How to make stem tea

Intro: 

Green tea has become highly popular amongst those people that like to drink tea; for cannabis consumers, green ganja tea can be made from leftover stems and pieces of their prized pot plants! Why let go to waste any part of your weed plants after you have harvested your nugs, when there's still all kinds of cannabinoids in the leaves and stems of the plant that could be smoked as 'shake' or brewed into a potent pot of pot tea? Edible marijuana treats like cannabutter brownies and weed cookies have long been staples of the cannabis community and you get a longer, sometimes more intense high from consuming cannabis digestively versus sucking it into your lungs. Cannabis beverages like 'cool aid' and cannabis coffees (ganjava) are quite common, and there are even cannabis-infused alcoholic beverages (as you might suspect, when consumed together with pot, alcohol increases THC concentrations, making the effects of your weed feel stronger than usual); these drinkable edibles can be found in a number of dispensaries and provisioning centers. Or you can make your own medible beverages at home; so, if you fancy yourself a spot of weedy tea, we are going to show you how to steam up your stems to brew yourself some bodacious tea!

Background: 

Doing a little internet research, we found that tea as a drink itself probably originated in the Yunnan region of China during the Shang dynasty - 1556 to 1046 BC - as a medicinal drink; cannabis stem tea could certainly be considered a medicinal beverage. The buzz or benefits you get from your cannabis stem tea depends largely upon the specific type of weed strain stems and trimmings that you use, they do contain smaller amounts of the same cannabinoids that are in your indica, sativa or hybrid buds - for instance, trim leaves and stems contain around 2 to 3% THC - and thus should have similar, if somewhat milder, effects as the flowers of the pot plant. Now, you can increase the potency of your ganja stem tea by adding some kief or decarboxylated ground buds, that's entirely up to you! Medical marijuana patients have reported some remedy from such diverse conditions as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, body aches, migraines and headaches, nausea, autoimmune disorders, multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, and even asthma from drinking cannabis-infused herbal tea. What pot stem tea does for you depends on what weed strain you put in it.

Actual Recipe for Stem Tea:

Okay, here's what you need to get started making your own pot stem tea:

Ingredients:

⅓ or ¼ cup of stems from your favorite strain of weed.

3 cups of water.

Regular tea of whatever kind you prefer, to add some flavor.

A coffee filter

Directions:

1) Grind or break up your stems, it makes no difference which you do.

2) Pour your 3 cups of water into the tea kettle, or a saucepan works just as well, whichever one you have on hand. After adding your water, then add some milk or butter. Supposedly, these 'binders' can also improve the overall potency of your stem tea during the natural decarboxylation process that happens as it steeps. If you do choose to go with alcohol as a binder, it's better to add it after your pan or kettle water comes to a boil, so that your alcohol doesn't evaporate away.

3) Heat on high, then once your water plus whatever binder you are using (except alcohol, which is not added until this point) has reached a vigorous boil, then add your stems and let them boil and simmer for between 7 to 10 minutes. If you want, you can put the stems inside a large teabag, or maybe a couple tea balls, to simplify the straining process. Now is when you would add in with your stems some of your kief or ground bud to add more kick to the potency of your tea, if you wish. Stir loose or bagged stems continuously to make sure that your cannabinoids separate from the plant matter and have enough time to bind with the fat (or alcohol) molecules of the binders in your water.

4) If you used a tea bag, then boom, you are done and your tea is ready! However, if you just boiled loose stems (and kief or decarbed weed or whatever) without a teabag, then the next step is, of course, straining the tea. This is where the coffee filter comes into play. If you boiled your water, binder and stem mix in a kettle, then secure the coffee filter around the spout with a rubber band; if you instead used a saucepan, then you can rubber band the coffee filter around a mug to strain your tea as you pour it in – or you could pour out through a cheesecloth into a jar or bowl, before pouring it into your cup.