I finally got around to trying this stuff yesterday. The bark had been stored sealed at RT (room temp) for 6mos prior to use. The bark looked like tiny pieces of wood chips.
The bag said to put a teaspoon into 250ml water, boil for 5min then let steep for 15. That’s more or less what I did, 5mins to get it to boiling as well for my experiment.
Once the water began boiling it quickly took on the reddish brown tannins of the bark similar to Mimosa bark. The final solution was fairly dark in color, sweetener and coconut milk was added for flavor. Bark filtered off of course.
The tea actually tasted not bad, almost immediately I got some weird bodily cardiovascular sensations such that I felt I should slow down on the drink. Which I did… But they subsided quickly so I felt safe to finish it off.
My overall impressions, it’s a so so stimulant. The stimulation didn’t really get going until 3-4hrs in which made sleeping hard but it was in no way euphoric like other stimulants. Purely wakefulness.
It’s aphrodisiac qualities were also just so so. It did increase tactile sensation, desire and orgasm but nothing to write home about.
I feel this one may shine when combined with other drugs. A Maca/Coffee/Catuaba combo drink may have some potential.. I don’t see myself reaching for this often though unless there’s more to be had at higher doses or in combo.
-GC
I tried too, several times, during a period on which I tried several ethnoplants (ha, I guess I'm still on that period??)
it did worked for me, quite well, but I didn't use a teaspoon, more like couple tablespoons of bark...
you can say it's a "so-so" stimulant or aphrodisiac, in the sense of it being quite subtle, I think calamus it's also subtle, but I wouldn't call it so-so. The cardiovascular sensations are in fact more like a big increase in blood flow due to vasodilation, it's probably the main effect. It's also a pure DRI as I remembers. So it has little but interesting stimulant activity, in terms of focus/motivation, like a microdose of 4f-mph (that's
feels purely dopaminergic in microdoses, in my experience).
you're right about a thing, it's normally mixed with other herbs, the main one (almost ALWAYS taken as a combo in its ethnographic source) being Muira Puama (Ptychopetalum Olacoides)
I did some etanol extract of 10 grams of Muira Puama, because I felt barely nothing with the powder alone. The ethanol extract works, fairly well, being quite quite different and potent, compared to the powder alone. I don't think the Catuaba bark alkaloids have the same issue at all, in terms of not being dissolved in water, so then I could imagine a double extract of ethanolic muira puama mixed with a reduction of a water based catuaba extract, mixed together
I could see some potential there, similarly as how it's taken in its ethnographic source (I think they do some hydroalcoholic mix, if I remember well).
