What’s in our kratom?

[Psilocyberdemon]

Came across this old reddit post. I have a leaky heart valve created by a near overdose on caffeine and I can’t have it anymore. Also it makes me really irritable and restless. So when I read this I wonder if that’s why I feel the way I do sometimes. Good kratom I don’t feel a crash at all in the day. If someone can replace that old aka petition with this post to help others see it that’d be great. With crushed leaf I feel I don’t have to worry as much about it being cut with something that I cant have.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kratom/comment ... mment_list

Post moved, see below.

[BallzDeep9]

Interesting. Thanks for grabbing this, Psilocyberdemon. Original post by our reddit friend BadgerSilver.

Question: When did you copy & paste this ?? Date and Time? It appears they have now removed all of Badger's posts!!!

[DanoMadera]

The bentuangie fermenting process takes place in plastic bags as seen in the two photos below.





Elephant leaves are off of elephant leaf trees apparently.







a horned leaf has little horns as seen below.

[whiffypants]

It appears they have now removed all of Badger's posts!!!

Nope, u/badgersilver is posting just fine and still has posts on the main sub. Both Hymnder and DB were on board with what he was saying; here's a post where DB actually gives the links to the whole series of posts, including the material Psilo just copypasted above.

Because both the active mods at the time were in agreement with what was being said, my guess is that they felt forced to remove them in March as a part of the Reddit requirements to keep the sub open: anything having to do with vendors, sourcing, selling, etc had to be removed as far back as they could get.

[BallzDeep9]

DB actually gives the links to the whole series of posts,

Whiffy click on any of those links ... See what I mean? Badger's stuff was removed.... I'm trying to figure out WHEN.

Watch those dates.. the page you posted by DB, was from a year ago. Lot has changed in the past 6 months! I mean - IF they're going back to remove/ censor old posts - they're really destroying valuable "information" there. That sucks...

NO - not removed in March. I'm pretty sure ALL of his stuff, was still there a week ago ... strange huh? None of his "Curious Colors" posts contained advertising.. recall they DID announce in March, that older posts - reviews, etc - would not be censored - they'd have to delete most of the sub. AFAIK all the older reviews are still there? Do a Search on a unique vendor name, Kraken, or Bunny, for example. Still there.

[Psilocyberdemon]

Ok, for reasons I don’t want to mention, I don’t feel comfortable explaining how I found these articles. That was part 2, which I included here for the complete saga. Here are the rest of them.

Part 0

“I see a variety of colors on every kratom vender's website. There are browns, yellows, deep greens and light greens, tans, and even rust colored strains. But, when I receive the product, they are all a nearly identical drab light green color! What?

I've purchased from several reputable venders, and I've never seen a difference. Why is this? Is it a shady marketing trick, or something more ethical?”


