How can you tell if chacruna is potent or bad quality

[threewhens]

Is there a way you can tell potent chacruna leaves from bad quality chacruna leaves? Someone has offered me some but I don't know how to tell if it's good or not. Can you tell by the color or some other characteristic what's good chacruna vs bad?

edited buy/sell information.

 

[brokenChild]

Ya, so I've had multiple batches of P. Viridis. And the best one that I've had was dried, mostly whole leaves. The poorer quality are going to be dry, brittle, broken leaf "flakes"... so the best I can relate to you is the more whole the condition of the leaf, the better it is treated. Both were dried tho, I've never had fresh juicy green ones, or even semi-freshly picked (something between fully juicy right off the vine, and fully dried) but the dry, mostly whole leaf is still pretty effective. As far as I understand it relative potency also varied from different strains (hawaiian strain vs normal chacruna)

On that same note, I've gotten leaves from hawaii, and they were just the brittle dry flakes. I've also gotten leaves from canada and they were the more whole, dried, better quality ones. So just because it comes from hawaii doesn't mean it's hawaiian strain. Hope that helps. Results may vary vendor to vendor, so at some point you'll just have to feel it out and make an executive decision on your own part

 

[SnozzleBerry]

The poorer quality are going to be dry, brittle, broken leaf "flakes"... so the best I can relate to you is the more whole the condition of the leaf, the better it is treated.

What does this have to do with potency? If I take a kilo of potent leaves and crumble them up, they're still just as potent. If I carefully maintain the integrity of weak leaves, they're still weak.

On that same note, I've gotten leaves from hawaii, and they were just the brittle dry flakes. I've also gotten leaves from canada and they were the more whole, dried, better quality ones. So just because it comes from hawaii doesn't mean it's hawaiian strain.

Again, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with alleged "strains" or potency, but rather, the condition of the leaves.


Afaik, there aren't any real indicators. You could do an extraction on a portion of the leaves and see what you get...or (as is much more common) you can just brew up the leaves and use a certain amount and adjust accordingly based on the effects experienced.

 

[brokenChild]

^^You are absolutely correct, please forgive my limited knowledge/experience of the leaves, I've never had the pleasure of doing extractions, my experience is only limited to three packages of p.viridis leaves that I received while trying to brew ayahuasca... so I can't tell for certainty without an undeniable doubt (chemically-varified so-to-speak) that one batch is any more or less potent than the other. All I can really say is that going by feel, and visual assessment, which are the only means of evaluation available to me, the batch that I received with mostly whole leaves was better treated and just struck my feeling as the better quality one. So that's the one I used.

I was just trying to answer the question the best way I knew how to the best of my own personal understanding.

Ultimately I ended up switching to chaliponga because it ended up being much friendlier in the taste department for me and much easier to ingest and keep down, albeit much more potent (so is less forgiving, and would require much more respect and sensitivity to get the personal dosing right)

 

[threewhens]

I'll just go ahead and give it a try to see if it's any good or not. The leaves are dried but aren't crushed up, they're mostly whole. The color is a grayish green. Is that how good dried chacruna normally is or should it be a more vibrant green? I'll attach a picture of chacruna that is very close to what they look like.

The extraction process...I know it's been repeated a million times, but would someone be kind enough to briefly tell me if what I've written below is the right sequence of steps? In simpleton terms, this is how I think it goes:

1. Take 50g of Chacruna and grind it up into small pieces and mix it up with a little lemon juice or vinegar in water.
2. Boil this mixture gently for 1 hour.
3. Strain, keep the liquid, then repeat with fresh water and lemon juice. Do it a total of three times.
4. When done, throw away the leaves and combine the three liquids. Simmer gently.
5. When the liquid starts to get slightly thick or syrupy, it's ready.
6. Eat 3-6g syrian rue seeds, wait 20-30 minutes, and then drink the Chacruna liquid you just made.

That is how you make Ayahuasca. Right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Below is an image very close to what color my Chacruna looks like:

 

[corto]

I crush my chacruna/chaliponga by hand and then put it in a coffee grinder, which makes a fine powder. As I understand it powder is better because there is more surface area, which means the extraction goes faster.

If I was going to boil chacruna I'd do 3x30m simmers. I've read multiple times that this is all that is needed.

Vinegar (e.g. white wine vinegar 5%+ acitity) is reportedly better than lemon juice, since the taste of vinegar boils off. I didn't try citrus fruit myself, only vinegar.

I would boil down to 1 gulp rather than any particular consistency. E.g. 1 shot glass. I think most folks think it tastes disgusting, although I have seen one or two folks comment that they don't mind it.

I've never seen anybody positively recommend swallowing whole SR seeds (and a whole lot of posts advising not to). I am doing rue tonight and I got them down to a powder in a coffee grinder. I'm also going to brew them.

I'm a recent n00b to Aya as well, try reading my experience log. Maybe you'll avoid some of the 'mistakes' I made.

Hope it helps, and good luck.