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Opioids Ultimate Poppy Pod/Seed Tea Mega Merged Thread III

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For the past couple of months I have been taking 50-100mg of Diphenhydramine with all of my poppy seed tea doses. It makes the tea hit me so much harder, I can't drink the tea by itself anymore, it isn't nearly as good. I know most of you already know diphenhydramine is a potentiator, but if you have not tried it, I HIGHLY recommend giving it a go. I have found it is best to take the diphenhydramine maybe 10-15 minutes before slamming down my tea.

This is what I found works best for me:
-empty stomach(haven't eaten in 6+ hours/ feeling quite hungry)
-take 50mg-100mgDiphenhydramine
-15 minutes later, drink your tea all at once(or at least fairly quickly over the course of 2-3 minutes)

With this method I can honestly feel the tea taking effect right after I have finished it. After about 1 hour after dosing you will really be feeling the effects, I find it much much better than drinking the tea alone. So go ahead and give it a try if you haven't already!
 
I'm assuming your talking about all these small by the pound bags that I have been seeing a lot for sale on various sites, how is the quality on those? I'm thinking of trying some out, but I don't know if their going to end up being just as weak as some of the mediums I just ordered.

Yep, exactly. I don't have any real point of comparison, never having tried anything bigger, but I enjoy the small ones. They make for a happy, mellow, long-lasting high--but nothing spectacular or gut-whooshing.

Some of the pods are oblong & stretched out-looking, yeah, but mixed in there are quite a few nice round ones. But they're small. It takes me 3-5 heaping tablespoons of powder to get anywhere noticeable, and I'm a novice. The tea looks kind of like strong commercial iced tea--not very dark--and while fairly bitter, it's not unpalatable. I would love to try some of the dark and horribly bitter stuff I've read about someday :)

Sucks about the humidity--that would probably affect most growing areas in the U.S. But I'll definitely post if October brings anything bigger along...
 
so glad I'm not waiting for the winning lottery ticket anymore....that shit was hell

So, without being too specific, are the small pound bags worth it? How would you say they compare, when powdered, to the mediums/larges from the southwest US that are now all but gone (For now, they say)
 
so glad I'm not waiting for the winning lottery ticket anymore....that shit was hell

So, without being too specific, are the small pound bags worth it? How would you say they compare, when powdered, to the mediums/larges from the southwest US that are now all but gone (For now, they say)

The small ones work fine. The things to note:

  • It takes a really long time to remove the stems and seeds from each tiny pod. It is easier just to throw a few handfuls into the blender whole.
  • The resulting powder from grinding whole pods with seeds, stems and all seems to be effective at a 2:1 ratio compared to standard powdered, de-seeded, de-stemmed Arizona pods.
  • The powder with the seeds and stems in it tastes worse. A thick pulpy juice (OJ or grapefruit) masks it well enough for those who consume grounds rather than making tea. Using just water to consume these grounds is extremely unpleasant, even for a hardened pod-ground-eater.
  • The cost-per-dose ratio is quite favorable compared to larger pods, especially right now, but even at prices before the shortage.
 
I think I know which 1 lb. bags you are referring to. I got one about 2 months ago and it was about $40 I believe. It lasted me about 5 days with no opie tolerance. They were so-so.
 
I have been reading a few different posts on here the last couple days with people discussing what the best way to make the tea is so I'm going to throw my 2 cents in here:

Although there are a few different ways I have heard described for making the tea, I believe mine is the easiest and most efficient. You want to grind up the pods into a fine powder using a coffee grinder. Break off the stems as well as the little knuckle connecting the pod to the stem and DO NOT throw these away. Set them aside for a rainy day. I also like to break off the crowns and save all those for later too but a lot of people will just break those up with the rest of the pod.

Rather than doing multiple washes of your powder and having to strain it out each time you put in a new batch of water the best thing to do is just consume the grounds with your tea. You get the best of both worlds that way, the heat brings out the alkaloids and your stomach will digest anything else still remaining in the grounds when you down it all, so no need to waste time making up multiple cups.

Start by putting your powder into a large coffee mug and then start boiling a pot of water. Once the water begins to boil just turn off the stove and fill up your mug full of powder with the hot water. Give it a good stir about every 5 mins or so until the water is cool enough to gulp down. Usually takes about 30 minutes.

At this point I will pour the tea from my mug into a large plastic fast food soft drink cup just because its easier to kinda pinch the sides of it forming a sort of spout that makes it easier to down all the liquid very quickly but its not necissary. Get yourself some sort of juice to chase this nasty concoction with. Orange juice or Grapefruit juice works pretty well. I like to use Sobe Strawberry Bannana.

When ready to drink give it one last quick stir immediatley before drinking to get all the grounds off the bottom of the glass and disperse them evenly around your drink so you dont get 1 big mouth full of powder at the end. Plug your nose and try to take that thing down in 1 large gulp and chase it down with your juice to get all of it out of your mouth.

