Don’t have time to cook, but want to try cannabis edibles? Make weed tea.
The process is fairly easily, with ample room for creativity.
One method is to simply fill up a tea bag with ground up cannabis flower and whatever other herbs you like — lavender, chamomile, green tea, peppermint, and so on. Then let it steep in hot water. This method is generally less potent than others, however, because THC, the main compound in cannabis, is not water soluble. You’ll be less likely to feel the psychoactive effects of the THC — unless you decarboxylate or heat up the cannabis beforehand so that the non-psychoactive compound THCA converts to the psychoactive THC.
You could also make a tea mixture with coconut oil, butter, or some other kind of fat. In this case, you’d mix the ground up bud with whatever fatty ingredient you choose. THC is fat soluble, meaning it needs to cling onto a fat for its psychoactive effects to be felt. Once you melt the concoction, making a marijuana butter or oil, you can add that to hot water or hot milk, and let it simmer over the stove. When it starts to boil, you know it’s finished.
Cannabis tea has a number of health benefits. For starters, mixing the weed flower with other herbs compounds the medicinal benefits of all of them. Little research has been done on the entourage, or synergistic, effect among cannabis and other plant medicines, though weed could work in conjunction with other medicinal properties found in plants like peppermint or green tea leaves.
While the effects of the tea are largely dependent on the kind of strain you make it with, an energetic sativa tea could substitute for your coffee buzz, while a calm indica could help with chronic pain or night time relaxation. Cannabis tea has also been used to relieve anxiety or depression, ease nausea, alleviate bowel problems, and even help with respiration.
As with any other edible, it’s recommended to start with small, mild doses and build your way up. Especially if you digest it, THC is likely to feel a little more psychedelic than it otherwise would. That’s because your liver turns it into 11-Hydroxy-THC, which is an active metabolite that’s somewhat psychedelic and lasts longer than smoked or vaporized THC. Drink a little tea, then wait two hours before you have any more to reduce the potential for a negative experience. That said, having a high-CBD strain, or even a CBD vaporizer pen handy, can also help with more challenging THC highs.
