Does the grind, smell and taste really tell you anything?

[mitragiriffic]

Can someone explain to me what you can supposedly tell about how the effects of kratom will be from the grind, smell or taste? I see people often say things like “fine grind” or “bitter taste” as if they are definitive signs of quality kratom. I’ve got a hunch it’s horseshit.

[Somethingsacred]

Wellhell, I’d def be one of those guys lol, more of just describing the physical aspects of the leaf I try ... be as skeptical as you want , personally it doesn’t imply the effects at all.. just the immediate upfront take on what it is before I take it ..... take care bud.
Pretty much tells you the grind , smell and taste .. followed by the effects I experienced lol

Kind of like when you describe a beer, wine or ganja...

Is the beer cloudy , thick viscosity...

Is the wine a fuller body with more dryness or sweetness ...

Is the bud tight or loose ... how the smell and taste?

[swablero]

I think you can get some information from the physical characteristics of the leaf but nothing that ultimately means very much, The grind, the amount of surface area, can give you some indication of how quickly the leaf will hit. Of course that effect is relative to the strength and style of the leaf and doesn't mean much in itself. Good leaf lasts for hours anyway. Maybe you want a fast leaf to hit fast. Related to this is the amount of moisture in the powder. How the leaf clumps in the bag are indicative of freshness and help you build an intuition. Older leaf tends to be dryer, dustier. Also old leaf has a different taste than leaf that just went into stock from a good supplier. This is undeniable to anyone who has had vintage. Of course this all depends on how the old leaf was stored as well. This observation has little to do with quality. People will argue that aged leaf loses something but I've had plenty vintage fire. Of course there is no way to be objective about this like most observations having to do with Kratom. I think there are some characteristic taste that leaf has like bitter, grassy etc that are dependent on alkaloid profile and maybe there are some people out there that can generalize about taste and draw conclusions but that's not me. I cant taste the combination of scores of alkaloids. You can even argue uniqueness. I think just as you can taste older leaf there is something positive and unique about fresh leaf. And also, you can taste the degree to which a leaf has bent. You can also taste something off and out of place. Badly cured leaf has something chemical or noxious going on. But I don't pay much attention to taste. Also you may have an intuition about the leaf by its color but paradoxes are so frequent that its just incidental. Some people may have developed a sensual attraction to the physical characteristics just as we may like the certain characteristics of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. I'm not one of those. I just take my medicine because it all comes down to the quality of the burn.

[brave777]

Anyone notice, the sludge and green bubbles on bottom of cup, if you drink it, it comes on faster? seems sludge and green bubbles are most green strains to me, mostly gives off alert feeling. Maybe its dried differently or grind way to early while some spots of leaf is still green i don't know. Some even so fast where as to the point your eyes can go slight wacko. maybe some can shine light on that.

Kratom that dont have the green bubbles/green sludge on bottom of cup seem to be mostly balanced, usually reds and i assume very well dried green leaf. I feel great on it all the time, wonder how and why these days some kratom has sludge on bottom, i believe before 2016, leaf never had that green bubbles with sludge on bottom of cup. Could it be that the demand is so high that Indonesians just grind leaf before its completely dry? Just trying to figure out what gives that green mushy sludge on bottom?

I am starting to look into kratom that dont have green mushy sludge, not that its bad its just it can be sometimes to much on my brain or to fast with extra's that gives sometimes uncomfortable unclean feel and perhaps mess with eye vision. Any one experienced this? could be just my body chemistry. I am not saying kratom that has sludge is bad, it does the job well i just dont want the extra's from it if you know what i mean.

Whats every once Else's experience with green sludge kratom?

[mitragiriffic]

Kind of like when you describe a beer, wine or ganja...

Is the beer cloudy , thick viscosity...

Is the wine a fuller body with more dryness or sweetness ...

Is the bud tight or loose ... how the smell and taste?

I appreciate your input! although I'd argue that the viscosity and mouth feel and taste matter a whole lot more with beer and wine, because - of course - those things are made to be savored and tasted. Kratom is definitely not lol.

to be fair, if you have THE BEST kratom in the world but it tasted horrible, it wouldnt matter a bit to me. id eat it up

[mitragiriffic]

Anyone notice, the sludge and green bubbles on bottom of cup, if you drink it, it comes on faster?...
Whats every once Else's experience with green sludge kratom?

