You know, I don't mind the flavor of mushrooms at all. Fresh, dry... whatever. I'll eat 'em straight. From the looks on my friend's faces when we do eat the shrooms straight, I'm in the minority.
There is no denying tea tastes better. I have problems with shrooms & oj (Diff'rent strokes I guess...) those flavors don't mix well for me. But I just love the taste of tea.
Fortunately for me, I have a fictional friend by the name of Don Quixote. Don is a shroom chef of sorts. Don Quixote is a smart guy but he always thinks with his stomach. Even better for me, Don Quixote is always up for an adventure.
Don highly suggests mint tea. Although he has succeeded with many different types of tea (licorice comes in 2nd), mint manages to completely cover the flavor of the mushrooms, while still tasting very mild. Mint tea, also, sooths the stomach. Don puts the shroom tea in empty, individual sized, Snapple Iced Tea Bottles. If he can't have it hot, Don Quixote likes his tea cold. Lukewarm tea isn't very enjoyable.
This ain't no sippin' tea.
Make sure you don't use too much water or you won't be able to fit it all into your individual sized Snapple bottles. To prepare water to boil or cold filter, Don uses a Snapple bottle filled 2/3, per adventurer, per batch of tea. This will be enough water to hold any sized dose.
You have options when you make tea, you can strain the shrooms out or grind them up and leave them in. Rule of thumb, if you are making a batch of tea for a bunch of friends, strain it. You want to minimize their stomach discomfort. It also, looks more palatable. If you are making tea for yourself or for experienced shroomers, there is nothing wrong with grinding the shrooms and just leaving them in. In fact, it may be a little more potent.
If the shrooms are dry, the psylocin is mostly gone. Don, usually makes his tea with dry mushies because the process is MUCH faster than with fresh shrooms... you can dry fresh shrooms yourself and get hot tea quicker than you can cold-filter it. Still cold-filtered tea is certainly worth trying. For dry mushrooms, DQ just boils some lemon water. Lemon can be very helpful when you want to make sure you extract the most from your dried shrooms in the shortest amount of time. You don't want so much lemon that the tea is overpowered by the flavor. He then adds shrooms in a tea ball right after his water has been brought to a boil and the stove is shut off. Don adds 1 or 2 bags of mint tea per adventurer. Don says mint tea soothes the stomach, tastes great AND it is less filling. He steeps for 10-15 minutes and pours the servings into their respective bottles. Psylocybin can handle this short burst of heat. Don Quixote has NEVER noticed a drop in potency from cooking tea unless he used fresh shrooms. When using dry shrooms, DQ doesn't mind using shroom powder. This way you injest the entire shroom but it makes the tea a little cloudy. It is little more potent and a little less discrete.
With fresh shrooms, Don likes cold-filtering his tea with lemon water. Don puts enough lemon juice in the water to taste it. The lemon juice will put the lemon's acids to work for you. Psylocybin will extract in straight water but Don likes to get everything he can from his mushies. Lemon speeds up the extraction process. Don adds his chopped, fresh mushrooms. Add all the shrooms you will use (5g of shrooms extracted into tea is still as potent as 5g of shrooms). Don adds the tea bags. Don Quixote lets the shroom and lemon water sit in the fridge 24-48 hours, then he strains the slimy shrooms out before pouring each serving into the Snapple bottles. Clean fingers make a great strainer... just don't tell your friends. In theory, Don preserves the psylocin from the fresh shrooms by cold-filtering them in the fridge. This is a pretty slow and simple process. Be sure to stir your tea a few times while you cold filter.
Fresh mushies and oj is a quicker and simpler tek. Eating the shrooms straight is the simplest and fastet tek... but if you want something that REALY tastes good, try the tea.
I don't mind the taste of shrooms but I love the taste of Don Quixote's mint & mushroom tea. Mint covers any hint of mushroom in the tea, yet mint has a very mild flavor.
Don's stomach loves honey (I wonder if Winnie the Pooh likes chasing windmills... er, fighting giants as much as Don Quixote enjoys honey). Don suggests you add honey to any and all shroom tea. Hey, shrooms like honey and honey likes shrooms. Don likes to think mushrooms begin and end with honey. Don Quixote is a big fan of the honeywater tek.
The beauty of the Don's mint tea is you can make a batch that is equally potent for everyone who drinks it. All you have to do is measure each person's dose in their own personalized Snapple Iced Tea bottle (write each tripper's name on their bottle so you can keep track of whose is whose... this is especially important if some adventurers are taking larger doses than others). If you put the mushroom tea in a measured pitcher, and you know how many mushrooms were used in the tea, it is very easy to figure out how many grams each adventurer will be taking.
Don Quixote says you can make another batch of mint tea (without mushrooms) to fill the remainder of each Snapple bottle so it looks like the Snapple just came off a store's shelf. Once all the Snapple bottles are full (Snapple sells Mint Iced Tea hehehe), refrigerate until cold and give to your friends.
Drinking tip: If you drink your tea over the course of 30-45 minutes, you can extend your peak for up to an hour.
Snapple bottles are very inconspicuous and omnipotent. They do not draw undesired attention in public. Even if they do, I imagine this is what might happen.
Officer: What is that?
Don Quixote: Mint Snapple
Officer: May I taste it?
Don Quixote: But of course.
(Officer sips)
Officer: Now THAT'S good Snapple!
(Officer does cheesy Mentos-style smile for the camera)
Play music.
Voice Over: Snapple, made from the best stuff on Earth.
Roll credits.
-------------------- Fiddlesticks.
Edited by Rose (01/08/04 01:26 AM)
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