It does make it a little bit nastier to drink with the grounds left in, but it is much more efficient than straining it out and having to add more hot water to the same grounds and do it all over again.


You def. should save your stems though, Although there is very little actual alkaloids in the stems
there def. is some, esp in the little knuckle portion and they will save you from withdrawls should you ever have any problems getting ahold of anything else. They have saved my ass many times in the past. I set aside all my stems into boxes and stored them in the closet. After a few months of steady pod use I had probably around 3-4 small boxes completley overflowing with stems. I also break off all the crowns and set those aside in a seperate container along with the stems/knuckles.

During the great pod shortage when everyone was out of stock for 2 months I was able to keep myself going using nothing but the old stems/knuckles/crowns that I had set aside. They kept me going until the pods came back in stock. Thank god I didn't throw any of that away like some people do.

As the stems are very weak on their own you do have to use a ton of them to feel anything.
Start by snapping off the knuckle part at the top of the stems and set those aside to save for later use. You only need the stems themselves for this part. Just break them up into little twigs that will easily fit into the grinder and grind them up just as you would the pod. You will have to use atleast 2-3 times as much stem powder as you would just plain pod powder but you will feel it if you use enough. You will need a lot more water though as you will be using a whole lot of powder and the stem powder is pretty stringy and fiborous so its a little bit rough going down, you may want to strain atleast some of the stem powder out to make it a little easier to drink.


The knuckles and crowns on the other hand however, are pretty strong. The crowns you just grind up like the pods and use about the same amount of powder you would normally use, maybe a little bit more.

What I do with the knuckles however involves no grinding at all. You just seperate them from the stems and then what I do is take a plastic thermus I have that holds 1/3rd of a gallon of liquid and I fill that about halfway to 3/4ths of the way full with the knuckles. I then boil a pot of water and once it starts boiling i pour that water into the thermus with the knuckles inside. Let it sit in the thermus stiring about every 5-10 mins or so until cool enough to drink. Takes a little bit longer while inside the thermus but I've found that to be the best container to do this in.

After the water cools down you need to strain out the liquid from the knuckles. Easiest way for me to do this is just to snap the lid onto the thermus and open the cap on top which has a small hole in it. I just pour this into a large plastic cup and because the hole is so small it removes all the liquid while keeping all the knuckles inside.

This liquid will be very bitter but its pretty easy to drink not having anything floating around in it. You can get up to 3 good washes with the knuckles repeating the same process of boiling more water and adding it to the knuckles. Should last you all day just spreading your 3 washes out over the course of your day.

The knuckles are quite potent when using enough of them. The first time I tried using them I was expecting them to be just as weak as the stems were and as a result I was not expecting to get a whole lot out of them. Boy was I wrong, these things really surprised me and knocked me right on my ass. Was 1 of the strongest highs I had experienced in a long time. I felt great the entire day.

With the stems you probably will not be able to really get high off them unless you use a really large amount of them, their more for staving off withdrawal, but the crowns and knuckles will give you a nice buzz.

So far this is the easiest and most efficient way of making the tea that I have found. It's worked well for me for almost a year now. I highly recommend this method over the multiple washes/straining method as well as the toss and wash where people are just throwing the powder into cold juice and drinking that.
 
I've tried nearly every method I've seen suggested for steeping poppy, and below is the process I developed myself in the search for the best way. In my experimentation, I found it outperformed not only other boils/steeps, but methods involving eating ultrafine ground pods and the espresso method as well.

You will need:
A small cooking pot
A stove or hot plate
A (big) bottle of lemon juice
A sleeve from an extra large plain white jersey T shirt(all cotton) or a piece of any light colored cotton jersey fabric about that size.
A tall drinking glass with a sturdy base - no stemware!
Ice

First, chop the stem off right after the knot, discarding the stem, and crack the pod so you can dump the seeds in a bowl. The stem has so little active alkaloid in it I haven't found it worthwhile to use considering it also makes the tea even worse tasting. I have heard that stashed stems can stave off withdrawals, but never tried them for that, so I can't speak to it.

Now chop, grind, blend, process, etc the pods - how you do it isn't important, nor, with my method, is getting a very fine particle size. Fine particles (dust really) is essential if you're drinking them, and a big, big help if you're steeping at lower temperatures and acidities. With this method it's faster if the bits are fairly fine, but you will get nearly perfect extraction even from chips of pod the size of my pink nail. I actually just crush my pods up by hand, wrapping them in cloth so the crowns don't give me papercuts. I treat the crowns and knots just like the rest of the pod, though I do tend to chop the knots into several pieces while splitting the pods in half to seed them, but if you're using a blender, food processor or grinder, it will take care of them just fine.

While making the tea, eat the seeds you dumped in the bowl, which are tasty.