I am totally unfamiliar with that your talking about. do you mix your kratom with water and drink it? is that what your referring to?

The grind, the amount of surface area, can give you some indication of how quickly the leaf will hit.

eh, i doubt that. your stomach acids can break it down just as good as a blade can, if not better. Im fairly confident capping up roughly ground kratom would feel the same as fine ground, given they were the exact same kratom.

[CatfatherB]

Anyone notice, the sludge and green bubbles on bottom of cup, if you drink it, it comes on faster?...
Whats every once Else's experience with green sludge kratom?

I am totally unfamiliar with that your talking about. do you mix your kratom with water and drink it? is that what your referring to?

The grind, the amount of surface area, can give you some indication of how quickly the leaf will hit.

eh, i doubt that. your stomach acids can break it down just as good as a blade can, if not better. Im fairly confident capping up roughly ground kratom would feel the same as fine ground, give they were the exact same kratom.

You could test YOUR theory by eating or capping up crushed leaf to see how effective that is?

[fusedflora]

You could test YOUR theory by eating or capping up crushed leaf to see how effective that is?

I tend to agree with cat on this. There's a reason why we chew food before it goes down.... And why I still see corn kernels come out the other end. Finer grinds are more better absorbed and digested.

Finer grind, in my experience, has led to more aromatic and more intense taste. I toss and wash by placing powder on my tongue for about a minute or two and can definitely feel the mouth numb more from finer grinds (same strain coarse and fine). Grind more likely affects the taste and smell. Though I do not believe smell and taste have anything to do with potency as you ask. I'd need to do some tests to see if grind affects potency, but I'm willing to bet it does.

Now if you're making tea from powder, grind doesn't mean anything.

[Greyfeather]

I really like the taste of Kratom, but that doesn't mean I have enjoyed every strain I've tried. I find it relaxing to test the aroma (the ones that smell like fresh green tea especially); how it goes down - all of it. I haven't noticed any correlation between enjoyment and effects however. Like everyone else, if it improves the quality of my life, the taste, etc. is irrelevant. Maybe I'm just a pagan at heart and indulging in a little nature worship, lol.

[mitragiriffic]

Maybe I'm just a pagan at heart and indulging in a little nature worship, lol.

Now THATS some rationale I can get down with

[Somethingsacred]

Kind of like when you describe a beer, wine or ganja...

Is the beer cloudy , thick viscosity...

Is the wine a fuller body with more dryness or sweetness ...

Is the bud tight or loose ... how the smell and taste?

I appreciate your input! although I'd argue that the viscosity and mouth feel and taste matter a whole lot more with beer and wine, because - of course - those things are made to be savored and tasted. Kratom is definitely not lol.

to be fair, if you have THE BEST kratom in the world but it tasted horrible, it wouldnt matter a bit to me. id eat it up

I hear you man, perhaps the physicality of the powder, taste and smell don’t contribute majorly to the effects experienced, but all the same , it’s what I use to the describe the powder before ingestion... I’m not a expert or knowledgeable enough to say it tastes this way and so it will contribute in this way... perhaps those qualities of smell, taste and grind do have some contributions though , makes sense to me that the more finer the grind the faster your body would be able to extract the alkaloids, the smell/ taste / color combo can tell you if it fermented to some degree.... I’ve had some very bitter kratom that didn’t do much for my chemistry, and some that were very impressive,
Also some kratom that’s very mildly bitter knock my socks off..

All said and done I think it comes down to the alkaloids profile and their quantities in any given sample ... and the way your personal chemistry responds to it ...

One size doesn’t fit all, good for one ..not for another ...

It’s all fascinating none the less !!

[Re-leaf LLC]

You can try and deduce a couple of things from the taste, smell and also the look! You can sometimes tell how a product was dried by the way it tastes, smells and looks. The grind isn't as big of a deal to me as the smell, look and taste. There are many drying methods and these methods are protected by many of the harvesters that run operations... Even the sales team usually don't know the exact process. It is a pretty secretive thing. For instance, we recently came across a sample that actually tastes good! That is a crazy thought to me still... even though the harvester can only process 100 keys a month with the quality and the method... it is pretty crazy to think kratom can taste like a baking flour! I am in the process of convincing that particular supplier to sell me his drying method. In my 3 years of obsessive kratom sourcing, I have NEVER tasted anything that could actually be cooked into a cracker form. With this newly found drying method, there is actually the possibility of kratom crackers or cookies making on the go an easier situation. Who would thought it!?

