Rue + A. confusa *huasca becoming better known in Taiwan

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A Chinese friend is visiting me, and she told me that apparently in Taiwan some people have started using a Syrian rue + A. confusa brew during the last few years. I imagine some people must have been doing so for much longer, but there didn't use to be a broader cultural awareness about it. They call it "Acacia soup", 相思湯, and it was funny to me to see it referred in English as a "stew".

I'm just reporting it here because I found it interesting. Also, if someone else has first or second hand knowledge about this, I would like to hear about it. The fact that they don't call it "Ayahuasca" or a word related to it makes me wonder if maybe they're coming to it from a place not as culturally conditioned as in the West, and perhaps coming up with their own ideas and interpretations about it.

I'll leave here a couple of papers and an article that mentions it. Unfortunately they're very low in information on the cultural and social side of it:

Syrian rue seeds interacted with acacia tree bark in an herbal stew resulted in N,N-dimethyltryptamine poisoning

scholar.nycu.edu.tw

https://doi.org/10.1002/hkj2.12051

CIB seizes drug made from trees - Taipei Times

Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) officials yesterday said they discovered a laboratory used to produce N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) by distilling the roots and bark of the Acacia confusa tree, during a raid on a home in New Taipei City. DMT can be consumed as a psychedelic drug.A complete laborat

www.taipeitimes.com

 

[northape]

Bureau officials said that about 170kg of DMT worth NT$900 million at the time had been seized during raids in Taichung in January 2017.

So Acacia is out of the closet and making an appearance on the bigger scene. Sad for people who were peacefully working with it for years and now need to face extra unnecessary anxiety. I think Acacia has a place in TCM, so maybe they indeed view it as some local health tonic, which it is. Funny how they try to present it as hard drugs and so on, too. Yeah, this world has been in a dire spot for a long time now. We need all the help we can get, yet only a few actually see it. Most are engaged in a theatrical play called society.

May all be well

 

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Yeah, that case was clearly not about some people having a brew for themselves. I posted it because it mentions the brew.

Interestingly, my friend also told me that some acacias are made into a dish. I think they use the flowers. She doesn't know what species are used for that. It's nothing psychoactive, just a dish, but I found it interesting. And I wonder if that's why they call the psychoactive brew a "stew" in English.