3 Lessons Learned About Cannabis Tea
Medical marijuana comes in many forms and can be ingested different ways besides smoking. It can be eaten as food or sipped as tea. In many ways, drinking cannabis tea is one of the healthiest ways to use the medicine. It’s also relaxing and comforting for some people and has similar sedative effects to eating or smoking the cannabis leaves, although it is somewhat less potent. The following lessons about cannabis tea may help you decide if it is the proper treatment for your condition.
How Does Cannabis Tea Taste?
Cannabis tea has a taste much like any other type of tea. It can be mixed with other ingredients such as milk, butter and spices, to enhance the flavor. Fat from butter helps extract the THC from cannabis. India is one of the earliest cultures to use cannabis in tea form, which is known as Bhang and is still served to guests at parties. Bhang enthusiasts tend to add spices or sweeteners for flavoring, such as cinnamon, cloves and honey. There are varieties of other items you can mix in with tea to improve the taste, such as lemon or mint.
Also read: comparing and contrasting THC and CBD.
Making Tea with Cannabis
The process for making medical marijuana tea is not as simple as preparing regular tea. It involves more than adding hot water to leaves since the active ingredient THC in not water-soluble. THC can be extracted by boiling cannabis leaves, but requires alcohol, butter, milk or oil in the water to help separate the chemical from the leaves. The various types of milk that can be used in the process includes rice milk or soy milk. About one gram of cannabis leaves should be chopped up and added to the mix.
Note: this video wasn’t made by us. However, we found it very informative and felt it was worth sharing for those interested in learning how to make cannabis tea.
Since THC is oil soluble, cream, vegetable oil or butter containing fat helps dissolve the THC into the tea. You can mix in any type of tea in the boiling solution with cannabis leaves. Some people simply choose to boil tea and cannabis in milk or a butter and water mixture. Without butter or oil, the cannabis tea will not be very potent. Once you mix cannabis and butter in boiling water, you should lower the heat, cover the pot and let it simmer for about twenty minutes. It should then sit for another forty minutes before serving.
Potency and Effects
The effects of cannabis tea are milder than other methods of ingestion, but can perhaps be more pleasant for individuals who are not interested in becoming intoxicated. The drink helps calm people down and put them in a relaxed state of mind. Leaves from mature plants, however, can have more powerful effects. Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, particularly in the 19th century. Queen Victoria of England even drank cannabis tea, as it was prescribed by her doctor for treating menstrual cramps.
In Jamaica, cannabis tea is called ganja tea, which is frequently used as medicine. Ganja tea, however, is made from a different plant than the cannabis that is smoked and is much less potent. It is used to treat fever, cold, illness or stress. Cannabis tea can have the same effects as smoking the plant if you drink enough cups of it. Effects can last up to eight hours if you drink a certain amount. The reason THC works as a medicine is due to the chemical having the ability to imitate the body’s pain fighting systems.
