My first encounter with tongkat ali was in the second half of the 90s in Singapore, or rather in Johor Bahru, the Malaysian city across the causeway from Singapore. Singaporean men go there for weekend fun with Malaysian girls. Tongkat ali powder was (and is) sold at many malls in Johor Bahru, usually in recycled jam jars containing 100 gram. It's a coarsely ground root powder that is consumed in warm water, and very bitter.

When I first tried it, the Johor Bahru tongkat ali did seem to support sexual function, but it was nothing dramatic. As recommended by the vendor from whom I bought the stuff, I used about a teaspoon full twice a day in warm water.

I then gave up on tongkat ali for about two years, turning my attention to yohimbe. Yohimbe, of course, is much more pronounced in its effects than tongkat ali. Until now I am of this opinion, even though I have become a longtime user of tongkat ali, and I am no longer using yohimbe.

Yohimbe is just too heavy a tool. Sure, yohimbe is unrivalled in causing involuntary erections upon slight sexual (mental) stimulation. But the pleasure on yohimbe comes at a price: tachycardia (speedy heartbeat) for hours, diarrhea, sleeplessness for at least 20 hours after the ingestion of yohimbe (which, if taken mid-day can add up to 30 hours without sleep), a bad next day.

And then, with regular use of yohimbe, orgasms tend to become a disappointment. Or rather, there are not in line with the erection quality. With regular use of yohimbe, orgasms just lose explosiveness. After a very high plateau phase, orgasm isn't as thrilling as a bungee jump. Rather a climb down on stairs.

After yohimbe, dopaminergics like cabergoline became my favorites. Dopaminergics work on libido, not on penile vascular parameters. I therefore always combined dopaminergics with Viagra. The effect of dopaminergics is to cause a much-prolonged excitatory phase, on which one can get lost for up to half an hour. (Please see the "Kreutz sexual function" area of this domain for more information on dopaminergics.)

But there is one great letdown with dopaminergics. Their effect cannot be repeated indefinitely. The body just gets so used to specific dopaminergics that one needs an elaborate strategy to get the best out of them.

I still tested other substances, too. Growth hormone injections, for example. These were really expensive, and I blew a few thousand dollars on them. I have never had a definite pro-sexual effect, and I am not into taking medications for touted general health benefits that are supposed to set in only after a while. If I don't have a specific illness to treat, I take medications only to support sexual function and pleasure. Period. So I stopped growth hormone injections.

After the growth hormone, I gave a brief try to another tongkat ali product: capsules of the Long Jack brand sold in the US by some people who import them from Malaysia. I couldn't feel anything.

So, why am I now using tongkat ali instead of dopaminergics (still in combination with Viagra)?

Scientific articles brought me back on track, mainly the research of Professor Ang on tongkat ali's testosterone-enhancing properties. Professor Ang's studies were done not with the tongkat ali powder sold in Johore Baru, and not with Long Jack pills, but with an extract prepared at a university research laboratory.

You can read abstracts of Professor Ang's studies at www.tongkatali.org. That site is maintained by an Indonesian tongkat ali plantation and export company named Sumatra Pasak Bumi. They offer an extract that is produced in cooperation with university laboratories.

I purchased from them some test quantities of their 1:50 extract, as well as of their chipped root. They were also quite helpful in explaining to me how their extract is produced.

The medium of extraction is plain water. Water-soluble constituents of tongkat ali root make up just about 2 percent. The rest of the root is primarily cellulose. Local men in Malaysia and Indonesia traditionally boil some chipped root for up to an hour to extract the extremely bitter water-soluble parts. To extract the active ingredients, at least 10 liters of water are needed per kilogram of root chips.

With water-soluble ingredients at about 2 percent, a natural extract ratio is 1:50, which is what Sumatra Pasak Bumi sell as their pure extract. I tried dosages of 1 gram and 2 grams of this 1:50 extract. And, what a surprise, this time, I had a clear and measurable pro-sexual effect from tongkat ali.

Due to my age (beyond 50), I normally am a "dribbling only" rather than a "shooting" ejaculator. I used to shoot when I was younger. But for many years now, it has just been dribbling. Not that I wouldn't get proper pleasure from orgasms. I sure do. But ejaculations lack power. And, based on the feedback I have receiving on the many sexual-enhancement domains that I run, I assume that I share the fate of most men at my age.

Yohimbe does nothing to make ejaculations more powerful. Nor does Viagra. Actually, on Viagra alone, my ejaculations seem even weaker than they are when entirely sober.

On the other hand, dopaminergics can provide for powerful ejaculations. But for ejaculations, dopaminergics are a short-term solution. On most dopaminergics, ejaculatory support wanes after just two or three usages (while the libido support lasts for at least ten times as many applications).

As ejaculatory function has been the most difficult to enhance over many years, I was, of course, quite pleasantly surprised when I found out that on 1 gram of 1:50 tongkat ali extract obtained from Sumatra Pasak Bumi, I was able to produce shooting ejaculations. This, I consider quite an achievement.

Mind you: I didn't have this effect from the Johor Bahru tongkat ali powder, or the Long Jack pills.

It's quite obvious why I didn't have the effect from the Johor Bahru root powder. After all, 1 gram of 1:50 extract is the equivalent of 50 gram of root powder. The root powder is very light, just about 6 gram per full tablespoon. So, for the amount of tongkat ali active ingredients of 1 gram 1:50 extract, I would have had to consume about 8 full tablespoons of tongkat ali root powder. But that stuff is so bitter that such a quantity of root powder would surely make me vomit.

With the 1:100 extract of Long Jack pills, the problem must be rather the opposite (if the proportion of 1:100 is for real). If the water-soluble part (which is the active ingredient) makes up about 2 percent of root dry mass, they would have to throw out half of the active ingredient to arrive at a proportion of 1:100.

I still use Viagra with tongkat ali. Tongkat ali provides a hormonal boost, not a vascular one. While testosterone does play a minor role in facilitating penile expansion, erections really primarily are a vascular affair. And for penile blood flow control, Viagra is unrivalled.

But I don't have good sex on Viagra alone. It impedes orgasm and ejaculation, and is totally neutral with regard to libido.

Tongkat ali and Viagra seems to be an ideal combination: Viagra for the plumbing, and tongkat ali for libido and ejaculation (both of which are matters of wiring).