Part 1

“A few days ago I posted a prompt asking the community why there are so many different colors of kratom on vender sites. The responses were very positive and informative. That post is here
In short, I was asking the community why there is such a variance in the pictures of kratom. Several of the replies suggested it was a marketing technique. I can understand enhancing product photos, and I don't view it as dishonest. That explains the pictures, but as it turns out and as many of you know, there are different (less vibrant) colors of kratom. An exceptional example is this picture by blkbriar42
Now I wanted to know why! Kratom leaves are essentially the same color when picked, except for the actual vein of the plant, correct? These leaf veins can account for a small bit of variance, but surely not as much as we see around. I hadn't even personally seen brown kratom until very recently.
My intense curiosity got the better of me, and I reached out to several (8) Indonesian suppliers, and a Sumatran supplier. Most of them were super friendly and open about their product. I asked them everything under the sun about their kratom, it's drying process, how and when it's picked, and what the differences in each strain and vein are. Their answers blew me away. The shear amount of information cannot be posted here, but if you too are curious, feel free to pm me.
Anyway, one man gave me particular insight. He is a fairly large-scale supplier at ~1000 kilos a month. He sent me a copy of his business license and gave me a couple good references in the US. He also gave me a list of his available products. Now get this: I asked him if he could give me each strain in whole leaf form and he said that he could not. I asked him why and he explained that there are only truly 3 leaves sold out of Indonesia: Green, Red, and Horned. Confused, I asked him how 3 leaves were turned into ~12 products that he was selling. He wouldn't spill most of the beans but he explained several processes that are completely new to me.
The first thing is how they mix the powder. He told me that sometimes different suppliers will mix their "secret ingredients" in with the powder to be unique (Edit: I should clarify that these secret ingredients were all organic, no chemicals or anything). They then sell these under interesting names, which may or may not be accurate to the actual product. One method of potentiating kratom (at least by him) is by mixing the powder with a small bit of tea made from resin. This water turns the powder rust colored. They then re-dry this kratom, which then has a very broken-down and consistent texture, and sell it under a different name. This may (or may not) account for some of the stronger Bentuagies and brown reds. Another common process bewildered me, he told me some people would brown the powder by letting it get rained on! He made it seem as if it was unavoidable.
A little more research into this checks out. Most kratom is dried in the sunlight, as light and ventilation systems are far too expensive in a country that makes roughly a 15th of what Americans make per capita. The best most suppliers can do is cover the product when it rains. Also, Indonesia gets almost three times the amount of rain as Seattle. Here is the clincher though: the rainiest month of the year for Indonesia and South-East Asia is January! This would make it nearly impossible to keep all the kratom dry, resulting in an increase of the brown colored powders in recent weeks. This would also give a reason to some of the mold/yeast issues that have been seen recently.
This post is not to cause contention, or to place doubt on venders or your favorite strains. It is, however, a call to increased transparency in our kratom supplies. The best way that I can think of to do this is to stop accepting powders from suppliers, and instead ask for the whole leaf.
Tell me what you think! Anyone interested in a 2nd part?”