Place the chopped pods in a small boiling pot, and pour enough lemon juice onto the pods to immerse them but without them floating. The lemon juice creates an acid environment, which does three things - it increases solubility of the active alkaloids, it helps breaks down the cell walls of the pods, and, by far most important, prevents oxidation of the solution. [see Notes(0)] You should get a slush after stirring the broken down pods together with the lemon juice. Add to this slush enough water to double the volume of the slush, maybe a bit more if the pieces are large and it's going to need a couple extra minutes of boiling.

Place the pot on high heat until it begins to boil, then turn it down to just barely simmering and let it go for 10 or 15 minutes. The larger the bits of pod, the longer you'll need to boil to fully saturate them; don't worry, I promise I'm not destroying your alkaloids.

During this time, you want to "press" the mixture while it simmers, using the bottom of a glass drinking cup, a tall one so you don't get steam burns. Use the bottom of the glass like a mortar, working acidic solution in and out of the plant material, moving it all over the pot. This is part of the reason particle size is much less important with this extraction - the pressing crushes the cell walls, making even biggish pieces permeable sponges.

You will find that by the time 15 minutes is up, give or take, the plant material is dark looking, rather than tan, and after turning off the heat, almost none of it will float. This means it's saturated with liquid, and the alkaloids are flowing as best they can from the pulverized mush.

Now add some ice cubes to the pot, enough to get it cooled down to the point where you can hold your finger in the liquid without discomfort, but not so many that any bits of ice linger.

Time for the first straining. Have that bowl ready, one big enough to hold your tea, but small enough that you can place the cotton T shirt cutoff so it covers the inside of the bowl and overlaps the top rim. Then pour the contents of the pot into the bowl. Bundle up the shirt around the pods, making sure you don't spill any pod bits into the liquid, which drains through the fabric, remaining in the bowl. Squeeze the bundle tighter and tighter, twisting it in a like you're wringing out a washcloth, and you will be amazed at how much liquid comes out of the plant material. This liquid is VERY saturated with opiates, so squeeze as much out as you possibly can.

Dump the plant material back into the pot, scraping as much as you can off the cotton tshirt filter. Repeat the whole bit with the lemon juice, water, and drinking-glass mashing, only this time, it will only need between five and ten minutes because the plant material is much more liquid permeable from the combined actions of the first boil, the pressing, and the violent crushing it experienced while you were draining it into the bowl.

Repeat ice-cooling.

Now, dump the first batch of tea (it will be DARK and very foul tasting) into a large cup or bottle, and reuse the bowl to repeat the draining procedure, making sure you have the same side of the shirt up as you did last time - you don't want to gag on a piece of plant material while chugging the tea later.

Repeat the bundling and draining, again squeezing as hard as you can (I twist the hell out of it in one direction, like I'm wringing out out a towel). This batch will be quite a bit lighter than the first, and not as potent, but still a bit nasty.

Here I do a triple final rinse. I slowly trickle hot water from the sink onto the bundle of plant material, letting it absorbs like a sponge until the pulp is saturated, then wring it out over the bowl again; really wring it with all you've got. I do this 3 times total, to be positive the plant material is totally stripped. The final one or two extractions will be very light, and taste more of T-shirt cotton than poppy. Not much flavor of any sort left. Discard the junk [You aren't throwing away anything useful, see Notes(3)], but save the tshirt filter, it will work many times before springing holes and requiring replacement.

Time to force down your tea. The high concentration of lemon juice actually improves the flavor quite a bit by taking the edge off the poppy taste, and I dissolve enough sugar in it to take the edge off the sourness, so it will slide down the gullet easy. It gets sticky and gross if you use too much though.

Adding finely chopped fresh ginger to the pods during boiling will improve flavor and reduce nausea, but I have a tough stomach so I don't usually bother. Honey instead of sugar as a sweetener seems to cut down on nausea a bit, too, but any sugar source helps.

If I am going to be carrying it in public in a water bottle, I mix all the liquid together and add a bunch of liquid chai concentrate. This gets it borderline pleasant tasting.

I have observed that this tea come on as fast or faster than any other extraction I've tried, 15 minutes to a half hour after ingestion on a relatively empty stomach and effects become quite noticeable.

Now, enjoy being blissed out for the next 6-10 hours.

This method works so well for two big reasons.

First, the large proportion of lemon juice protects the morphine from oxidation nearly perfectly. I have seen much smaller amounts than I use recommended. It's enough to increase solubility, but not enough to stave off the oxidation. Approximately 50% of the boil liquid needs to be lemon juice. See [Notes(1)].

Second, all the mechanical crushing. Breaking down the cell wall structure is why fine grinds work better, much more so than increased surface area, which is typically assumed to be the route of action. Aggressive crushing during the boil and straining will breach approaching 100% of the cell walls, while pushing acidic liquid in and out. This means it will work better than ultrafine grinding unless you are comparing it to grindings approaching cellular particle size, which isn't happening with home equipment.

