After decades of doubt, the herbal revolution is here. People are turning to natural products like CBD and kratom tea. Today we’ll cover how you go about making the combined version, known simply as “CBD kratom tea.”
CBD is on the Cusp of Ubiquity
Compared to five years ago, when few knew the difference between CBD and cannabis, consumers are starting to ask how they can use plants to support their well-being.
Now Kroger, Walgreens, Coke-Cola and every other fortune 500 company is trying to identify their CBD play. Now that we’re at the cusp of legitimate widespread adoption of CBD, a new persona non grata is emerging. Enter kratom.
Today we’re going to help establish the connection between CBD and kratom tea. To give you a little background, I was one of the first CBD salesman in the East Coast. It was 2016—pre farm bill times—and everyone thought CBD was just weed.
In kratom today, we’re dealing with similar assumptions about kratom’s connection to more powerful substances. Or in short, traditional opioids.
The Connection Between Kratom and CBD
During my time selling CBD in New York City, I learned a ton about the herbal world. And no, not just cannabis. There are millions of Americans constantly looking for the newest, safe way to improve sleep, focus, and promote a sense of wellbeing.
If you’re new to kratom or CBD, this is exactly what you find in the reports about why people use kratom! In a 2017 study, for example, researchers from John Hopkins interviewed 2700 kratom users and found the main reason they take kratom is to alleviate pain (91%), anxiety (67%) and depression (65%).
Clearly, consumers use kratom for more than one reason, a finding that relates to CBD quite nicely.
According work by Harvard’s Dr. Peter Grinspoon, CBD is typically used to help alleviate anxiety, promote restful sleep, and combat chronic pain. Just like in kratom, we’re still in the early days of research, so there’s a lot left to learn.
Nevertheless, the textbook answers for why people use kratom and CBD explain where there are unmet needs for consumer today. Now that we have the background out of the way, we can get to the real topic of the hour: kratom CBD Tea.
The Basics: What is CBD?
CBD (or Cannabidiol) is of the main active ingredients in cannabis. Even though CBD is not psychoactive, like THC, it’s used to combat epilepsy, reduce stress for some, and fight inflation. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
As a long-time CBD user, I know from first-hand experience that it works, if used correctly. Before we get to kratom, let’s take a moment to explain a big problem in CBD today.
To set the stage, CBD is a marketing ploy for many of the companies selling it today. Their goal isn’t to source high quality CBD or ensure their products are formulated to work well for the average person. Instead, their focus is simply to get the popular product on the shelf.
The Modern CBD Problem
In fact, in 2017, researcher looked at this issue, finding that only 30% of CBD products on the market were accurately labeled! Between 42% being under labeled and 26% being over labeled, there’s clearly a serving size issue.
When you add to all of this the fact that the average concentration of CBD was 15 mg/ml, which is a relatively small dose, it’s easy to see why consumers are skeptical about CBD. Once again, there’s a structural similarity in how kratom and CBD are accepted in society.
Now we can turn to kratom and the modern US tea revolution, the rebirth of a forgotten way of life – defined by the understanding that the US dichotomy between food & medicine obfuscates the true connection between herbs, food, and destiny. Here’s what I mean….
Connecting Health & Kratom Tea
Kratom is an evergreen tree from Southeast Asia that people have been using for hundreds of years for energy and as a natural pain reliever. It’s typically used by farmers and day laborers, and they make a large brew for everyone using fresh leaves every morning.
They pick about 5 oz of fresh kratom leaves in the morning. Farmers add the leaves to a big pot of water and boil it into the afternoon. The resulting beverage is split among the workers – each farmer’s 2-liter bottle is filled halfway with kratom tea. According to them, it helps people stay active in the scorching heat, providing a welcomed end-of-day boost of energy.
In the US, kratom tea is only now getting the attention it deserves. After almost a decade of eating powder, kratom consumers are realizing there’s a better way: tea. We’ve written about the benefits of kratom tea multiple times, so let’s skip that for now. Instead, we’ll get back to the main topic for today: making CBD kratom tea!
What is CBD Kratom Tea?