Part 2

“A few days ago I posted and investigation of sorts into the kratom production process. I gave a few insights from kratom suppliers themselves, but for the most part I held off on giving more information. Due to the ~50 or so people that contacted me requesting details, I feel obligated to supply a proper report on industry practices. This is not comprehensive, but it will include what I have learned and deem useful to the community. Part 1 here After a few more days digging into the production of the product, seeking deep in forums, and late nights with talks with these distributors, I have quite the story to tell. None of these suppliers had contact with one another during this process, so their information is independent.
Disclaimer: the purpose of this post is for open information and the transparency of the kratom industry. This is not to cast doubt on any person or vendor, but to open the community up to discussion.
Harvesting The vast majority of kratom is harvested on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world, covering a space approximately 1/3rd the size of the amazon rainforest, or nearly equal to the size of Texas. It is chalk full of animal life. Unfortunately, in the last century a large portion of the rainforest has been cut down for lumber, rubber plantations, and palm oil plantations. These trees grow much better on industrial plantations that in the natural forest. But, In the last 10 or so years, kratom has become a very profitable export. Where rubber might fetch $3 a kilo, kratom can fetch $5-10 a kilo using less space. It is also a local and naturally occuring plant that grows well without tending. This helps the environment by allowing more people to make a living without having to cut more forest. Deforestation continues illegally in some areas, but kratom can take some credit for slowing that spread.
Although nearly all kratom is virtually identical, there are at least 3 true strains: horned, green (same as white but more mature leaves), red, and elephant. Thai is said to be it's own strain, but there is little to no evidence that this is true. Maeng Da used to mean that it was from the best Thai plantation, but once it was banned in Thailand, it became the name for a suppliers's very best leaf. Each of these is grown in every country and region that grows kratom. Like all plants, the area that it is grown affects the properties slightly. Just as California wine supposedly differs slightly from italian wine, Thai supposedly differs slightly from Kapua. I can neither prove nor disprove any other differences.
As explained by my Indonesian friends, there are only three places that kratom grows.
1 Along the rivers. Despite what vendors claim, this is where kratom grows plentifully wild and where most of our kratom comes from. Collector groups rotate areas of picking to ensure that their livelihood is not ruined. Very sustainable for now.
2 In the hills/deep forest. Some of the best kratom comes from older growth trees deeper in the forest. These trees have a higher concentration of alkaloids, especially the bottom leaves which tend to be bigger. Harvesting the bottom leaves is a natural process, as animals and the lack of sunlight would normally kill these leaves first. Protection from too much sunlight also preserves some of the more delicate alkaloids. They sometimes call these "elephant" leaves. there also seems to be a larger variety of leaves called by the same name. So far, nobody has been able to tell the difference in larger leaves and an actual larger species. The oldest trees, or "OG" for old growth, are also found deep in the forest. The oldest trees are said to have the most potent leaves, but nobody I've found can verify this with lab data (please contact me if you have found otherwise). One vender told me that these reached 2.7% mitragynine levels.
3 Plantations. As stated before, these are usually re-purposed rubber or palm oil plantations. The plants from plantations are usually fairly young 5-10 year old trees. Some plantations have older areas, but I have yet to see a distinction in product naming for those areas.
Drying There are several methods of drying that I have discovered. They fall into two groups.
1 Indoor drying by hanging This method is very similar to how tobacco is dried. You hang the leaves by strings to ensure proper drying. They are out of the sun, and depending on the weather, dry in 3 days. This preserves some of the more delicate alkaloids. Indoor drying by drying beds. This method will produce the same results as hanging if spaced properly. If not spaced properly, it may take a week or more for the leaves to dry. If your kratom was dried inside it should have a dull green color.
2 Outdoor method This is pretty self-explanatory. The leaves are placed outside in the sun to dry. The sun alone will turn the pigments brown if left for a few days. Sometimes it rains on the leaves, which then are left to re-dry. Two vendors explained to me that gold varieties are simply leaves that are dried in the morning before the direct sun comes out (someone enlighten me on this topic if you have good info). Sometimes they finish the drying inside. This gives the powder some color without breaking down the leaf and it's alkaloids too much. Color can be a huge thing in South-East Asian markets.
When leaves have been turned brown by getting rained on and left outside, they are sometimes just called "red" regardless of which strain they actually are. This accounts for some great red strains we've all had, and some that weren't the best. I could not get any information on Bentuangie. If someone would like to share, I would appreciate it. I suspect that true fermented Bentuangie is rare, and that this brown stuff is used as a substitute, but I have no true evidence either way. Sun-dried kratom can have unique properties, but is not documented thoroughly. I would love to get some tests of verified strains to see the alkaloid profiles. If you guys are interested, I may start a pool of donations for that purpose for our favorite strains. A few suppliers told me that 1 day sun-dried is best.
Additives This is the hot topic that I had to delve into. Additives in our kratom could lead to huge issues in the future if the leaf is regulated. After swearing the Indonesian distributors to honesty, I asked them what is added to the final product. There are two main additives that can make it into your powder.
1 Green tea or Matcha A few of the vendors admitted to adding bright green matcha or green tea powder to their product. Their reasoning behind this is that is gives a greater aroma to the mix with the side effect of brightening the green of the powder. They also do this because green tea is cheap and has a pleasant aroma. Fortunately, the green tea is organic. Unfortunately, we have no idea where the tea powder comes from or how much they add. We have always heard that green vein is more stimulating, and this is a likely cause of that. For some who don't regularly have caffeine, like myself, this can cause some unwanted effects. So, without the tea, the differences in varieties may be more subtle than we originally thought.
2 Rust and tool contaminates/ dirt and millstone dust Independently, a couple of my suppliers told me that they didn't use any dirty or rusty tools to process and grind, but were quick to say that there are others who do. The only tool that I have seen used is a sieve for fine grinding. I cannot confirm that any distributor does this, but that is what I was told. In some areas they still grind the kratom with stones or millstones. Small amounts of dust come off those millstones and into the kratom. This process, however, has never shown to be harmful. For thousands of years milling of every sort has been done this way. Sometimes, when the kratom is drying, dust or other contaminates may get on it. This is common sense, but accounts for some of the grit.
Mixing The most annoying thing that I learned from the suppliers is their willy-nilly mixing of different powders. sometimes if they get an off-color batch, they will just mix it in with the rest. Sometimes, they will mix multiple strains and send it out as premium, sometimes they will mix two and call it kali, or change names to fill an order. It was so frustrating going back and forth to ensure that product would be exactly what I ordered.
Example: I ask to get red kapuas. The supplier says he has it ready. I ask, what is in red kapuas. He says it is actually green kapuas. What? I say I need red kapuas. He says he will get it in two days. Then I ask him about it two days later and he says he has red kapuas ready for me, best color. I ask him what color the powder is. He says brown. I say it should still be green if it was dried inside. He says it was dried inside. I question that and he says he actually does not have red kapuas, but a green strain that had been dried outside that they call red. I say I guess I'll take some green kapuas and I ask where is this powder shipped from. He says Pontianak. I say, was it harvested near Pontianak? He says yes. Then it is not kapuas (it's literally a 20 hour trip through the wildest jungle on earth from Pontianak)! He explains that it is the same anyway. UGGHHHH No! Anyway, I didn't end up ordering from that guy, but it seems most of them had little things like that. Maybe it was that they couldn't understand requests, or that they don't think that we will be able to tell the difference, or that it doesn't matter as much as we think it does.
Distribution So far, there have been 3 steps in the process. The vendor is the fourth person in the supply chain, and the consumer is the fifth. The collector group sells their kratom to a local distributor, who then dries and sells it to a larger scale distributor (the type of people whom I've contacted), who then sells it to an American vendor, who then sells it to the consumer. The price of the product roughly doubles every step. So if you bought a kilo for $100, the vendor got it for $50, the large distributor got it for $25, the local supplier got it for $12.50, and the collector gets $6.25 per kilo. Collect a few kilos a day, and those people have made a living.
In Conclusion The industry is overall safe. There is nothing that I've found out (including that guy walking all over the leaf) that would deter me from supporting kratom and it's Indonesian sources. The benefits farrrr outweigh the potential risk. I trust the kratom industry more than those lower shelf grapes at a supermarket. I'm currently in the process of buying whole leaves with pictures of each stage in the process. In the next few weeks I may end up selling them, would anyone be interested? Other than that, the best thing we can do is buy from reputable vendors, watch out for any bunk kratom, and continue to self-regulate the industry.
If you made it through, thank you for reading! Leave a comment, ask questions, or pm me!”

