorite quotes from the inside of an album artwork insert for a band called Soul Side (my username came from a song title on the same album) sums up how I feel about this - “You can lie to me as long as we are having a good time.”

[trigger]

In any case, it’s all we have to go by - fake or scam or whatever - to determine what’s good and not good kratom by batch. Given how reliable some strains at some vendors are, I have to believe there are some farms and suppliers with a little more ethics than to just separate one big pile into smaller bags and make shit up about them arbitrarily.

[gumbyke1]

gumpy, you answered a lot of my wondering questions.... I would never know green and red combined makes it white and how they dry leaf so many many different ways. So glad your here. Least i wont miss inform my friends any more, telling them trees grow different color veins.

We sure do need more people like you to educate us.

Now this been bothering me a lot, Red elephant leaf, is it a hoax, the shape of it as big as your full chest size?
here is a link to that big leaf pic

https://kratomguides.com/elephant-kratom/

Thank you!

Well technically the kratom tree can have different color veins, but its rare and more a result of the leaves being very young or in the canopy. With that said, almost all kratom you import is red vein. Some white vein may be mixed in there, but it is at very tiny quantities. No suppliers actually separate out any vein colors and if they did it would be pointless.

Regarding elephant leaf, its completely made up for marketing. Like I said, most of the imported kratom is supplied by guys who don't have the slightest clue about what kind of leaves are in the hundreds of bags of crushed leaf they bought at the market. I obviously can't say with certainty, but the photo you posted does not look like mitragynine speciosa to me. You can get some rather large kratom leaves, but I have never seen one that big.

Not to dispute you - you could very well be correct, but you can’t possibly know this for certain (that no suppliers/farmers actually separate the leaves). I think the strain colors mist have come from the fact that actual leaves do have these colors and the effects are different. And it’s probably entirely up to the age of the leaf. And yeah, I imagine pretty much all kratom leaves are harvested or trimmed off once mature with red veins. The vein color schemes had to come from somewhere - most likely from people who pluck and chew fresh leaves. We aren’t getting the same thing because we are just getting old mature dried out and ground up leaves - given names as marketing. But then perhaps it is possible that there’s a small batch farmer somewhere sorting out leaves as they are harvested. Does it or would it make a real difference? I don’t know. I’ve wanted to go there myself to visit a bunch of farms.

You paint a bleak picture for people. Even those of us who already know strains are mainly bullshit and marketing. Regardless of how we get there, there’s no question that reds and greens and even whites give expected effects. Depending on the vendor, the reliability is higher or lower. It’s different enough overall that I can’t imagine it’s all just put into one giant pile and is all the same.

Now the four blind test samples you sent me - I would believe you and not be super surprised if you told me they were all the same thing. They were all really good. And I don’t think I noticed a dramatic difference between the ones you said were red and the ones you said were green. 3 out of 4 were super strong and very similar if I remember correctly.

One of my favorite quotes from the inside of an album artwork insert for a band called Soul Side (my username came from a song title on the same album) sums up how I feel about this - “You can lie to me as long as we are having a good time.”

I know Trigger, its crushing, lol. I hate to be one with bleak news, but I absolutely can tell you without a doubt that the vein colors are not responsible for the different effects. It's a nice idea to think that some diligent farmer somewhere would save the small handful from each tree and separate them out for us, but in reality that is not going to happen. I can tell you from a lot of experience, many (not all) of Indonesian suppliers will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. If I asked one to separate out the leaves they would simply reply "of course, that is what we always do!" Its been incredibly easy for me to find suppliers that would agree to do the time-consuming task of string-drying kratom for me, but its literally taken over a year of constant searching to find just a couple that would do it and agree to provide photos of each batch. Kratom usage is very uncommon in Indonesia and the ones that do use it primarily only use fresh leaves.

Now, even if they would separate the leaves it wouldn't make much difference. White veins leaves are what they call "pucuk" and they are just young leaves or canopy leaves.... there are very few of them per tree. They have a slightly waxier covering and are not preferred by people who chew kratom leaves fresh for energy (even though kratom culture would tell you the opposite). The different effects of vein color have been scientifically studied/reviewed at length and concluded that there is no noticeable difference in the alkaloid profile between different veined leaves.

