Our founder, Matt Masifilo, invented The AluBall after the 2014 NFL football season concluded. Matt, a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, saw a need to develop a simple and quick way to make Kava after years of sharing it with his teammates. During an NFL season, time is of the essence and although constantly craving a cup of Kava after a long practice or workout, there was just no time for it.
What struck Matt more than his lack of time to make Kava was the insight that new users were very skeptical of their ability to make a cup of Kava the traditional way (kneading a strainer bag of Kava roots and water over a bowl). He found that this deterred new users from enjoying Kava on their own. He also realized that the sight of making Kava the traditional way appeared out of the norm enough to deter potential new users from trying Kava.
With these needs in mind, Matt put his engineering degree from Stanford to work and developed the now Patent Pending AluBall™ with the hopes of making Kava more accessible to the masses. It is our belief that the AluBall™ will help the Kava industry grow by simplifying the process of making Kava and presenting it in a format (Shaker Bottle) that is already socially accepted.
Our Patent Pending AluBall™ and Kava brewing method mimics the traditional kneading process required to extract the Kavalactones (active ingredients) from the Kava roots. When placed in a bottle with water and shaken, the rapid flow of water through the AluBall™ forces the Kava roots back and forth and up against the spherical stainless steel filter. This applies repeated pressure to the Kava roots thus extracting the Kavalactones from it and keeping the unwanted remnants contained.
The development of the AluBall™ was possible thanks to the recent advances in 3D-Printing technology. With the availability of desktop 3D-Printers, we were able to produce multiple iterations of the AluBall™ in weeks instead of months. This allowed us to conduct multiple rounds of testing and re-designing which wouldn’t have been feasible a few years back.
