DOSE:

11 g

oral

Poppies - Opium

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Poppy Pod Tea Recipe / Dreamy

My intent here is to share my recipe, with I have found excellent, more than to share my experience. I’ve kept excellent notes on my recipe formulation, but I’ve recorded only generalities about the experiences.

My experiences have all been similar. Starting about half an hour, maybe an hour, after I drink the tea, I feel mellow. My body feels content and slowed down, as if my life is taking place in a giant, warm bathtub. The effect is very subtle so long as my eyes are open and I am doing anything. In fact, it’s so subtle, that it would not be worth the effort. However, if I lay down and close my eyes, I readily slip into an unusual and active dream state, which takes place despite my remaining sort of awake.

The hallmark of this special dream state is that its content is almost purely visual and free-form, with each image morphing into another with no discernible logic. There is no narrative content to the dreams. In fact, there isn’t really any Me in the dreams: I don’t go anywhere or do anything, there are no narrative links between the images. It’s more like I’m looking into a kaleidoscope and someone else is turning the knob and producing ever-changing images, which have no visceral or historical relationship to me or my life. I’m so mellow and detached watching these images that I would have to say they are “interesting” and 'enjoyable' rather than “fascinating.”

Now for the RECIPE.

I use:

Poppy pods sufficient to make 22 grams of powder (read below: I start with many more pods than that)
Lemons to make 4 ounces of juice
Food processor (optional)
Coffee grinder
A double-boiler (can be makeshift)
A frothing thermometer
Sugar or honey

First off, when I get a batch of poppy pods, I grind up a lot of them, much more than I’m going to use in a single cooking session. That way, variation in the pods’ potency will have less impact on the potency of the tea I make in any particular session. Also, it gives me a uniform powder, so that when I make a subsequent tea batch, I can adjust how much I drink according to my experience of tea from prior sessions.

I have bought my pods online. Supposedly (and hopefully) they’re organically grown. In my limited experience, sellers’ descriptions of the size of their pods is neither consistent nor accurate. For the recipe I’ll describe here, I used pods that averaged about 6 grams. They were described as “baby jumbo.”

First, I snap off the stem and discard it. Pulling off the stem should make a little hole in the pod. I pour out the seeds. (Discarding them; or saving them to plant or for baking.) I crack the pod into pieces, and remove the rest of the seeds, doing this to a lot of pods (10 or 20 or whatever).

I put the pod pieces into a food processor and grind them up. This won’t get them fine enough, so, next, I take a scoop at a time of this coarse powder and grind it in a coffee grinder. It will become a very fine powder. (I could use just the coffee grinder, but it will take longer.) For this recipe, I used 22 grams of powder. The rest of the powder I put into an airtight container (Tupperware) and store in the freezer.

Then I squeeze enough lemons to get 4 ounces of juice, mix the juice into the 22 grams of powder, and mush it into a paste. Then let sit 30 minutes or so.

For a double-boiler: I place one saucepan inside another larger one, with a metal ring (from a Mason jar) on the bottom of the big pan to level the small pan and keep it from the direct heat. I figure out how much water the bottom pan can hold with the small pan in it, and get that water boiling or near to boiling. In the small pan, I bring 32 ounces of water near to 185°F (85°C), using a thermometer for this (I bought one sold for measuring the temperature of milk for frothing for cappuccinos; I think a candy thermometer may work, too). Then I mix the poppy-lemon paste into the water.

My understanding (from unauthoritative sources on the Internet) is that opium breaks down at temperatures above 185°F. At the same time, I want the heat as high as possible to help extract the psychoactive elements from the powder. So the trick is to keep the temperature of the water as close to 185°F as possible without exceeding it. I’m satisfied keeping the solution between about 165°F and 180°F, stirring every several minutes. After, say, 45 minutes, I strain the solution into a container. Cheesecloth is helpful for straining but not necessary; I have a fine-gauge strainer. When I used these quantities, my original 32 ounces of water reduced to 23 ounces of tea.

I mix sugar or honey, to taste, into the tea. I use about a tablespoon per cup. When it’s cooled some, it goes in the refrigerator. The tea tastes better cold.

At this point in my experience, I would drink 1/3 to half, and enjoy. But I could, instead, drink, say, 1/4 or 1/5 and see how that does for me, then drink more depending on the state of my mind and stomach after an hour.

For my weight and tolerance, and the potency of the pods I’ve bought, this recipe makes two or three servings. For my girlfriend, it would make three to five. Any leftover tea can be frozen and thawed later. I’ve left it frozen for about a month with no deleterious effect.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 84178
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 56
Published: Jan 24, 2018	Views: 9,935
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Poppies - Opium (43) : Not Applicable (38), Preparation / Recipes (30), Retrospective / Summary (11)