Part 3

“A week or so back, I posted a guide essentially digging into why kratom comes in different colors, how it is processed, and where it comes from. I established good relationships with several Indonesian/Sumatran suppliers who gave me all sorts of insight. They informed me of some strange, and even unethical practices regarding drying processes and additives. I concluded that the only way to make certain the quality of my (and your) leaf is to get it whole, as powder can hide any number of quality issues. If you want more info, that post is here
So, I asked each and every supplier to send me whole leaf. I gave them great offers if they could obtain it for me. To my disappointment, only 2 of them even could. The rest, as far as I could tell, had no connection to the actual leaf source. This was alarming. I doubt that they even know where their leaf comes from. As a test, I also received powder samples from each supplier. After testing, I concluded that their ability to source whole leaf was a solid indicator of the quality of their powder.
I ordered several kilos. Due to packaging restraints, and how fluffy leaf is, I had to get most of that in crumb form. It took a few weeks and a few days in customs, but eventually the package arrived! I opened it and was delighted to see the leaves tightly packed with distinct veins. They had good green color and smelled very fresh. I ground them up and was very surprised by the results! Check them out, and additional information here! I had several people contact me about obtaining some of this whole leaf, and it was immediately sent out to them. Sadly, the seller shorted me, and I wasn't able to get it to a few who asked about it. The good news is that I will be receiving quite a bit more. If you are interested, pm me.
You'll notice a couple things in the photos that I will expound on. The leaf went from a drab green when whole, to a brighter green when crushed, to a nearly lime green when finely powdered. This blows my mind! After this little experiment, I'm convinced that fresh ground yields a superior product. The samples that I received in the same package that were labeled as the same strain, were a very different, almost brown color. This means something is degrading the quality in the distributor's process.
Anyway, I sent off all of the leaf, but kept 10 grams to try (the amount I milled). And boy was it good. There is something about waiting in anticipation, seeing a package has arrived, opening a new box, grinding your own premium kratom, and burning it. The whole experience was something different and enlightening. Whole leaf, whole experience. The powder, surprisingly, was extremely mild tasting. No bitterness, sourness, or frog's butt-hole aftertaste. The release of tension was the most notable effect, with slight sedation, and a good amount of euphoria. Very pleasant. I get this very jittery feeling when taking some kratom, that I didn't feel at all. If you've read my previous posts, I'm very sensitive to caffeine. It gives me the worst jitters and anxiety. This was the complete opposite. I understand that my experience is entirely subjective, so I won't hype it up too much. Good stuff though.
In light of this experience, one thing is clear to me: There is freedom in seeing where your products come from in their true form. In food, natural medicine, and supplements, this is especially true. Products in these areas are well ahead of the curve in transparent sourcing and processing practices. In the food and supplement industry, products can be traced to the very day they were harvested, to the very spot they were made or picked. Kratom cannot, but we would like to get it to that point. It has been very safe and effective for millions of people, but I can't say I can prove where ANY kratom comes from. This is not for lack of trying though. The community is hard at work to self regulate and find superior products. We are asking our suppliers questions as never before. We are cautious in our buying practices. In the coming months, I'm excited to see where this demand for better kratom leads.
As always, thank you for reading my word barf. Comment, vote, and tune in next time!”