As for example of a taste, smell and look situation....If you get a really "jungle" taste... lol I dunno how to describe it but its a very unique taste almost like a strong natural taste that can only be described as jungly by me right now. lol but if you get a real natural taste that isn't as bitter that is bright green and has a darker bright green than a lighter bright green... You can deduce that the product was maybe sourced from a wild source by fertile ground next to a water source then dried in a dark room with ample circulation and no light and a light sunlight crisp. The darker shade of bright green (if that makes sense) usually comes from a mature leaf that was dried indoors.... the really bright green powder is sometimes from younger leaves. Most of the leaf undergoes a sunlight "de-bittering" process. This usually takes some of the bitter out by using the sun. A couple of hours difference can change a vibrant darker green into a less bitter greyish green. I actually prefer an hour or two of direct "crisping" in the Sun.. I like to preserve most of the color and taste. Anything more will dry out those unique flavors, lighten the leaf and take a lot of the taste. My key is to have a slightly bitter taste while being palatable. There is, of course, NO WAY to be 100% sure about these things that I am saying, but in my case, you can absolutely come up with some common deductions from some traits and be armed with questions that will be used to eventually get to the bottom of the methods using for drying. A lot of people think their methods are some groundbreaking genius...but in reality, while the minor things do matter... most people just mess around with times, light, heat and air circulation. I appreciate everyone's opinion on this type of topic and in no way do I consider myself anything special, but I have tried over 800 different harvests.

I will also field any question you guys/gals want. I wanted to write a decent reply to also introduce myself to this forum. I hope all of you is well and I hope you can give me the chance to show you a different angle to this amazing product. I know some people have heard about my company ... Some of the more negative things said that have been said about us, really is pretty minimal in comparison to where we really stand.... and honestly, all the amazing digital footprints we leave behind dominate those few same people who will pop up saying silly things ... I want to assure you that I will always be transparent and honest on here and hope to show you how much I really do care about this leaf. I hope I can get a fair chance to spread the knowledge I have accumulated over the years...I always have the same few people who will throw shade my way...Most people that will give me the time of day to explain anything about kratom will see just how committed I am AND how open I am to the discussion and the usually cannot question the authentic nature of my replies. In the past I have had a problem with being "censored" and shut down... I hold MANY views contrary to most of the people in my position... and of course, lets be honest, most of the forums have been (not saying this one...please dont think that I am saying this one) ran by the select vendors who all walk and talk the same...If that happens here well, that is okay. I want to give you my word that I will never let my team or me be misrepresented..... I hope you will see I am not your typical kratom dude... and I am here for any of you to ask me questions. I am an open book and if you have direct concerns about anything past or present I will be glad to address them. In my personal life, which is separate from my work life, as of 2018, I am fully committed to Jesus and I am forever thankful for each day i am blessed to still be able to buy this amazing leaf and do what I love.... anything you want to know we can talk about I will do my best to answer. If your just hearing about us for the first time, I can assure you that our digital footprints are absolutely amazing any search will show you that... . I hope I get the chance to prove myself here and no matter what silly internet things are said, we will fight hard for the truth and fight against being censored. I sincerely wish you all the best and hope to interact and talk about this amazing leaf that I am so in touch with. I am very blunt and never mean to offend anyone. Hopefully, I get to actually interact with some cool people here!!! Let's do it!!

[Somethingsacred]

Hey brother !! I’m happy to see you in these parts !
I have learned much from your work with kratom... and highly respect and tend to side with just about all the info you’ve shared with the kratom community! I actually received a email from your company earlier today and read every bit of it ... that pic of the 100+yo tree made me see even more clearly how the plethora of plantations with young kratom (which has saturated the scene) is a major reason why there’s so much bunk kratom out there! Though there’s some very nice batches from solid vendors I’ve been blessed to experience lately ...
I’ve purchased once from you and look forward to trying your products again down the road. Your model is pretty unique and diff and compelling... Having been in the ganja scene for most of my life I understand the Geno/ pheno Type consideration when it comes to expressions of traits in a given environment...
very fascinating...

If I wasn’t so financially strapped I’d place a order to give it another go ... I’ll have to wait a bit on that !!

