Resembling dishwater and tasting like mud, kava is an unlikely hit drink. But to devotees, kava, or 'awa in Hawaiian, is a treasured elixir that can calm nerves and deepen sleep — all without slowing your mind and making you slur your words.

Islanders from Fiji to Hawai'i have been drinking kava for centuries to cement bonds among friends and strangers. Priests and elders offered kava to the gods in religious ceremonies.

Now, the ancient beverage is making a modest comeback in Hawai'i amid a broader cultural renaissance in Hawaiian language, music and arts.

"We're at the point now where we don't want any more drinkers. Our market is flooded. We got more 'awa drinkers than we have product," said Jerry Konanui, a kava farmer, drinker and president of the Association for Hawaiian Awa. "So we're in a bind. We're looking for farmers."

The potion is made by mixing water with the pounded root of a pepper plant called kava, or Piper methysticum. Although often mistaken for a narcotic, kava is instead akin to a combination of an anti-anxiety drug, a local anesthetic and drugs used in psychotherapy to help people communicate, said Martha Harkey, a former University of California-Davis pharmacology professor.

Frequently, it makes drinkers feel calm and perhaps mildly euphoric. While several cups of coffee may make you jittery, several cups of kava will put you at ease.

Konanui said he was introduced to kava several years ago.

"Ohhh, as a replacement to alcohol, to beer, whiskey, I love 'awa. I can best describe it as a massage from inside out," Konanui said at an annual kava festival held at the University of Hawai'i.

The first Hawaiians are believed to have brought the kava plant with them from other Pacific isles — probably the Marquesas — when they discovered Hawai'i around 500 A.D.

Oral histories tell of planters offering kava to the gods to secure bountiful harvests. Big Island elders were said to offer kava to a shark deity to drive fish into fishermen's nets.

Royalty and commoner alike would drink kava, though the elite helped themselves to the plant's rarer varieties. Even children had some: adults would feed irritable babies a mild variety called nene to calm them.

Kava gradually fell out of favor, however, after the 19th-century arrival of Christian missionaries, who disapproved of its intoxicating effects and the way it encouraged "idolatry."

As Christianity spread, Hawaiian religious ceremonies using kava became increasingly marginalized, and many kava traditions were lost. The government also began to require permits for kava medicine.

By Margaret Titcomb's 1948 study "Kava in Hawai'i," usage had almost ceased, and only botanists and a few older Hawaiians knew of the plant.

Kava has only started to significantly reappear in Hawai'i during the past decade, though it's still not mainstream.

Many Hawai'i kava drinkers credit the state's first kava bar, Hale Noa, founded in Honolulu in 1999, for introducing them to the drink. A handful of other bars have since sprouted.

Drinking kava does have some negative effects.

Those who imbibe a great deal can develop dry, cracked, scaly skin. And you may have trouble walking if you absorb too much in one sitting because your muscles will be so relaxed. Some Hawai'i kava cafes require patrons to step up to the counter for their kava drinks so they can see who's gone overboard.

California and Fiji authorities have arrested people for allegedly driving under the influence after drinking kava, but courts have ruled there wasn't enough evidence to prove the substance impeded driving.

The most serious allegations of harm have come from indications that kava, when taken regularly as an herbal supplement, may damage the liver. Several European countries banned kava herbal supplements several years ago as a result, but later research put the likely source of the problem in supplement manufacturers' use of kava bark, not just the kava root, to make their pills. The bark, which Islanders have never used in their kava, may contain an alkaloid toxic to the liver.

Kava is still evolving in new directions.

Researchers are developing kava that can be bottled for retail sale. Float Beverages LLC, a Ho-nolulu startup, has launched a bottled concoction of kava, lemonade, ginger and mint it hopes to start offering in stores next year.