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Reference · 51 Terms

The kratom glossary, in plain English.

Every term you will meet on a Garuda label, a certificate of analysis, a strain page, or a state legality update, each defined in a sentence or three. Link to any term directly; every entry has its own anchor.

The Plant

Mitragyna speciosa: The Latin binomial name for the kratom tree, a tropical evergreen native to Southeast Asia. Mature trees reach 40 to 80 feet in the wild.
Rubiaceae: The coffee family of flowering plants, which kratom belongs to alongside coffee (Coffea arabica), cinchona, and gardenia. Like its relatives, kratom is rich in indole alkaloids.
Alkaloid: A naturally occurring nitrogen-containing plant compound. Kratom leaf contains more than 40 documented alkaloids, and the mix is what a lab quantifies on a COA.
Mitragynine: The most abundant alkaloid in kratom leaf, typically 60 to 70 percent of total alkaloid content. The mitragynine percentage is the headline number on a kratom lab report and varies naturally by harvest, region, and vein color.
7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-OH): A trace oxidative product of mitragynine, typically under 2 percent of total alkaloids in natural leaf, rising modestly with drying and age. Products with engineered, concentrated 7-OH are a separate category that regulators schedule separately from the plant; Hudson Valley Botanicals has never sold them.
Secondary alkaloids: The remaining roughly 30 percent of kratom's alkaloid content: speciogynine, speciociliatine, paynantheine, corynantheidine, mitraphylline, and others. Together they form the fingerprint that makes each lot distinct.
Leaf vein: The central rib of the kratom leaf, which shifts color as the leaf matures: white in young growth, green at mid-maturity, red at full maturity. Vein color at harvest is the starting point of strain classification.

Veins and Strains

Vein color: The classification shorthand (white, green, red, yellow, gold) describing leaf maturity at harvest and the drying method used. Same tree, same species; what changes is when the leaf is picked and how it is dried.
White vein: Young leaves given a short indoor dry with minimal light. White lots typically test toward the higher end of Garuda mitragynine results.
Green vein: Mid-maturity leaves dried part indoors and part outdoors, producing an alkaloid ratio between white and red.
Red vein: Fully mature leaves given the longest dry, often sun-finished. Red lots typically test lower in mitragynine than whites, greens, and golds; that is the leaf, not a defect.
Yellow vein: Not a separate harvest: white or green leaf dried longer, often with controlled sun exposure, until the powder takes a yellow-gold hue.
Gold vein: A specialty process in which red leaf is briefly fermented before drying, yielding a distinct alkaloid ratio and a copper-tinted powder.
Strain: A named combination of region, vein color, and processing method, such as Red Bali or Green Hulu. Strain names describe sourcing and process, not effects.
Maeng Da: A Thai-origin trade name that came to mean a grower's selected, higher-grade harvest: chosen trees, deliberate picking, careful drying. Used across vein colors, as in White Maeng Da and Red Maeng Da.
Bali (naming): A naming convention from the old spice trade: leaf grown on Borneo that historically shipped through Bali port routes. Bali strains are Borneo-grown; the name marks the route, not the island.
Single-origin: Leaf from one region and one harvest stream rather than a mix of sources. Single-origin lots keep a traceable line from farm to batch number.
Blend: Two or more single-origin strains combined in-house after drying, producing a custom alkaloid fingerprint. Garuda blends are mixed from tested lots.

Regions

Kalimantan: The Indonesian portion of Borneo and the largest kratom-producing region on earth. West Kalimantan supplies the bulk of the world's commercial leaf from family farms along the major rivers.
Hulu Kapuas: The headwaters region of the Kapuas, Borneo's longest river. Wild and semi-cultivated riverbank trees, smaller seasonal harvests, and strains prized for smoothness.
Jongkong: A small village area in West Kalimantan known for limited, seasonal strain runs with strong within-harvest consistency.
Ketapang: A West Kalimantan regency south of Pontianak with lower-altitude farms along coastal rivers and its own regional strain heritage.
Banjar: A historic port city in South Kalimantan and an alternate export route for leaf from Borneo's southern rivers.
Sumatra: A separate Indonesian island west of Borneo with different soil and heavier rainfall, producing a richer, slightly earthier leaf than Kalimantan.
Aceh: The highland province at Sumatra's northern tip. Volcanic soil and elevation set Aceh lots apart from the rest of the island.