It will also work at least as well (IME better) than eating find grinds, again because of the nature of the cell walls in the pod. The human body isn't capable of of metabolizing plant cell walls properly, no enzymes for it; rabbits, mice, deer, and anything that lives mostly on grass and leaves have no such trouble. This is why we see the corn in-corn out effect - much like poppy walls, the coating of a kernel of corn is impervious to our digestive chemical processes. With, very, very fine powder, your body will still get most of the alkaloids out by diffusion, but personally I don't like drinking the grinds at all, and find the slower come-up more annoying than taking the time to do the two boils and 3 rinses.

Tips:
Vinegar in similar quantities will substitute for lemon juice, but it makes perhaps the most disgusting tasting tea in the world, please don't try it. Using all orange juice or grapefruit juice(no water) for the liquid volume seems to work OK as a substitute if you truly can't get lemon juice for some strange reason. I'm not sure to what degree grapefruit juice heated for this length of time looses its potentiating effect, but if you've got it around anyway, drink down a fresh glass, it's quite refreshing between those mouthfuls of poppy seeds.

If you get very nauseous from tea, or want further potentiation and don't have to drive anywhere, take 100mg or so of diphenhydramine between bites of seeds while prepping the tea.

If you just can't stand the taste of the tea, it's worth noting that the oxidation protection offered by the lemon juice makes it possible to cook your tea down into tar without much loss. Just pour your tea into a teflon pan, and bake it at 200 degrees for a couple hours, until it's a dry, crispy resin.

The resin can be packed into gelcaps. After scraping it up, add JUST enough water to make it a dense tar (much less than you think - add with a glass dropper, even 1/4 teaspoon is far too much to start with) and once it's similar stiff clay, roll the tar into a rope just thin enough that it will fit into your capsule. Cut to the proper length, dip in powdered sugar(a safe nonstick coating so it will cooperate on the sliding part) and slip into the gelcaps. You will now have black opiate resin all over your hands as well, lick that stuff off, don't wash it down the drain.

The capsules work just as you'd expect, though they take longer to start kicking in than tea unless you pop them up your butt. If you go that way, you probably want to put a bit of warm water up there after you place the pills. Enema fans could also just stop the cook down when it gets to be thick liquid and squirt that in, as was pointed out by MadWolfZX when I originally posted this method.

Notes(0)
Boiling alone will not cause you to lose morphine, based on both my experience and science. Morphine itself doesn't actually boil off until nearly 400F, so temperatures water can reach will not degrade it. What causes the lost morphine some have observed when boiling poppy tea extractions is oxidation of morphine. However, rate of degradation of morphine by oxidation scales proportionally with alkalinity (this is indicated by higher PH values) in addition to high heat; just one or the other is not enough to reach significance in the time scales we are working with.

Notes(1)
If you want a demonstration that enough acidity will protect against oxidation before you risk a batch of pods on my word, try this little test: Cut an apple in half, and gently rub the cut side of one half with lemon juice. Then, leave both on the counter for an afternoon. The untreated half "rusts" nasty brown spots as you'd expect, but the lemon treated apple remains bright white as though freshly cut.

Notes(2)
To test that you are not leaving anything in the pod mush, chew and taste some of the plant material after the you squeeze out the 3rd warm tap water rinse. The pod wall bits will be soft, spongy, and have very little flavor at all, confirming the opiates, which have a strong flavor, are as depleted as reasonably possible and nothing can be gained by further steeping, rinsing, or eating this material.

Notes(3)
Grapefruit juice potentiating definitely works - it is lab-confirmed to increase the amount of codeine converted to morphine, as well as reduce morphine tolerance itself.
 
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/\ You can actually "taste" if theres alkaloids left?
I highly doubt that for some reason.

Not to mention a lot of my batches vary in taste. And I honestly never noticed such a bitter taste to begin when drinking my tea. Its smooth and alkaline tasting, not bitter like acidic bitter.
I think if you're adding acids to your mix, when you bite down on your grounds you are actually tasting the acid, but not the alkaloids. Although pod tea has its own taste, I definitely never found mine "bitter". Maybe our taste buds work differently.
Bitter would depend on the ph, but you're not getting hydrochloride salts from poppies, from what I recall its morphine base, which SHOULD have an akaline taste, not bitter.

Lastly, depending on what acid you use (citric or acetic) each alkaloid will have a different taste. If you use citric acid you wind up with morphine citrate, which is sour, if you use acetic acid you wind up with morphine acetate which is bitter, if you don't use an acid it will taste alkaline. So be weary of all the different ways people make their tea. I never use acid, and its never a strong enough alkaline taste to begin to actually taste akaloids in the grounds. I think you are actually tasting w/e acid you are using.
 
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Just grind the pods, toss powder in a glass of beverage of choice, and down that bitch. Eat a grapefruit 20 minutes before hand. BAM!! good times ensue=)
 
I still can't understand for the life of me how you people down grounds. I equate you people to being stronger than chuck norris himself.