Thx for doing what you do , take care my friend

[Babel-17]

If I was going to bake something with Kratom in it I might use Carbquik Baking Mix. I've snuck in lots of stuff into it, the trick is to not go too crazy with it, and to always use an egg or two to really give it consistency. I sometimes even toss in some White Kidney Bean extract to limit absorption of the few digestible carbs that the Carbquik does have.

Cocoa powder blends in nicely so some Chocolate Kratom pancakes should be doable.

Edit: <waves hello to Somethingsacred>

[Somethingsacred]

Babel !!! What a nice surprise ... very cool to see you here my friend. It’s another great community to be a part of ... <waving back at ya dude > lol, feels good to have you here Babel !

[Re-leaf LLC]

Somethingsacred, I will be happy to work with you bud. I'm not really to familiar with what I'm allowed to say on here so I will just say that you can email me at joe @re-leaf.us if you need my conversation or anything else. I am humbled by your opinion of my article and I look to get something published by 2021. I usually rush through my writing so I some have said I am a bad writer so I will probably spend all of 2020 writing the book and then the beginning of 2021 to get it edited and work out my self publishing. I will prbably just go digital but truthfully it takes minutes to write something up. I have about 20 Indonesians that are my best friends. I have few american friends because my work usually has me working long hours and now I have a second kid on the way!!! Little time for me time. But as for my writing.... I can admit I am a lazy writer.... so pardon my writing on here because most of the times I will probably just whiz through it...lol. When i was in school I used to win awards for my writing but I guess I just got lazy. I compared some of my earlier writings to what I do today and I can definitely say I am a lazy writer with no care for correction lol I have never been the type to conform. God has been working on me though.

Babel I am very intrigued by your baking prowess. Are you very familiar with kratom baking.?.. I am worried about temperature always but I think I can safely cook a cracker at 210 F. I am thinking about making rice crackers that have 2g of kratom in each cracker. Any ideas on any baked goods that could be produced in a commercial kitchen, packaged and sold. Im thinking hard on crackers because cookies are awesome but then you run into the sugar thing... high doses of kratom and high sugar diet seems to cause a higher fasting blood sugar count. This is completely anecdotal findings from my circle of kratomites but I do know that the Mu receptor does communicate to the pancreas and they usually chat about insulin. I personally think that a constant high dose can cause fasting sugar issues in a few people. But the people that I see this in are the folks that are 10-15g 4 to 5 times a day... which Im sure we can all agree is on the higher end of the spectrum. I am absolutely not saying anything as facts but I am saying that there is definitely a connection with kratom and blood sugar. there has been university studied work published on the receptor kratom chills at ...some of that work points to us being cautious about the amount of mileage we put on our receptor. I am going to spend some time this year looking into the connection and I will keep everyone posted here. I wanted to disclaim I am absolutely not giving medical advice and anything I say here is completely personal to me and not meant to influence anyones health decisions or represent me professionally.

[Babel-17]

I have no experience with cooking with Kratom but I have made a batch of pancakes that had some powdered greens in it. Chlorella, Spirulina, wheat grass, that kind of stuff. There's a line you don't want to cross where too much added stuff ruins the texture of the pancake. I think I could easily sneak a few grams of Kratom into one large pancake though, maybe even more. By cooking with coconut oil the absorption of Kratom's alkaloids could be enhanced.

If I bake with the Carbquik it's on a low temp (325 degrees), and my pancakes are made on a very low temp on the stove-top, and I use coconut oil for the pan.

They talk of a griddle temp of 375 degrees, but the middle of the pancake gets nowhere that hot. Plus you can get away with a lower temp. IIRC Kratom alkaloids start coming apart at over 400 degrees, so this way might work.

http://tovaindustries.com/carbalose/recipe-faq.htm

http://tovaindustries.com/carbalose/recipe.php

Edit: They mention the following, but it can't be stressed enough. Once you make your batter, the sooner you use it the better. They say you have about an hour to use it before it won't rise well when cooked. And that's another reason to not use too much added stuff, that could interfere with how the batter rises when cooked.

[Somethingsacred]

Thank you Joe .i appreciate your shared knowledge/ experience ..I’ll shoot you a email ... I really look forward to chatting with you , sure I’ll walk away from the conversation with my head buzzing from all the insight !!.!! Thx brother !

I’m semi new here , but I’ve been on ILK for a bit , I don’t know exactly the rules but I think it’s pretty much a open book, !!

