I've started experimenting with the 2 "Blue Lotuses"....so hard to keep these completely different herbs straight due to the similarities between them and even inadvertant vendor mis-information floating around out there.
Sacred Lotus aka Pink Lotus and also unfortunately aka "Blue Lotus" is Nelumbo nucifera and is a very, very different experience from the other guy,
(Egyptian) Blue Lotus which is really a water lilly Nymphaea caerulea, not a lotus.
To oversimplify, using 1960's terminology, the latter is more of a downer, but also more tactile and even aphrodesiac which is evidently why the ancient Egyptians liked it so much, whereas the former is more of a mental upper, and even a meditation aid...it is the Lotus from Homer's Odessey, the Land of the Lotus Eaters.
Reports indicate the 2 Lotuses don't mix well together...which makes sense as they would seem to lead you in totally different directions.
I've made a tea from both...hot water extraction from Nymphae petals (they really are blue) requires a lot of material...a few teabags worth in my opinion...to get an effect. The Nelumbo tea did not work for me with a heaping teaspoon of material (use the stamens, most reports say!), and then I found out about the alcohol extraction. So yesterdat I got out my Armenian brandy and blender...and am letting a few tablespoons of powdered stamens soak up the goodness in the brandy, or perhaps it is the other way around, for the next week. I did try some of the brew after just an hour of soaking, and did notice a buzz from it, but I'm sure it wasn't long enough to give it a chance.