With all that said, the different drying methods can however dramatically change the alkaloid profile, which is why you can get different effects by "color". So not all is lost, the branded color can have some indication of its effects, but there is also a lot of placebo going on there sometimes

If you are curious, I can provide screenshots of my conversations with suppliers that support the concept of what I am saying. Also, when I have time I will see if I can dig up some of the scientific research that I talked about.

Fear not... I said most but not all kratom is mass produced from a bunch of mixed up leaves after they are dried. However, there are some US vendors that oversee the whole process, farm to table. You can usually tell who those vendors are without asking them just by being a customer.

We can do a little excitement that might be fun. Im going to send you three different samples that are taken from a cluster of 4 wild trees in the same vicinity of each other. One sample will be sun-dried on a rack, another sample will be string dried in the dark, and the 3rd sample will be string dry with ambient light. I want you to see if there is much difference.

[Klankalot]

Now that the gig is up, you may all disband the room. please leave quietly, and in single file

[Oletimer]

I agree with the rest,,your input on the question was very helpful, informative, thank you for sharing gumbyke!

[gumbyke1]

Okay I was looking for links to some of the old research papers that were done by Chris McCurdy, to support what I previously shared and I found something even better. Here I found the whole package in one video... Watch the below to hear Dr. McCurdy explain the science behind different vein colors, along with one of the largest vendors in the industry admitting himself that it is all marketing nonsense. I was actually surprised to hear him be so honest about it, lol.

https://youtu.be/0tqHa7Kk7m0

I think this pretty much sums it up.

Now, remember not every vendor operates like this. Some of the small batch specialty vendors treat sourcing kratom like a fine craft, there are plenty on this forum to order from.

*Edit - I do want to add that the guy in the video is 100% incorrect in saying there are no kratom farmers in Indonesia. Their are a bunch of them popping up everywhere. As the price of rubber has fallen, farmers have been flocking to kratom. I believe that is also why kratom "used" to be better... several years ago it was more common to get wild harvested leaf from mature trees. A lot of the new farms now produce weak kratom because it takes at least 3 years for a kratom tree to produce the desired alkoloid profile. If anyone is interested, I may make another post that sheds more light on the behind the scenes.

[trigger]

The guy in the video owns “legal high” head shop brand, Urban Ice Organics, and he produced Leaf Of Faith. He called kratom vendors “a bunch of little fuckin drug dealers.” He’s kind of a piece of shit. I don’t trust much of what he says. He interpreted what the doctor said differently than I would have. I’m sure he’s not entirely wrong, but I don’t like him so... he can suck a fuck.

I’m not saying you are wrong. It’s marketing. I found that out a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean the color of the packaging tricks my brain into thinking I’m getting different effects. That’s fuckin dumb. Granted, plenty of kratom marked as red or green or white doesn’t have the effects I would expect, but some vendors have more reliable and more predictable stuff than others.

Either way - we don’t get to see how they slaughter the cow, and all we have to go on is the marketing and packaging and each other rating batches we have tried. I prepare my wife’s kratom all the time. She never sees the packaging, and I seldom tell her what it is, and she reports the correct effects almost every time.

I believe he’s right about one thing - his own Urban Ice brand comes in one giant unmarked shipment of bricks and he sorts it by color into bullshit names he makes up - also, all of the cheap crappy kratom he buys is from people who just go around by the river picking up dirty leaves off the ground. I have no desire to try his “brand” of kratom and I think he’s terrible for the industry.

[trigger]

I would like to hear your take on wild vs farm. I get annoyed when I see kratom called “plantation” strain - like that’s a bonus. Most of it comes from a farm and is “plantation” and most plantation strain I’ve tried is pretty weak.

[mivanqua]

I'm about to buy some more herbaldom plantation MD tomorrow, and whence I do, I'll send ya a little and you won't be saying that anymore. This stuff is GREEN GOLD.