[whiffypants]

Whiffy click on any of those links ... See what I mean? Badger's stuff was removed.... I'm trying to figure out WHEN.

Watch those dates.. the page you posted by DB, was from a year ago. Lot has changed in the past 6 months! I mean - IF they're going back to remove/ censor old posts - they're really destroying valuable "information" there. That sucks...

Yeah, I saw the date -- a year ago, which means that particular comment was too old to get removed during the March purges -- and the links, the content of each having been removed.

I was only saying that at the time it was posted and for some time thereafter, seemed like they were all on board with what Badger was saying: if they're gonna link to his posts as references it's unlikely they'd have removed them for cause, unless they later had a falling out.

Going through his post history, he has comments as recent as August that are still there on the main sub that have not been removed, posts that he started in r/kratom that have not been removed, and it doesn't look like he's on Reddit all that frequently these days anyway.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that it was a mod action, because the posts say [removed]. If Badger had done it himself they'd say [deleted]. So you're absolutely right about that part of it.

AFAIK all the older reviews are still there? Do a Search on a unique vendor name, Kraken, or Bunny, for example. Still there.

Not exactly, heh. It's a little more complex than that.

For us and our own amount of traffic, we were able to go back to early February, so anything referencing sourcing or vending from early February forward is gone. For r/kratom, that time period was much shorter because the number of posts on the main sub dwarf ours, so maybe they got as far back as early March. Anything before that is still there and available via search. But in the end, whatever they could reach via links on the main r/kratom page got deleted, same as us. The difference is in the amount of traffic: a thousand posts for the main sub is a week or two, for us a month and a half. We were ALL deleting stuff that we thought might get us banned, so God only knows what happened.

So bear that in mind. I'm not saying they -didn't- go all Stalinesque on ol' Badger and delete those particular posts in the meantime, for whatever crazy ass reason. But as a mod, if I wanted to delete a single user's posts from my sub, I'd do it from the user's own history page because it would take me back much farther than my sub's main page (and be easier to search). r/kratom hasn't done that: the proof is there in his user history. Which makes it more likely that the removal was part of something else. Either way, they didn't nuke all his posts -- just those, at least at first glance.

Feel free to disagree, I've been known to get it wrong before. But there it is in his user history, comments and posts. Take a look.

[Smokenfireball]

Interesting investgation he did on indo Kratom sources.
Sounds like Kratom crumbs would be better than the milled Kratom.

Does anyone know where to get Kratom crumbs?

[RumRunner]

Bump. This is a good read.

[NEFbotanicals]

its all from mitragyna speciosa leaf, but from the process it splits to 3 ways, from different dry technique it makes 3 kind. green, white and red

[RumRunner]

its all from mitragyna speciosa leaf, but from the process it splits to 3 ways, from different dry technique it makes 3 kind. green, white and red

How is white made?

[Jada1472]

Bump. This is a good read.

Thanks for bumping this. It was a good read. Nothing surprising but still good to sort through