How To Make Cannabis Stem Tea

But you don’t even need cannabis flower to make tea - you can brew a relaxing buzz using leftover marijuana stems and stalks.

Save Your Stems

To get the most value from your cannabis flower, use a grinder to perfect your smoke, and collect sweet sweet kief. Once you’ve separated your buds from the stem, save those little sticks for later use.

Cannabis stems do have THC, although trying to smoke them is not advised. The smoke contains many unwanted compounds due to cellulose in the stem, which also makes stems burn extremely hot.

Stems can be a substitute for weed in many recipes, including a simple tea. Just like when using cannabis flower as an ingredient, the THC in the stems must be activated by decarboxylation, which is basically a heating process. THC is not water soluble, but can bind to fats like butter and oils such as coconut oil. Alcohol can also be used in this recipe.

Easy Weed Stem Tea Recipe

Ingredients:

• ¼ to ½ cup cannabis stems
• 3 cups water

Your choice of binding agent: 

• ¼ tablespoon unsalted butter or coconut oil
or
• ½ cup coconut or whole milk
or
• 2-3 tablespoons alcohol (any hard liquor)

Extra flavours if desired

• Teabag (any type)
• Lemon juice to taste
• Honey/sugar/sweetener to taste

Instructions:

1. Break up any large stems into smaller pieces.
   
   
2. Add the water to a small saucepan or kettle. And butter, oil or milk and bring to a gentle, not rolling, boil. If using alcohol, wait until step 3 to add it to the water.
   
   
3. Add the stems directly to the water and boil for 7-10 minutes or longer, stirring frequently. The longer time boiling, the more THC should be infused. Remove from burner and add alcohol if using.
   
   
4. Use a fine colander, cheesecloth or a coffee filter to strain the mixture into mugs. At this point, you will actually have a tisane, which does not contain any tea. Add a tea bag to brew a more traditional cuppa. Stir in lemon juice and/or sweeteners to taste.

Versatile cannabis stems can be used to create edibles, topicals, bubble hash and even craft projects. We’ll be exploring more uses for weed stems in future blogs- first up:  How to Make Infused Popcorn Using Cannabis Stems

 

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