Truestory:
One day I was filtering out my grounds with a sock (always use clean socks lol) and the sock had a hole in it. I had managed to squeeze it out, not realizing how many grounds got through the hole into my tea.

I go to down the tea and instantly feel pieces of wood going half way down my throat and getting stuck in my esophagus. They got stuck EVERYWHERE. I started spitting like there was no tommorow, gagging, and everytime I tried to swallow to clear my throat more straw got stuck in my throat. It was horrific.

Thats why I personally don't understand how the hell ANYONE can comfortably drink grounds. Even with 4-5 tiny pieces going down they always get stuck somewhere in my throat, and I start coughing terribly.
 
/\ You can actually "taste" if theres alkaloids left?
I highly doubt that for some reason.

Not to mention a lot of my batches vary in taste. And I honestly never noticed such a bitter taste to begin when drinking my tea. Its smooth and alkaline tasting, not bitter like acidic bitter.
I think if you're adding acids to your mix, when you bite down on your grounds you are actually tasting the acid, but not the alkaloids. Although pod tea has its own taste, I definitely never found mine "bitter". Maybe our taste buds work differently.

We may taste differently, but most anyone that has had many batches of tea from many batches of pods can tell the flavor of strong tea vs weak tea. I describe it as bitter, but it's quite distinctive, taste a few pure alkaloids and you'll quite quickly notice a similarity.

What you taste in the pods after 2 boils and 3 rinses is very close to nothing at all. The rinses have removed the acidic notes of the lemon juice, and just about anything that can be soaked out of the pods has been. I don't claim I can identify specific alkaloids by taste, but I am sure I can taste when something is soaked to being depleted of anything that can be extracted.

Bitter would depend on the ph, but you're not getting hydrochloride salts from poppies, from what I recall its morphine base, which SHOULD have an akaline taste, not bitter.

My experience of bitter is PH distinct, it's a separate, nasty taste all it's own. I find that subjectively, acidic flavors seem to cover it up bitterness a bit, but thats the only relation I can give you between the two at all.

Also, your understanding of chemistry is off here - morphine base is nearly insoluble, and exists in only very small amounts in poppy. If it were base, no methods other than the direct eating of ultra-fine grinds or my method would work at all, and even they would be poor. Morphine in the poppy plant is primarily morphine meconate, an acid salt which is more than adequately water soluble for even slow cold extractions to work well enough for some individuals to get effects.

Lastly, depending on what acid you use (citric or acetic) each alkaloid will have a different taste. If you use lemon juice you wind up with morphine citrate, which is sour, if you use vinegar you wind up with morphine acetate which is bitter, if you don't use an acid it will taste alkaline.

This is inaccurate to claim because of the same chemistry misunderstanding above. While certainly some morphine will end up as morphine citrate, it's not nearly strong enough an acid to replace all that much of the morphine meconate given the concentration of citric acid and duration of the boils.

I'm still unsure of what you mean by something tasting alkaline; it's not a taste to my knowledge, it generally refers to the portion of the PH scale above 7.

So be weary of all the different ways people make their tea. I never use acid, and its never a strong enough alkaline taste to begin to actually taste akaloids in the grounds.

For the reasons I give above, reasonably good results should be had with any water extraction. I never claimed anyone else wasn't getting reasonably good extractions, just that I developed a way of doing it that seems to get a noticeable amount more extracted, and does not involve having to deal with swallowing grinds.

I think you are actually tasting w/e acid you are using.
No, it's quite distinct and something you can even taste if you chew on a small piece of dry poppy. It would be more accurate to say that after my process, the pods are depleted of just about anything that can be dissolved, and are close to tasteless, rather than specify alkaloids and even bring up the question subjective experience of their flavor. I will edit the post to reflect this if that's allowed, I haven't tried to do so yet.
 
I still can't understand for the life of me how you people down grounds. I equate you people to being stronger than chuck norris himself.

Truestory:
One day I was filtering out my grounds with a sock (always use clean socks lol) and the sock had a hole in it. I had managed to squeeze it out, not realizing how many grounds got through the hole into my tea.

I go to down the tea and instantly feel pieces of wood going half way down my throat and getting stuck in my esophagus. They got stuck EVERYWHERE. I started spitting like there was no tommorow, gagging, and everytime I tried to swallow to clear my throat more straw got stuck in my throat. It was horrific.

Thats why I personally don't understand how the hell ANYONE can comfortably drink grounds. Even with 4-5 tiny pieces going down they always get stuck somewhere in my throat, and I start coughing terribly.

I totally agree with this. I have forced down a dozen pods worth of suspended grinds, and each particle felt like sandpaper tearing at my throat.
 
I still can't understand for the life of me how you people down grounds. I equate you people to being stronger than chuck norris himself.