Processing

Harvest maturity: The leaf age at picking, read from the vein color. Maturity at harvest is one of the two levers (with drying) that define a strain's character.
Deveining: Removing the central rib and stems from dried leaf before milling, raising the leaf-to-stem ratio of the finished powder.
Drying shed: The covered, ventilated structure where harvested leaf is dried out of direct sun. Managing light exposure during the dry is how farmers steer the finished profile.
Sun cure: A deliberate, limited period of sun exposure at the end of a dry, most often used on red vein lots.
Fermentation: A short, controlled rest of bagged red leaf before drying, used to produce gold vein powder. Changes the alkaloid ratio and darkens the finished color.
Milling: Grinding dried, deveined leaf to a fine, uniform powder. Consistent milling is a visible quality marker; gritty or uneven powder suggests rushed processing.

Lab Testing

COA (certificate of analysis): The report an independent laboratory issues after testing a specific batch: alkaloid content, heavy metals, microbials, and pesticides. Every Garuda batch has one, published in a public archive searchable by batch number.
ISO 17025: The international accreditation standard for testing laboratories. Accreditation means the lab's methods and competence are independently audited; it is the minimum credential for a credible COA.
ND (not detected): A lab result meaning the substance was not found above the method's detection threshold. On safety panels such as heavy metals or Salmonella, ND is the result you want.
ppm (parts per million): The concentration unit most heavy metals results are reported in, equivalent to micrograms per gram. Read each result against the limit printed on the report.
CFU (colony-forming unit): The counting unit for microbial results such as total plate count, yeast, and mold, usually reported per gram.
Batch number: The identifier printed on every Garuda pouch that ties it to a specific tested lot and its COA. If a product has no batch number, its lab report cannot be verified.
Lot: A single production quantity of leaf processed and tested together. Batch and lot are used interchangeably on most kratom paperwork.
Alkaloid panel: The COA section quantifying mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine as percentages of the sample.
Heavy metals panel: The COA section reporting lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury against the report's limits.
Microbial panel: The COA section covering total plate counts, yeast, mold, E. coli, and Salmonella. Pathogen rows should read absent or ND.
Pesticide screen: The COA section checking a range of agricultural pesticide residues, expected to read ND across the screen.
Specification (limit): The maximum allowed value a result is judged against on a lab report. A result without a printed specification next to it is not a pass.
Moisture content: The residual water in dried leaf. Kept low for shelf stability; relevant to storage life rather than potency.

Regulation and Trade

KCPA (Kratom Consumer Protection Act): Model state legislation that keeps kratom legal while setting age minimums, labeling rules, and bans on adulterated or synthetic-spiked products. Adopted state by state; our state-by-state legality page tracks where.
Schedule I: The most restrictive controlled-substance classification in US law. A handful of states schedule kratom or specific kratom alkaloids; we do not ship where the plant is prohibited.
7-OH products (concentrated): Tablets, shots, and gummies made by isolating or converting alkaloids until 7-hydroxymitragynine far exceeds any natural leaf level. Regulators treat them as a separate, semi-synthetic category from the plant. Hudson Valley Botanicals has never sold them.
Adulterant: Anything added to leaf that does not belong there, from fillers to synthetic alkaloids. Batch testing and published COAs exist to rule adulteration out.
AKA GMP: The American Kratom Association's Good Manufacturing Practices program, a voluntary vendor audit of manufacturing standards. One credential worth checking for alongside independent ISO 17025 batch testing.
Kilo: One kilogram (1000 grams), the standard bulk unit of the kratom trade.
Split kilo: A kilo divided across two or four strains of the buyer's choice at kilo pricing. Garuda offers two-way and four-way splits.

Put It to Work

Now read a real COA with the vocabulary.

The fastest way to make these terms stick is a real document. Open any batch in the public archive and find the panels, the limits, and the ND rows for yourself.

Open the COA archive How to read a COA About the plant

Definitions cover botany, processing, lab documentation, and regulation and are not medical advice. Kratom products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA.