DOSE:

2.0 - 2.5 g

oral

Coca

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

145 lb

Just for some background, I've never taken any stimulant aside from caffeine in tea, coffee and yerba mate. I was learning about indigenous cultures in South America and how chewing/drinking coca was sacred from a prof who was very pro legalization of coca, so I thought I'd pick some up as its pretty accessible here. What I got was mambe powder, what my source described as "Lightly toasted and fermented coca leaf, mixed with alkaline herbs and ashes." These alkaline herbs are important as basic substances make the cocaine alkaloids present within the coca leaf absorb better into the water (which is the reason many people add a tiny bit of baking soda to the mix, something I did not do or endorse). While I cannot name exactly which herbs were added, keep in mind that this made my experience more intense then had I just put in raw coca leaves into the water without a base.

I took about maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of a Davids Perfect tea spoon which I believe equated to around 2 to 2.5g of mambe powder. I only had 7g to begin with so I just took my spoon of an unknown volume and approximated how much mambe I was scooping based on how many scoops it took me to empty the bag. I can't say I recommend being imprecise, as mambe is quite fine and its very easy to take a bit more than you'd like. If I do ever take it again, I'd purchase a 1/2 tsp measurement instead of being lazy.

Anyhow, I scooped my mambe into a tea strainer, boiled some water, let it cool a bit so it was more hot than boiling and then dumped it all in my thermos. I let it steep for maybe 5 minutes or so and took it out. Turns out because its a powder that the tea strainer did nothing and all the powder leaked through to the bottom of my thermos meaning it was effectively steeping even more the entire time I was drinking it. Another red flag I shouldn't be drinking this.

Anyhow, I started drinking around 10am maybe but I didn't finish it until 11 or 11:30am. My thermos is quite large and I took breaks whilst drinking. My thought process was I would drink this instead of my regular coffee and go about my day as normal which involved meeting up with a few friends and then going to a lunch place.

Once I actually tasted the coca, it was quite reminiscent of yerba mate in terms of flavor except with less a bitter aftertaste. I certainly didn't think it needed any added sweetener. When I sipped it continuously and let it swish in my mouth, I found it would numb the inside of my mouth a bit which felt pleasant.

I soon got quite peppy. Much peppier than tea or even coffee but I do have a lot of caffeine tolerance at this point. Peppy maybe isn't the right word though, it was almost too much energy. I was still able to handle sitting on the bus for quite a long time with my friend as we went towards our lunch place, but I wasn't super comfortable with silence and really wanted to be mentally stimulated. If I had the chance, I would really have liked to have started exercising. There was a brief moment though where the bus passed some exceptionally beautiful scenery I wasn't familiar with and the energy was replaced with a profound calm. Perhaps because my mind was more engaged with something.

Once we got off the bus, I was pretty much finished my coca and was really wanting to get out my energy. It was still manageable doing nothing, but I just felt a little uncomfortable. The restaurant we went to had really nice jazz playing which I feel like the coca enhanced and it was so hard to stop myself from just getting up and dancing. At the time, doing that just felt so right. I also felt like I had more confidence. There was a moment when an attractive woman walked by and I felt tempted to ask her for her number. I still had the control and insight to know that probably wasn't a good idea and I restrained, but it just scared me a bit. Would I have done it if I had had more? Here I am having an experience so much more energetic than caffeine and I had so little. What if I had taken an entire Davids perfect tea scoop? What if I had drank a second cup of coca? There are still the same alkaloids in this as cocaine and I have learned that I need to respect the leaf and be very careful in my dosage if I ever do this again.

In late afternoon, I typically experience fatigue, or a small caffeine crash. Usually at this point, I have a green tea or something to make it to the evening. With my coca tea, I didn't feel the urge to do this. My energy weaned off slowly and while I got a little sleepy once the sun began to set, it wasn't nearly so drastic or irritable as when my body runs out of caffeine. I would be curious though if people with more of a tolerance and dependency on coca experience more of a crash. I don't particularly remember caffeine crashes in the early days.

Overall, an interesting experience that I don't think I will be repeating. While the numbing feeling in the mouth was nice and I think I preferred the taste, I feel more comfortable and more functional with caffeine. While there likely is a correct dosage of coca that could produce a high that is more similar to caffeine, I don't really feel like its that worth figuring it out for me personally.

Exp Year: 2023	ExpID: 117001
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Jan 30, 2023	Views: 1,049
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Coca (158) : Preparation / Recipes (30), First Times (2), Various (28)