📑 Inhaltsverzeichnis
Non-intoxicating hemp tea from industrial hemp plants has been available commercially for years. You can find it pure from leaves or flowers, or mixed with other teas. Depending on whether leaves or flowers are used, or how they are processed and mixed, hemp tea can taste quite different. Of course, you can also make and blend hemp tea yourself.
Hemp itself has a pleasant green taste as tea. It does contain active compounds, but according to EU law, the THC content must be under 0.2%. In Switzerland, under 1%. Therefore, no one will get high from the hemp tea currently available commercially. Many of the other active compounds also have medicinal potential, but these don’t only occur in marijuana flowers. An alternative to buying is making hemp tea yourself. The advantage is obvious: THC and active compounds can be dosed personally.
Using Hemp Tea
Hemp tea is brewed normally and must steep according to the blend, or should not be poured over with boiling water during brewing. This is usually stated on the package or can be asked from the retailer. Making hemp tea is no more difficult than brewing black tea or chamomile tea.
Those who grow marijuana themselves to make intoxicating hemp tea should consider that the active cannabinoids dissolve not in water, but in fats. Therefore, industrial hemp tea should perhaps also steep with very fatty milk and only then be consumed. The hemp tea should be quickly removed from the water so that the fatty milk can be added. The water should still be very hot. You can naturally add it with the hemp tea, but it ruins the bag or leaf holder. This might even be better for dissolving the active compounds from the plant material.
Everyone can try this for themselves if it’s legal and desired. Preparing hemp tea is thus also a way to absorb active compounds. These work considerably weaker even without the fatty milk because they are barely absorbed by the body and largely excreted. Cannabinoids must bind to fats or be dissolved in them for the body to absorb them – this is also the case with most vitamins.
Making Hemp Tea from Industrial Hemp
There are two scenarios when growing industrial hemp
You have male and female plants that mature at different times. Since this is undesirable, the second scenario would be more common: hermaphroditic industrial hemp is grown, which is well-suited for making hemp tea yourself.
While industrial hemp grows, it shoots up to several meters in height. Industrial hemp should stand quite densely. Thus, from a certain height, the lower leaves will no longer receive enough light. These can be picked before dying. You can also pick and dry the upper leaf levels to make hemp tea. Younger and more tender leaves would presumably be more valuable. The hemp flowers on industrial hemp fields will produce seeds. Since hemp seeds are undesirable for hemp tea, you should harvest the hemp flowers before the hemp seeds fully develop and become bothersome.
Or you would have to let the hemp flowers fully mature and harvest the seeds. Then the remaining flowers are left over. Those targeting sinsemilla hemp flowers would have to remove all male and hermaphroditic plants at flower onset, just like with potent hemp. Since other farmers also grow industrial hemp, the plants will still produce seeds unless they’re in a greenhouse where air can only enter filtered.
Which Parts to Process?
Hemp leaves and hemp flowers should be shielded from light to dry. Great care must be taken that no mold forms in the harvest material. For larger quantities, dry halls with high ceilings would be advantageous, where the hemp plants can hang as a whole or the leaves and flowers can hang airily in nets. Air should be able to circulate. In years with high humidity, the air might even need to be dehumidified. Then probably no additional ventilation should occur, as the incoming air would be very moist.
Theoretically, young plants could also be processed completely with stems, but this wouldn’t work with larger plants. Here, only the leaves, flowers, and possibly the roots are suitable, which also contain medically interesting active compounds. When large plants are dried, you can still remove the leaf material gradually. For the moment, you can harvest faster in the field.
Currently, even industrial hemp cannot simply be grown in many countries. In Austria, you would have to prove in case of doubt that you don’t want to produce drugs. In Germany, only farmers can apply for cultivation. So you can’t simply grow industrial hemp in the garden to make hemp tea. This is also because industrial hemp produces seeds. If self-produced seeds are sown every year, the industrial hemp plants will again contain several percent THC after years.
Health Risks of Hemp Teas
Making hemp tea is so simple and safe that no dangers come from the actual hemp – from potent hemp tea at most minor ones or only for special risk groups. However, those who grow indoors, spray against pests and grow dirty, as well as process uncleanly with mold formation, their product will be harmful. Only unsprayed plant parts may be used. At most, harmless spray agents would be an exception. But even with these, waiting periods before harvest should be observed.
Since lower leaves are already harvested and spray agents are unnecessary, they should generally be avoided. Too much fertilizer can ruin the taste, wrong soil perhaps too. During processing, mold must never form and other contaminations must not reach the harvest material. Then you should be able to make and drink hemp tea safely or with low risk that tastes good!
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