Take care joe

[Re-leaf LLC]

Babel and somethingsacred... you both rock

[Babel-17]

Babel and somethingsacred... you both rock

Thank you! I'm currently priming my tolerance for the holidays I celebrate (with blessings to people of all beliefs), Christmas Eve through January 1, 2020, by upping my intake of stem and vein, and reducing the portion of regular leaf.

Between that and your post I'm inspired to make a Carbquick Chocolate Kratom pancake tonight. I sweeten with sucralose, don't judge me! lol

I'll be using pastured eggs from Texas, and Anthony's gourmet organic Chocolate. They sell another version that's very good, I have it, but it's not Dutched and it has a lower percentage of fat content. I'll cook in a frying pan that will be generously treated to organic refined coconut oil, and I'll use some butter from pastured cows on top.

So I'll be going all out on this, but I'm going to be cautious with the cocoa as though I'd like to use a lot I don't want to risk over-saturating the batter with too much added ingredients, since I'll be adding Kratom.

I'll use a gram of tea that is a combination of my four stem and veins, 200 mg. of each, and 200 mg. of Green Hulu from Hudson Valley Botanicals. The stem and vein will be from Tea Time Botanicals, Soflo, and Otie's. Both a White and a Red from Tea Time.

It's going to be a pretty big pancake.

If this goes well I'll later experiment by doubling the amount of Kratom, and just eating half.

Edit: What the heck, I'll pre-treat the Kratom by letting it be saturated with a solution containing citric acid, and then I'll rub coconut oil in that, after about an hour. Might as well go all out, though with such a low dose it will be hard to swear to feeling a lot of effect. Then again, it will be only my second serving of the day, and for the last week or two I've been doing around three grams of Kratom, and a gram of stem and vein, a day. So I've got some kind of a "Hunger" going on, even though it's Day 3 of my stem and vein heavy tolerance adjustment. If this pancake provides good absorption, there's a chance I'll feel something. If I feel nothing I can't really judge too much from that.

I should be able to report some results by 10 PM, EST.

Edit 2: Prepared everything before heading out for a bit. I now think I could easily fit ten grams of Kratom into a pancake. But for my next attempt I'll use just four grams. Only a minute amount of citric acid solution was needed to saturate the powder, I'm glad I took it slow adding that in. Ditto that for coconut oil, but a little extra of that won't hurt. It's in a small bowl, and I'm freezing it as well, because why not? lol

Hopefully an hour is enough time to crack the cell walls.

Edit 3: Almost done. I read the recipe, lol, and it actually called for some heavy cream. I had that so I used it. The Kratom had frozen and since I had the oven on I placed the oven safe bowl in it long enough to get it bubbling. The oven was only at 275 degrees Fahrenheit as I'm going to heat up some chicken I cooked the other day.

Next time I do this I'm going to make a cake like unleavened bread dough and use the oven, that way I can control the temp. That will be eight grams of Kratom and Stem and Vein, and it will be for multiple servings. I guess the trick here is to use as muck Kratom as you can, otherwise you risk not digesting close to all of it. And of course you'd want to eat these on an empty stomach.

This looks about as good as any pancake I've made, and all that's left is to let it finish (I'm cooking on very low heat) and then eat it. I figure I'll eat it at 10 PM, and then by midnight I'll hopefully know if I got anything out of it.

[Babel-17]

Well, that worked well. Unsurprisingly it took longer to kick in, surprisingly it wasn't dramatically longer. I started feeling it at 10:45, I began nibbling at the broken up pancake at 10:55 PM, and continued eating it for about ten minutes, and I think it's basically peaked at around 11:40 PM. Not bad for such a modest amount.

I'm satisfied, but I'll still bake that Kratom cake/bread. I won't eat that in consecutive servings, but rather intermittently with my toss and washes. I'm open to suggestions, but I want to keep this simple.

And of course I'm wondering why I haven't read about somebody who made Kratom/CBD bud brownies. lol

[Re-leaf LLC]

This is an epic post bro... I am very thankful for your delicious experiment and would love to hear more attempts. Reading this made me very hungry and I was supposed to do some work on the computer but now I think Im going to eat something. For some reason I REALLY REALLY want a pancake! lol This seems like something you should keep trying. I am very very very interested about the temperatures you are reaching and the effect thereafter. This is a pretty awesome thread to read because its about kratom and deliciousness all in one