Best Red Strain
Kratom is known for wearing many hats. At one end of the spectrum, kratom is energizing. While on the other end, it is a soothing sleepytime brew. Usually these dual effects are separated by the amount of kratom tea that you drink.
However, these sides of kratom can be encouraged by picking a strain that is known for tending to one side of the spectrum. When you want an energizing brew, grab a white vein strain. If you’re looking for a mellow, soothing, sleepytime tea, Unwind red vein kratom tea is the brew you’ve been seeking.
What is Red Maeng Da Kratom?
Red Maeng Da kratom is a popular variety of kratom leaf. Kratom, for those that don’t know, is a rapidly growing evergreen tree found in Southeast Asia. The tree, Mitragyna speciosa, can reach heights upward of 80 feet tall, and produces leaves the size of American footballs.
These leaves contain a variety of alkaloids which in turn produce different effects when consumed. The leaves have been chewed and spit, or brewed into a tea, for hundreds if not thousands of years.
When a small amount is consumed, such as 2-4 chewed leaves, or one or two tea bags, a pleasant uplifting push is felt. Its use and effect is rightly compared with coffee and caffeine containing teas. Interestingly, when many leaves are brewed into a strong tea, the effects are opposite, yet still pleasant.
In America strong kratom tea is consumed at nighttime in place of sleepytime teas. In Thailand, a land rich with kratom culture, strong tea is used frequently for libations and recreation.
Who Uses Kratom?
Physical laborers are often seen as the poster child for kratom. This makes sense for a lot of reasons. Namely, these laborers and farmers spend most of their day outside, working in the forests that kratom grows in naturally. To ease their tired bodies and lift their spirits and motivation, a farmer will chew on a kratom leaf for a few seconds every couple of hours.
The use of kratom by this working class parallels our American habits of coffee consumption. Many find it hard to imagine going throughout their work day without the help of their morning or afternoon joe. Yet this isn’t the only people who use kratom traditionally.
In Thailand and other countries where kratom has a deep and storied tradition of use, many people use it as a beverage for socialization. This use of kratom has only grown with the steady and increasing spread of the Islamic religion in the area. Because Muslims are forbidden from drinking alcohol, kratom is often served to house guests and offered as libations instead.
What does Red Maeng Da kratom do?
Red Maeng Da kratom is a wildly popular variety of kratom. It is a red strain, which effectively means that the crushed or powdered leaves have a slightly red hue to the overarching green and brown color scheme.
Maeng Da is a Thai phrase meaning “pimp grade,” which, as you may guessed, implies a higher potency.
We hinted earlier that Red Maeng Da kratom leans away from being energizing on the kratom effect spectrum. Simply put, Red Maeng Da kratom is strong!
A good cup of red vein kratom tea is best enjoyed in the evening. We recommend you pair it with other common sleepytime herbs such as camomile, lavender, or valerian root.
Red Maeng Da Strain Myth
We’ve written extensively on the varying beliefs that are held concerning the various types of kratom. Vein color has long been popularly held as the differentiator of effects in kratom. Over time, this old belief has revealed itself as myth.
More than anything, the serving size you take of kratom affects its effect. To recount the myth, white is energizing. Reds are stronger and are better for nighttime and bodily effects. Greens are somewhere in the middle, and often touted as calming rough mental seas.
However, as this myth grew in popularity, scientists were unable to pin the cause of this difference. First off, there are not varieties of kratom trees that have different colored vein stems. Newer leaf growth has red accents, but those leaves will mature into the standard green color of the rest of the tree.
Currently, the predominant differences between the vein colors/strains is what happens to the leave after it has been picked. To promote a redder color, leaves are left in bags to ferment slightly, producing a dark, almost bruised color.
White veins strains may get their faded color by being left to bleach in the sun while drying. The green strains, then, undergo little additional processing following harvest. Any other colors that are being advertised are usually just unique blends of these different colors put together by your vendor.
Why Take Kratom as Tea?
In the United States, there are about 15 million people who consume kratom regularly. And while kratom tea is the traditional way of using kratom in Southeast Asia, most Americans do not drink kratom tea. Instead of utilizing one of the traditional kratom preparations, many people instead swallow dried kratom powder.
It may come as no surprise, then, that over 30% of these 15 million people report some sort of stomach issue associated with their kratom consumption. The reason behind this odd practice of swallowing dried leaves is economic.
Today, a majority of the kratom in the United States comes from Indonesia. A kratom leaf is about 75% water by weight. When you are shipping kratom across the globe, you’ll want to reduce weight to maximize your profit. But weight isn’t the only factor at play.
When transporting shipments via metal shipping containers on massive boats, every inch of the container that isn’t used is wasted space. To maximize the amount of kratom that can fit into these shipping containers, the dried kratom leaves are ground into a powder. This micronized powder is by far the most economical way to ship kratom across the globe.
However, this powder then lands in the United States with zero context on how to use it, or that there even is a deep history concerning best practices. Without guidance, most US consumers will simply resort to swallowing the powder. In short, there is no reason to swallow excess leaf powder when you can simply brew it into a delicious tea and discard the leaf matter.
How to Make Red Maeng Da Kratom Tea
The best way to make Red Maeng Da kratom tea is to avoid powder altogether. No matter how hard you try, you will always end up with a gritty, sandy cup of tea.
For this reason, we recommend you only use crushed leaf kratom. To avoid the complications of having to worry about getting the best Red Maeng Da kratom for tea, simply grab a pouch of kratom tea bags!
To make tea using Red Maeng Da kratom tea bags, you’ll only need a few things.
For starters, you’ll need a way to boil water. Secondly, you’ll need a thermos, which is critical for maintaining a high temperature while steeping. And finally, you’ll need a source of acid, our favorite is lemon juice, but lime and other citrus fruits work just as well.
To begin, place however many tea bags you’d like into your thermos. We recommend starting with one and working your way up to the amount that is best for you. Once you put your tea bags into your thermos, squeeze half a lemon worth of juice over the bags and let it saturate into the bags.
Finally, pour your boiling water into the thermos and quickly cap. Now just wait 20 minutes while your tea steeps in the hot water. Just add sweetener, cool, and enjoy! And if you use 3+ tea bags in the first steep, you can add more boiling water for a second (slightly weaker but effective) kratom tea.
Where to Buy Red Maeng Da Kratom Tea Bags?
In the United States, kratom is vastly under appreciated. Kratom has a centuries of tradition behind it, and we think that disregarding the best practices established by a culture familiar with kratom is foolhardy.
In our opinion, there is a reason why Thai farmers do not crush up kratom leaves and swallow them. Kratom tea is better tasting and has less proclivity to contribute to negative side effects such as nausea or dehydration.
At Top Tree Herbs, we source only the best premium crushed leaf kratom available. Our kratom is AKA cGMP certified, and tested multiple times for a wide range of adulterants, contaminants, and pathogens. Even more, we take the taste of our kratom teas seriously, and are the only kratom tea company in the world to offer flavored tea bags and herbal kratom tea blends.
