Only a few years ago, kava was earning millions in exports for the Pacific. But then quality problems saw kava banned in Europe and North America. Now a Vanuatu kava expert wants to reinvent the Pacific's favourite brew...in Asia. Here's Clement Paligaru on the bottle, the brew and the French scientist.

Clement Paligaru: For centuries kava has played an important role across the Pacific, revered for its customary use and sacred presence.

Typically roots of the kava plant are ground and mixed with water to make a mild narcotic concoction, popular as a social drink in the Pacific.

Vanuatu Council of Chiefs, Chief Vira Tabe: Almost all the islands in Vanuatu, people drink kava every evening. It becomes part of life of the communities in the islands. It relaxes you a lot better than beer. Beer gets you excited. You know alcohol gets you excited. Kava keeps you quiet.

Kava bar regular, Moe Saksak: I come and have a shell of kava just to relax and share the late afternoon with my friends. And an extra shell of kava keeps the momentum going quite happily.

Clement Paligaru: That relaxant effect made kava popular in pill form in Europe and the United States during the late 1990's.

Vincent Lebot: And we had what we call a kava boom. In the (United) States everybody wanted to try kava and the market was very demanding.

Clement Paligaru: Kava became the most important cash crop in decades, earning Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga tens of millions in export earnings.

Vincent Lebot: About 20 million Euro in 98 - '99. It was a boom. I mean people were dreaming that this was the solution because in the Pacific it is very difficult to develop agriculture because we are very isolated and we cannot compete with South East Asia.

Clement Paligaru: But the hopes of hundreds of farmers evaporated early this decade, when Europe and the United States banned kava.

Vincent Lebot: The Europeans said and published and wrote that kava was toxic. Basically the market completely collapsed almost overnight. In a year or two, the kava boom went from dream to nightmare.

Chief Vira Tabe: Kava isn't a health hazard. We've been drinking kava for centuries and we know.

Clement Paligaru: That's why Vanuatu's kava promoters believe the future lies in exports to Asia, where there is a strong tradition of health drinks.

Kava store owner, Charles Longwah: They have a big population. But the Asian are different. You take India or you take China, they have a lot of herbal drink.

Vincent Lebot: We have to advertise that it's a tea or a vegetable juice, just like carrot juice. You can buy carrot juice in any supermarket in the world. Carrot is a root just like kava is a root. In Indonesia people are Muslim. It's not recommended for them to drink alcohol. And you could imagine that the Muslims would like to drink kava as well. Well there are hundreds of millions (of Muslims).

Clement Paligaru: But successfully exporting kava to Asia depends on good marketing.

Vincent Lebot: Dirty roots like that are not attractive for the Asian market. You cannot go to Hong Kong or Shanghai and tell them, "I'm going to sell you this". People will run away. They want something more fancy. It's not a problem to process kava into something attractive. Freeze drying for example, will produce a nice green powder that you can reconstitute into fresh kava just by by adding water - it's not much to do and it's very similar to tea.

Clement Paligaru: Kava experts admit quality has been an issue. It's believed that some kava pills sold in Europe were produced using kava bark and branches instead of the root, possibly contributing to toxicity.

Charles Longwah: We have to do a better job on quality control. But quality control, with nothing on hand scientifically, we cannot do.

Vincent Lebot: We have invested in an infra red spectrometer and very soon we will have cheap analysis which is something we need to control the quality.

Clement Paligaru: Some believe exporting kava could be the answer to world peace.

Chief Vira Tabe: Where there are lots of hostilities, there is lots of aggression, you take kava there and people would be sitting quietly and talking to each other. It helps people to relax, and to talk freely.