I go to down the tea and instantly feel pieces of wood going half way down my throat and getting stuck in my esophagus. They got stuck EVERYWHERE. I started spitting like there was no tommorow, gagging, and everytime I tried to swallow to clear my throat more straw got stuck in my throat. It was horrific.

Thats why I personally don't understand how the hell ANYONE can comfortably drink grounds. Even with 4-5 tiny pieces going down they always get stuck somewhere in my throat, and I start coughing terribly.


I guess the first couple of times drinking the grounds was slightly unpleasant but you get used to it pretty quickly. Are you grinding your pods up into a powder with an electric coffee/spice grinder of some sort? If you have a decent grinder the pods should break down into a very thin powder thats barely noticeable when drinking, atleast to me it isn't, but I've been doing it for awhile now.

The key for me is to give your cup a hard stir with a spoon and then immediatley pick it up and down it all in 1 quick gulp while the powder is all disspersed evenly around the glass and having a nice chaser to go along with it helps alot. Soda or anything carbonated doesn't work very well, but a nice thick fruit juice sloshing around your mouth will get everything down quickly without having to taste it. OJ with a little pulp works pretty good.

The only times I have ever gagged while drinking the grinds was when I did a poor job grinding the pods or didn't stir it up enough right before drinking. If I was in a hurry making the tea and didnt spend as much time grinding and shaking as I usually do a couple little pieces of pod wouldn't get powderized, that can be pretty rough going down when their in big chunks like that.

I just always thought it was too much of a hassle straining out the grounds and having to boil up multiple cups of water for the same dose when you could just get it over with in 1 sitting. It's a lot less time consuming which is why I made the switch, but I guess straining and rewashing can allow you to spread out your dose and help keep your tolerence down a little bit.
 
We may taste differently, but most anyone that has had many batches of tea from many batches of pods can tell the flavor of strong tea vs weak tea. I describe it as bitter, but it's quite distinctive, taste a few pure alkaloids and you'll quite quickly notice a similarity.

What you taste in the pods after 2 boils and 3 rinses is very close to nothing at all. The rinses have removed the acidic notes of the lemon juice, and just about anything that can be soaked out of the pods has been. I don't claim I can identify specific alkaloids by taste, but I am sure I can taste when something is soaked to being depleted of anything that can be extracted.



My experience of bitter is PH distinct, it's a separate, nasty taste all it's own. I find that subjectively, acidic flavors seem to cover it up bitterness a bit, but thats the only relation I can give you between the two at all.

Also, your understanding of chemistry is off here - morphine base is nearly insoluble, and exists in only very small amounts in poppy. If it were base, no methods other than the direct eating of ultra-fine grinds or my method would work at all, and even they would be poor. Morphine in the poppy plant is primarily morphine meconate, an acid salt which is more than adequately water soluble for even slow cold extractions to work well enough for some individuals to get effects.



This is inaccurate to claim because of the same chemistry misunderstanding above. While certainly some morphine will end up as morphine citrate, it's not nearly strong enough an acid to replace all that much of the morphine meconate given the concentration of citric acid and duration of the boils.

I'm still unsure of what you mean by something tasting alkaline; it's not a taste to my knowledge, it generally refers to the portion of the PH scale above 7.



For the reasons I give above, reasonably good results should be had with any water extraction. I never claimed anyone else wasn't getting reasonably good extractions, just that I developed a way of doing it that seems to get a noticeable amount more extracted, and does not involve having to deal with swallowing grinds.


No, it's quite distinct and something you can even taste if you chew on a small piece of dry poppy. It would be more accurate to say that after my process, the pods are depleted of just about anything that can be dissolved, and are close to tasteless, rather than specify alkaloids and even bring up the question subjective experience of their flavor. I will edit the post to reflect this if that's allowed, I haven't tried to do so yet.

akaline can have a taste and does, its not distinct, but give me an alkaline solution and an acidic one and I will absolutely tell you which is which... which was my point.

Also, you are assuming concentrations of acetic acid. I did say vinegar but I didn't say how I was adding it. Citric acid can also be bought as a nearly pure powder, which is how I get it. Also, acetic acid is sold ar MUCH higher concentrations at home depot... which doesn't matter for what I'm about to say.

Your are adding your acids to the solution which is already not smart. What would be ideal is to pour a couple of tablespoons of hot water directly on the grounds, just to saturate them, then pour the citric acid/acetic acid DIRECTLY onto the grounds. Stir the slush for 5 mins and you've effectively converted all the meconate. "Duration" of the boil has nothing to do with it. A stronger acid will almost instantly convert a weaker acid solute. Have you ever poured vinegar over baking soda? You're adding a weak acid to a weaker acid solute, it converts almost instantly regardless of a boil (weaker acid being carbonic acid).

Lastly, you used the numbers "2 boils and 3 washes" nearly forgetting that has NOTHING to do with how much alkaloid comes out.
If my knowledge of chemistry is bad, you're isn't much better.

