Health Benefits of Tea
- Antioxidant-rich – Tea is high in antioxidants, which is great for people with high blood pressure. It’s also good for keeping your blood clean, therefore keeping your body running at peak performance and feeling young.
- Little to no caffeine – Tea also has less caffeine than coffee, making it better for people that can’t handle too much caffeine, as it can damage the overall health of your nervous system.
- Lowers cholesterol – Tea also lowers your risk of having a heart attack or stroke because it cleans up your blood. People that drink tea on the regular have on average 30% less LDL (bad) cholesterol than folks who don’t drink tea much or at all.
- Aids in weight loss – Tea speeds up your metabolism, largely contributing to weight loss in people that drink tea regularly.
- Prevents osteoporosis – Green tea is great for your bones and the health of your bone marrow. It strengthens your bone tissue.
- Keeps you smiling – Tea can prevent tooth decay because it changes the pH balance in your mouth when you drink it, and may prevent cavities. It’s also one of the very few beverages that doesn’t erode tooth enamel.
- Good for immune health – Tea is a natural immune system booster. It helps your white blood cells and antibodies get to where they need to be faster, and it gives them a little boost as well.
- Battles cancer – Because tea is so good for your blood and immune system, research has shown that tea may be good for battling the symptoms of cancer and preventing cancer all together.
- Good for digestion – Tea gets things moving. Ginger tea will sooth an upset stomach, and chamomile tea is good for IBS because it’s an antispasmodic
- Calorie free – If you brew tea and leave it as is, it’s calorie free, which is good for hydrating with some flair without the extra calories.
What is Stem Tea?
Pot stem tea is a little different from regular cannabis infused teas. Stem tea is used as more of a wellness drink because there are a lot of healthy cannabinoids waiting to be ingested when you grind your stems into dust. Every single part of the cannabis plant has some sort of benefit. Seeds, roots, leaves, and now, dried stems. Don’t get me wrong, you will feel a nice little body buzz, but you won’t get crazy high or anything. Like most teas, you’re going to need something for the THC to stick to, such as butter, oil, or milk. After that, you just use your favorite tea bags and water, adding your cannabis infused fat to the tea.
How to Make Stem Tea
I have two favorite stem tea recipes. One with Chai, because it tastes great with half and half, and one with butter.
Chai Stem Tea:
You’ll need:
- About ¼ cup of cannabis stems. You can also add shake or flower to up your potency.
- Half and half
- Sugar
- Honey
- Loose-leaf Chai, or any tea that you take with dairy.
- 3 to 4 cups of water
- Coffee grinder
- A medium sized saucepan
- Coffee or tea filter
What to do:
- Put your cannabis stems into the coffee grinder and grind them up because this will open up the stems and allow the THC to stick to your half and half better.
- Take your saucepan and add about a cup of half and half and bring it to a boil. Remember, the THC can only stick to fat, so don’t use water.
- Throw your ground stems, or trim and flower into the boiling half and half. Let it boil for a few minutes, typically 5-10. Be careful though, you don’t want to burn it.
- Remove the half and half from the heat, and use the filter to strain it into a cup. It takes a while to get the mixture through the strainer, so be patient. At this point, you should be down to about a half cup of half and half.
- Take your chai and prepare it according to package instructions. Typically 3 packets is a good number to make for this recipe, but you can increase or decrease the amount of tea as needed. A good rule of thumb though is that it should be double the amount of tea needed for one person, because you may want to overpower the taste of the half and half. If you’re watching your dairy intake, this is the way to go.
- Get a nice big mug and fill it up with tea, using about half of your half and half mixture, around ¼ cup.
- You can use sugar and honey to add some extra flavor to your tea, if you don’t like the taste of tea and milk by itself. Feel free to add some cinnamon too, if you’re making chai tea. Cinnamon chai is so tasty!
- Drink up!
Easy Stem Tea:
This recipe is a lot quicker and easier to make. Great if you’re low on ingredients or if you’re kinda high already and don’t feel great about a complicated edible like brownies or more complicated teas.
What you’ll need:
- Roughly a tablespoon of cannabis stems. You can also add shake or bud to up your potency
- About ½ teaspoon of butter, just enough to submerge your stems, because butter doesn’t taste great in tea. Again though, you need some fat for the THC to stick to, which is why it’s necessary.
- 1 cup boiling water
- A tea bag of your choice
- Honey, lemon, cinnamon, or sugar. Whatever you think tastes good with your tea of choice.
- Coffee grinder
- Strainer
- Small saucepan
- A teacup or mug
What to do:
- Grind up your stems or flower with the coffee grinder.
- Put the butter into the small saucepan and heat it up until just melted. You don’t want to burn the butter.
- Add the ground cannabis to the butter and saute for 10-20 minutes. Low and slow. You want to extract the THC without burning the butter or the cannabis.
- Take the butter and strain the ground cannabis out. I’ve found that a cheesecloth works best. You can strain directly into the mug.
- Boil the water and prepare your tea according to package instructions.
- Add the tea to the mug and the butter.
- Add sugar, cinnamon, honey, or lemon to taste and enjoy!
The best stem tea is made when you allow yourself the time to extract the THC properly. If you don’t extract long enough, you’re going to lack a little bit on the potency. If you extract for too long, you run the risk of burning your cannabis butter or milk. Either way, stem tea is a great way to use any unwanted stems and still get a good health boost as well as a good high.
