aCactus tea questions

[LoveInTheDream]

A few quick questions:

1- After straining, when boiling down, there is a crystalized layer left on the side of the pot. Is this active/worth scraping off and saving in some way?

2- When boiling down far in one of the last steps, in between stirs, there seemed to be a syrupy build up on the bottom of the pot. I stirred and it went back into solution. Was this burned in any way? Did I mess it up by stirring it back in when I noticed it? Should I have been stirring the whole time to avoid this?

3- When put in the freezer in a ball jar, the top layer is much darker then the lower 90%. It also freezes in a weird convex shape with like a nipple pointing up in the middle. When tasted this darker layer in the convex shape tastes SUPER bitter. Is this where the goodies hide out? Does the goodies have a different freezing temp then the rest of the water? If so can I just scrape that top layer off and discard the rest as a method of concentration?

Thanks y'all. Enjoy the weekend, and stay weird.

 

[Grey Fox]

These are interesting questions. I often wonder about the layer that settles to the bottom of the container after the tea is brewed and cools down, especially after some time in the fridge. It seems like no matter how much I filter and decant, a new layer always forms at the bottom. So I wonder, is this undesirable leftover plant material worth discarding? Or does it contain mescaline?

Usually I discard it because the flavor is so incredibly bitter. But I wonder, is that some kind of a mescaline rich slurry settling there? Certainly, if I was performing an extraction I would include that material. But the taste is so vomit inducing that I toss it when drinking tea. But what is it and does it contain mescaline?

As far as making tea goes, a trick I figured out awhile back is that when it comes time to reduce down the tea, towards the latter part of the tea making process, it is best to leave the cactus material in the water while it is reducing. I have found that this lessens the risk of the tea blackening or acquiring a burnt taste during the final stage of reduction. The presence of the plant material seems to make it harder for the tea to burn while being reduced, especially when the level of water drops very low. So I do all of the reducing while the cactus pieces are still in the pot. Then I only remove the cactus material after the pot is taken off the burner. For me this has helped a lot to prevent blackening / burning of the tea.

And don't forget to squeeze all of the tea out of the cactus pieces that you remove. That liquid is then added back to the tea. The cactus pieces hold a lot of liquid.