so i found a fair amount of halved betel nuts for super cheap at an asian market, and i figured it would be worth trying once.
but chewing it with lime seems unpleasant on multiple levels, so i was wondering if one could do a tea or crude water extract of the betel.
also if one were to make a tea/water extract would basification still be necessary?

I'm pretty sure the lime is just there to increase the pH of your mouth, not producing a freebased chemical. I could be wrong about that. I have read reports of a guy taking some amout in a capsule, which he said worked but I can only imagine that being nauseating.

Chewing a quid isn't that bad, are you afraid of burning your mouth? That's a reasonable worry, as I have burned the piss out of mine by using too much paste... the key to not burning your mouth is to just use a SMIDGE of paste and make sure that it is the proper kind. There are two common kinds of lime paste, one white and the other red. The red kind is what you want, as it has turmeric added which improves the taste and apparently decreases the caustic nature of the paste. Start small, with about 1/6th of a pea or less. I have found Piper Betel leaves at an asian grocery, which I highly recommend admixing if you are going to try the stuff.

Perhaps making a mildly basic tea and swishing it around in the mouth would be effective, but I dont have any experience. You are likely breaking new ground here!

And I have always heard that using dried betel nut is NOTHING like using a fresh one.

dont take lime with the betel leaf , its pointless

did you get some additional indian sweetners , and saunf and stuff with it , or just some betel leaves ,

an indian betel quid is a betel leaf rolled aroung some sweetners ,various spices , saunf ,soft areca nut (its dipped in water for days to make it soft) sliced cherries and sweet fruits dipped in jaggery and whole lot of stuff which i know nothing about

anyways its pointless to eat a betel leaf with lime , thats not how its eaten locally , also the amount of lime used locally is like a miniscule drop , perhaps even less and very few folks use lime in the betel quid

just chewing on the leaves rolled around some jaggery( liquidlike sugar ) is even better if you've got just leaves , dont use lime it will burn your mouth

and moreover what pointed you in this direction of chewing on betel leaves ??