BACKGROUND:
After a most unpleasant recent experience, when, to my surprise, ingesting a small dose (2 teaspoons) of kratom powder mixed into applesauce led to a day of nausea and vomiting, I decided to leave ingesting kratom powder alone, at least for a while.

The severe nausea surprised me as I had often taken this dose of kratom in applesauce without problems. Perhaps the reason why I had the uncharacteristic reactions to a fairly low dose of kratom was that, the day previous to taking it, I had driven 650 miles in 11 hours. During this solo drive I kept myself awake by consuming a large amount of caffeine. This could have had a bad effect on my stomach lining, contributing to the nausea.

Anyhow, instead of trying kratom powder again (just the thought of which now was enough to turn my stomach), I decided to try to perfect a kratom tea that I hoped would be delicious, and NOT CAUSE NAUSEA.

THE TEA MIXTURE:
To make the tea mixture, I mixed kratom (dried Bali kratom veins and stems), cinnamon (cassia), cardamom, ginger powder, ground up red poppy flowers (Papaver rhoeas), ground up Blue Egyptian Water lilly petals (Nymphaea cerulea), mace, rubbed Dalmatian sage (cooking sage), powdered cloves, Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum), a dash of black pepper, and Egyptian chamomile powder. All this was blended together.

Don’t ask me how much of each I used, for I just eyeballed it, going by what my eyes and my sense of smell told me might work.

PREPARATION OF THE BREW:
A tablespoon of this tea mix was placed in a coffee filter which was placed into a tea making machine (Mrs.Tea® brand). A teapot of water was added, and the machine produced a pot full of the spice-blend tea. This machine boils water and then dribbles the hot, but no longer boiling water over the tea-leaves and herbs. It does not boil the tea. If the machine were not used, but instead the ingredients were boiled, I have no doubt that the resulting tea would taste much harsher. If a Mrs Tea brand teamaker were not available, I suspect a Mr. Coffee type coffee maker could be used instead. Or a Melita type coffee filter.

SENSORY APPRECIATION:
The drink looked exactly like regular tea.

It smelled delicious.The aroma was floral (from the red poppy, chamomile, and water lily), and sweet-spicy (ginger, cinnamon, mace, cloves, cardamom, and pepper) and ‘evergreen’ (from the thujone in the sage, and the ledol in the Labrador tea).

It was slightly bitter and slightly peppery hot, but was VERY nice tasting, especially after being sweetened with Splenda® (I’m sure sugar or honey could have been used as the sweetening agent instead of Splenda®).

This is one of the MOST DELICIOUS tasting herbal teas I have ever consumed. Even if it had lacked psychoactivity I would want to drink it just for its taste. But it didn’t lack psychoactivity.

DOSE:
Three cups of the brew were consumed in an hour period

EFFECTS:
Pleasant, very euphoric relaxation, without mental dulling. Very smooth and blessedly WITHOUT any nausea.

COMMENTS:
This tea might be too weak for those who use kratom on a daily basis and who therefore have developed a tolerance to it. But, I found it perfect for relaxing in the evening.

The tea ingredients were selected not only for their flavors and aromas, but for their various pharmacologic and psychoactive properties:

In addition to kratom the tea contained a number of ‘herbs of enchantment’. If you are interested in trying to understand the mixed effects of this complex brew the following is my take on what is doing what.

Kratom, as some people know, is stimulant at low dosage and narcotic at high dosage. Intermediate doses give a mixed effect. To extract almost all the alkaloids present in kratom one or two boils of 10 minutes or longer is usually used. The use of a relatively rapid hot water infusion (extraction using the Mrs. Tea machine) rather than performing a time-consuming boiled decoction probably probably did not extract all the alkaloid content of the kratom, but it extracted enough to have some effect.

Red poppy is sedative, and although it contains no scheduled substances, its effects are similar to those of its more powerful cousin, the opium poppy. It has a pleasant floral-earthy taste that some say is ‘opium-like’

Chamomile has tranquilizing properties similar to those of benzodiazepines. It also smells nice.

Cinnamon was added for its flavor, which greatly improves that of kratom. Some consider it to be mildly stimulating.

Blue Egyptian water lilies has a wonderful aroma and an unexplained euphoric and empathogenic effects. These effects are potentiated by chamomile (alcohol also can do that).

Mace (like nutmeg, which comes from the same tree) is a pleasant smelling ‘sweet spice’ which has definite psychoactivity. Depending on the dose its effects can be mood-enhancing, cannabis like, empathogenic, sedative, hallucinatory or even toxic. Nutmeg has a similar profile, although mace seems more mood elevating than nutmeg.

Cloves are a pleasantly scented spice with stimulant (and local anesthetic) properties.

Ginger is an aromatic-peppery spice with painkilling, antiinflammatory, and anti-nausea properties. I don’t consider it psychoactive, but it helps with digestive and arthritic problems.

Sage, like the wormwood from which absinthe is made, contains thujone, a camphor-like substance with both stimulant, and slightly cannabis-like properties.

Labrador tea contains ledol; a substance related to thujone and camphor, which appears to have similar psychoactive properties to thujone.

SUMMARY: Not an entheogen, just a delicious, relaxing, euphoria inducing multi-herbal tea fit for the gods ;-)

© 2007 Walt