[brave777]

Same tree, red vein and white, a nice stand out. thought you guys would enjoy this. I also dont like that legal high Guy, i get very bad vibe from him. The dog makes him look better but i am not buying most stuff he says. We need a video on the ground in indo, walking around the farmers places and see how it is with their own eyes, then share it with the world, everything else is only predictions or assumptions.

[CheefingChief]

99% of the kratom imported is Red Vein - the marketed vein color of kratom is really determined by how it was dried/processed.

This 100 %

[CheefingChief]

On above, meant to say 100% true. Lol

[gumbyke1]

Same tree, red vein and white, a nice stand out. thought you guys would enjoy this. I also dont like that legal high Guy, i get very bad vibe from him. The dog makes him look better but i am not buying most stuff he says. We need a video on the ground in indo, walking around the farmers places and see how it is with their own eyes, then share it with the world, everything else is only predictions or assumptions.

That legal guy high is the owner of a well-known kratom brand... I don't think anyone loves him, lol. I have plenty of videos with the farmers/harvesters..... I do video chats with them all the time. What would you like to see?

[gumbyke1]

I would like to hear your take on wild vs farm. I get annoyed when I see kratom called “plantation” strain - like that’s a bonus. Most of it comes from a farm and is “plantation” and most plantation strain I’ve tried is pretty weak.

There are both plantation and wild harvesters. As a general rule, the wild harvest will usually have a better alkaloid profile because the trees are usually older/mature. However, I know of a supplier that does have a farm that has trees at 10 years old and he produces some very nice product when its processed well.

Kratom trees do not produce mitragynine until they are roughly 3 years old. Any tree younger than that will make for some very poor kratom. If you have ever heard the story that kratom used to be better several years ago it is for this very reason. In Indonesia, hardly anybody uses kratom so it has only become a commodity over there when the US and European markets began to discover kratom in significant numbers. This increase in demand also coincides at a time where rubber prices are falling, so many farmers have switched from growing rubber trees to kratom trees. The only problem with that is a lot of that has happened within the past couple of years, meaning much of those plantations are not yet 3 years old. When you consider that the vast majority of farmed kratom leaves are sold by these farmers to brokers, the young and the old get mixed in together. However, some farmers are independently reaching the US market and buying their own milling equipment. Those farmers usually have a better product (if they have mature trees), because they control the whole process farm to table) I can share some videos of this kind of operation... its cool to see how they do it.


*Edit - I just realized that I already talked about the 3 year and farming in my previous post, lol. Oh well, here is more context.

[brave777]

That legal guy high is the owner of a well-known kratom brand... I don't think anyone loves him, lol. I have plenty of videos with the farmers/harvesters..... I do video chats with them all the time. What would you like to see?

For real? I would love to see a glimpse of nice farm plantation how it looks and also wild big tree's, how do they collect leafs if tall? do they cut the tree's down? i also want to see how they rake and bag kratom leaf during fall? I am pretty sure the fallen leaf has all the alkaloids possible since its mature, right?

[gumbyke1]

Yes I have plenty of videos. I require videos/photos from new suppliers to prove the kratom is coming from mature trees and if they claim its wild harvested that it actually is.

Ill post some later.

Edited- I removed the "tonight" from the time I said I will post pictures I had something pop up that I have to do tonight. Sorry!

[mivanqua]

Yes I have plenty of videos. I require videos/photos from new suppliers to prove the kratom is coming from mature trees and if they claim its wild harvested that it actually is.

Ill post some later.

Edited- I removed the "tonight" from the time I said I will post pictures I had something pop up that I have to do tonight. Sorry!

Tonight or never, Gumby! Just kidding of course. I think we all want a little bit of the shroud of mystery to be lifted from kratom. A little mystery is fine, but here in America, its standard practice to feed all interested parties bullshit and/or disinfornation to the end of making money. No bueno! I'm glad that you are a part of this community and look forward to your future contributions and sincerely appreciate the past ones. You are exactly what we, the serious kratom users, need to understand when the truth ends and the lies begin.