The amount of water you use, and how long you agitate it will determine how much alkaloid comes out. I use A LOT of water, and let my batches sit a looong time while occasionally shaking them. There is NO TASTE AT ALL after one wash.

The ONLY way you might be tasting alkaloid still is if you use very little water, and do only one wash. Then mayyybe I can see you tasting it. But you are depleting the concentrations SO MUCH, and adding acids to your mix, that I don't believe even after 1 wash you are tasting alkaloids. You say you can, I still don't believe it personally.
And what works easier rather than doing that little taste test, is simply adding more water, and doing less washes. Then rest assured you're getting all your alkaloids.

I've done second washes before with almost a lb of already used grounds, and did not get even the tiniest bit off effect. Thats because I know how much water it takes and don't have the time to be washing/squeezing like that.

In the end, its your habit, do w/e you think is best... as will I.
 
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quote]akaline can have a taste and does, its not distinct, but give me an alkaline solution and an acidic one and I will absolutely tell you which is which... which was my point.[/quote]
I know what you're talking about, I think, they definitely easily distinguish by mouth once get get far from PH 7. Acids seem more... consistant with one another than bases, to me.

Also, you are assuming concentrations of acetic acid. I did say vinegar but I didn't say how I was adding it. Citric acid can also be bought as a nearly pure powder, which is how I get it. Also, acetic acid is sold ar MUCH higher concentrations at home depot... which doesn't matter for what I'm about to say.
I don't like using acetic acid due to the taste, and the lemon juice in the quantity I use is what it is becuase that's the amount that produced the best teas, whatever the exact chemistry behind it. Why highly concentrated acetic, does it reduce the bad flavor from natural vinegar? I'm not looking to get any acetyl derivitives cooked up.

Your are adding your acids to the solution which is already not smart. What would be ideal is to pour a couple of tablespoons of hot water directly on the grounds, just to saturate them, then pour the citric acid/acetic acid DIRECTLY onto the grounds. Stir the slush for 5 mins and you've effectively converted all the meconate. "Duration" of the boil has nothing to do with it. A stronger acid will almost instantly convert a weaker acid solute. Have you ever poured vinegar over baking soda? You're adding a weak acid to a weaker acid soute, it converts almost instantly regardless of a boil (weaker acid being carbonic acid).
I found the pods got saturated most quickly that way, vs water first or both at once, though it's really not a big difference. I just included everything I have done intentionally when making tea, as it is better to do something that isn't all that important to the extraction working than leave out something that does make a noticeable impact.
The duration of the boil, however, is very important to the method. More than anything, tough plant cell walls take their time to become permiable and diffuse their alkaloids; it has to take some amount of time for the liquids to absorb, and the pressing with the glass speeds things along quite a lot, too. Higher temperatures also increase diffusion rate and solubility, so this lets me use less liquid and still get good results - less to drink is a good thing. I'm pretty patient, but I don't like waiting overnight or days if I feel like some tea - this way, I can have some ready in a reasonable amount of time and not feel like I'm wasting my pods.

Lastly, you used the numbers "2 boils and 3 washes" nearly forgetting that has NOTHING to do with how much alkaloid comes out. If my knowledge of chemistry is bad, you're isn't much better.
The volumes of liquid to poppy are specified as closely as I care to measure them, and certainly the number of times it's boiled and squeezed matters. Diffusion from higher concentrations to lower concentrations means that by resetting my liquid to zero concentration, I help the process along, like using more water in the first place would. For reasons unknown to me, I seem to get more out of the grinds with two separate boils than one twice as large. I suspect that my squeezing the grinds nearly dry, then saturating them again, is a part of it. Emptying the cell walls fast seems to work way better when helped along by some good mixing and mashing of the plant material. As for my knowledge of chemistry, not great, but I always work on it.

The amount of water you use, and how long you agitate it will determine how much alkaloid comes out. I use A LOT of water, and let my batches sit a looong time while occasionally shaking them. There is NO TASTE AT ALL after one wash.
I never said I don't think yours works. I don't know the exact procedure and materials, so I can't compare it with a divided pile of grinds. I would, had I any pods right now - if something works better, I'd want to know, even if other factors like prep time keep me from doing it often. A ton of water, fine grinds, and a good shake over a long period of time should work pretty well, and from what you've said I suspect that isn't the entire process.
I've thought about using RO/DI water, to see if that changes anything, and I have also often wondered if the local water from place to place would make extraction more irrtating or easier.
No taste at all in the grinds is great, given variation bewteen batches and individual pods, it's reassuring that I can be pretty sure I'm not throwing anything good away at the end. I determined that was a good indicator by experimentation - I tried additional boils, and a many different numbers of water rinses. Probably two water rinses is plenty, that last one is so I see that their is nothing in there that can be squeezed out anymore. Something is that is going on here that works better for me.
A lack of actives in the pod mash was confirmed, by stashing them in the freezer and eating them after a few weeks and seeing what happend. Only trips to the toilet, while I get the oposite from the tea. Now, the pods still taste a bit like something after the first boil, a TINY bit like somethings after second, and no taste left after the first rinse. The next rinse gets almost no brown liquid at all. The final rinse gets out nearly clear water which tastes like nothing, just to make _sure_.

