The active ingredients of tongkat ali are soluble in water. Traditionally, in Malaysia it is brewed as a kind of very bitter coffee. The chipped root is best used in this way. To extract the active ingredients, the chipped root or root powder should be cooked about 30 minutes. Our extract is produced from chipped root, not from powder. Thus, no cellulose makes it into the extract.
Our extract is dry crystallized. It comes as a powder that appears similar to an instant coffee powder.
Obviously, every user can easily produce his own liquid extract. For this purpose, it is recommended that chipped root is purchased, not root powder. The chipped roots are boiled for about half an hour. The root chips are then discarded, and the water is drunk just as coffee (it doesn't taste as good, though).
Our extracts are produced by evaporating the water. The reminder initially is a sticky sap. Water is then further extracted, finally yielding the instant powder. The extract powder is water-soluble and can be mixed into a little tepid water, or added to capsule mixtures.
Root powder in capsules, as it is offered in the US, is a gimmick. The root powder is very light, so what would fit into a typical supplement capsule is just some 100 milligram. One would have to swallow 200 capsules to have the effect of one capsule filled with 400 milligram of our 1:50 extract.
And, what's worse, a common brand of Tongkat Ali in the US that claims to be 1:100 extract possibly is just root powder. This suspicion is justified because the supplement application of the company marketing the capsules (of Malaysian origin) with the FDA has just been for root powder, not for tongkat ali extract. Anybody can check this for himself by conducting a search on the FDA website (www.fda.gov) for tongkat ali.
Unfortunately, the sale of plain root powder, or root powder in capsules, gives tongkat ali a bad name. Tongkat ali won't have a therapeutic or pro-sexual effect at that dosage, so people will falsely conclude that this herbal supplement is useless.
Genuine tongkat ali extract does have a clear effect.
