The creator of the world’s first plastic tanoa has moved to patent the product in the United States, making it impossible for any copycat to export its products into what has become the world’sbiggest kava drinking market.
Owner of US company Kavafied and kava growing pioneer Matt Masifi lo had filed the patent application on May 9, 2024, which was finally officially approved and granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office and published on
May 12, 2026.
The approval provides Mr Masifi lo with a 15-year monopoly over the product’s design, according to Mr Masifi lo, who sent a copy of the patent document to the Fiji Times yesterday.
“The copycat plastic tanoas made in Fiji can not be exported to the US now or face legal action,” he said, noting his concerns over how copycats in Fiji have “ripped our products off ”.
“Only the Kavafied-printed one Lami Kava sells is legitimate. The ones with out it is a copycat. But fair game in Fiji.”
Mr Masifi lo – an American of Tongan descent who remembers drinking kava from a bucket in Tonga because no one could afford a tanoa – said it took him 10 years to produce the final plastic tanoa product that he now holds the patent to in the US.
“To clarify, this is simply just a patent for our specifi c design on the tanoa, not the tanoa or kava bowl overall,” he said.
Acknowledging that this could lead to a controversial conversation as it borders on appropriation of Pacific cultural totems, with the tanoa exclusively an intellectual property of many Pacific cultures, Mr Masifi lo said his “kava bowl” patent would not have been granted by the US patent office if it was not unique in its design.
Kava drinking has become a popular pastime in the US, with a recent survey conducted by the Kava Coalition, an American kava advocacy group, putting the number of kava drinkers in the US alone at around 21million, who consume kava in different ways either at home or in the 500 or so kava bars across the country.