The ONLY way you might be tasting alkaloid still is if you use very little water, and do only one wash. Then mayyybe I can see you tasting it. But you are depleting the concentrations SO MUCH, and adding acids to your mix, that I don't believe even after 1 wash you are tasting alkaloids. You say you can, I still don't believe it personally.
I do boil without much water.
It became much easier after I quit smoking, and I use 1 part pods to one part lemon juice to one part water. I suppose a better way to put it would be to say that alkaloids present in the pulverized mush is not enough to make a difference enough concentration to matter, I would taste SOMETHING gross. I'm also pretty familliar with the taste of the lemon juice and tea itself, so I'm think I can sort it out. I once ate a few like they were fruit, chewing really well, just to familliarize myself with what good, harvest fresh pods should be like.
And what works easier rather than doing that little taste test, is simply adding more water, and doing less washes. Then rest assured you're getting all your alkaloids.,
Like I mentioned earlier, I have done that, and it was not as sucessful. If you outline your method for me (or I find it using search, might be earlier in this same thread) including proportions and/or specific measured quantities as needed, I'll give it a go next pod order.

I've done second washes before with almost a lb of already used grounds, and did not get even the tiniest bit off effect. Thats because I know how much water it takes and don't have the time to be washing/squeezing like that.
I quite dislike the taste, so drinking a large and more dilute solution is hard. I don't puke or anything, just get closer and closer to to the "ugh, do not want" level. Earlier experimentation with third boils were ruled out for this reason, and becuase it was a waste of time vs the washes. You have much of a tollerence? I kind of enjoy the activity level of the method, it keeps me busy while the tea is getting ready. I find keeping busy makes the time fly by. But it seems you don't want to be bothered with all that when you can forget about it other than shaking/agitating the container every now and again. That would make space-time slow down to a halt I think.

In the end, its your habit, do w/e you think is best... as will I.
I keep it from becomming a habit - I let myself run out every time, no 'advance' stocking up. I'm fine up till the first weekend and then I"m bored out of my mind and start thinking it might be nice to have tea to make the wall more interesting.. When I have them, I take them probably two days a week, and never redose. By the second weekend, I don't care about getting more, and wait until money falls into my lap to get any more pods.
 
So the guide says to shake only for a minute or two when using seeds. Really? that's all it takes? I always did it for at least 15-20min. I'm going to make some now so a fast reply would be appreciated.
 
So the guide says to shake only for a minute or two when using seeds. Really? that's all it takes? I always did it for at least 15-20min. I'm going to make some now so a fast reply would be appreciated.


I've always done it for atleast 10 minutes. Preferably 15 if I have the time. The water will be much darker after shaking for 10-15 mins than it is after shaking for just 1-2 minutes so clearly it's washing more off of the seeds when shaking for a longer period of time.

Just stick with what you've been doing, it doesn't hurt anything to shake it for longer than necessary (unless your letting it sit motionless for long periods of time and letting the seeds start to soak up liquid) but it does hurt the quality if you shake it for less time than necessary.
 
Remember, the active stuff on the seeds is just rubbed on by the inside of the pod, so really a few minutes should be ok. I usually just eat seeds.
 
So I just got my order of 200 smalls in the other day and so far I'm very impressed with the quality this time.

However I came across one very small pod that when I cracked it open I noticed it was almost solid on the inside. Full of this black substance almost like a clay, there is no bad smell at all, it actually kind of smells good. Any idea what this is or if it's bad news? Never had pods this small before so I'm not sure if this is a common thing or not.

I set it aside and made tea with the rest to great result.
 
So I just got my order of 200 smalls in the other day and so far I'm very impressed with the quality this time.

However I came across one very small pod that when I cracked it open I noticed it was almost solid on the inside. Full of this black substance almost like a clay, there is no bad smell at all, it actually kind of smells good. Any idea what this is or if it's bad news? Never had pods this small before so I'm not sure if this is a common thing or not.

I set it aside and made tea with the rest to great result.

Every now and then I'll see a pod or 2 that looks kinda like that. It's usually some sort of mold or rot on the inside of the pod from not drying out properly. I have had a few that are thick solid black on the inside like you describe and others with big black chunks with white spots on it.

Although I myself have gone ahead and made tea with those types of pods at times, it's probably best to go ahead and throw any of those out. I felt alright after using them but it makes the tea taste even worse than it usually does. Probably wasn't a good idea though, no reason to consume something that could potentially make you sick just for a couple extra pods.
 
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