Based on the fact that people seem to use kratom and CBD for similar reasons, a natural follow-up questions is what’s the best way to combine the two? Let’s review a few options.
Broadly speaking, there are a ton of ways you can use kratom and CBD together. You could, for example, take your morning CBD tincture before breakfast and sip kratom tea on the way to work. Effective but boring. The better way is to brew a kratom tea infused with CBD.
As a point of order, you could do that in reverse: make CBD tea and add a kratom concentrate. As the leading kratom tea brand, we think that’s stupid. Kratom is supposed to be a tea, so to us it’s the natural starting point for a CBD kratom tea.
How to Make CBD Kratom Tea
Since the CBD x Kratom conversation is too broad for one post, we’ll cover brewing quickly. And if you’re still making a bitter brew or using kratom powder in juice (#sad), here’s a way to step up your game:
- Download The Kratom Tea Recipe Book! (It’s free & includes instructions to get anyone started with kratom tea!)
- Buy your favorite Top Tree tea bags
- Follow a recipe that sounds good to you
- Add a 25mg-50mg CBD honey stick to your kratom tea
And the last step, of course, is to enjoy your brew! To be completely honest, we’ve never tried going the opposite direction, as it sounds awful. Why would you take the time to brew a delicious CBD-infused herbal tea and then destroy it with kratom powder?
If you are going to go that route, do us all a favor and make a kratom tea concentrate instead of using kratom powder. And if you make them from Top Tree tea bags, double credit. Whichever method you try, there’s one more important aspect to discuss: serving size.
Finding Your Kratom Tea Serving
For new kratom users, conventional wisdom says to start with 2-4 grams. If you really are a first timer we recommend going with the lower end, i.e. 2 grams. That said, because kratom’s alkaloids aren’t very water soluble, you might want to use a little more kratom than you would if you were eating it.
The maxim in kratom is less is more. The saying comes from hundreds of years of cultural knowledge, synthesized and shared for our benefit today. It essentially means that, for most people, using the smallest effective serving size keeps the risk profile in check. The more you chase euphoria, the worse it gets.
Note: if that doesn’t make sense, just think of it within the context of coffee. You might get great energy from one or two cups. But if you keep drinking them, you’ll quickly hit a point of diminishing returns. Every additional cup makes you more foggy or jittery, and when continued for multiple days, a physical tolerance starts entering the picture. Remember, moderation is key.
Using CBD Correctly: Buyers Beware
If you wanted to do this by the book, we’d recommend taking about 5 mg of CBD per 10 pounds (see chart). So, for a 200-pound person, 100 mg of CBD per day is a good starting point. If we were doctors (which we’re not), this would be regarded as your therapeutic index.
(Note: Considering the average concentration of CBD in products today is 15 mg/ml, a 200-pound person would need to take 6x the daily recommended dose! It’s easy to see how people are being misled by CBD companies.)
When it comes to CBD kratom tea, the last thing to consider is titration. The term originates from chemistry and refers to mixing solutions in a systematic way to see how the reaction changes as the quantity increases. When it comes to CBD, if you’re at a few hundred mg a day and aren’t noticing any effects, it might be time to start sourcing from a new brand. In an ideal world, you’d be able to grow your own kratom and cannabis plants to brew a truly homemade CBD kratom tea. In fact, we hope to be able to offer kratom saplings in the near future, and depending on the legality of your jurisdiction, you can always do a simple google search, like “buy weed seeds for beginners” to get started with CBD.
Conclusion
The beautiful thing about finding a reliable CBD and kratom tea vendor is that the products aren’t mutually exclusive. Beneficial herbs are meant to be paired with other beneficial herbs!
If this concept is new to you, check out our How to Make Kratom Tea Blends blog – we cover the philosophy underlying mixing different herbs. At Top Tree, we believe the key to making CBD kratom tea is applying well known concepts from cannabis, like the entourage effect, to kratom tea.
Certain plants act synergistically when used in combination, and if there’s one thing we hope you’ve taken away today it’s this: If you dig kratom tea, try throwing in some CBD (or it’s lesser-known psychoactive cousin: Delta 8). Until next time, cheers to better brewing!
