I've been making a Coca tincture by soaking 200 gms of Coca leaf powder in 98.8% Ethanol for a month. I then filter and reduce the tincture down to 200ml. I take a couple or 3 dropperfulls in a little water and hold in my mouth for a few minutes before swallowing. From this I get some slight numbing and decent stimulation, akin to a good espresso.

I haven't added any alkali and was wondering if anyone else on here has any experience with Coca tincture? Would it help to add a little baking soda or llujta to the water/ tincture mix before taking it? I was told to add it to the menstruum to help get more alkaloids out of the Coca, but I was also advised against this, saying it wouldn't help with the extraction.

I was wondering if it may be helpful to add an alkali (I think llujta would taste a lot better than baking soda!) after the extraction and how much would be needed.

This is from a website ....

"lejia sweet, this is a mixture formed by lime, carbonates and/or vegetable ash normally anise, sweet potato or quinoa cereals, it powers the extraction of coca alkaloids and benefits. Only a small pinch (half powdered gram) combined with coca flour or coca tea is necessary per serving. Lejia can ONLY be used for direct mouth consumption. Do not use it for brewing tea bags or coca powder. It is a myth that lejia or baking soda may help brew more alkaloids out of coca leaves, they only help making your mouth more alkaline. This product is not intended to be consumed alone as it is highly basic and does not taste good by itself."

I've also made a tincture from Cannabis and find that if I take both tinctures together they synergise very well indeed! In fact the cannabis is very much potentiated and much less need be taken.

I'd be very interested to get any advice, or hear about experiences from others on the boards.

Thanks !

I have experience making coca tincture both with and without adding a base. If you mix powdered coca leaves with a little baking soda (or lejia) and add water, allow sufficient time for the material to freeebase, dry the mixture out, then pull into your alcohol, the resultant tincture is significantly stronger and moar 'zippy' than if you just soak powdered leaves in alcohol. The freebased alkaloids absorb much moar readily through the mucus membranes in the mouth. My cocaine using friends reported this tincture to be far superior to the street product they were used to.

Be careful with these powerful extracts, at this level you are moving away from the moar benign, moar traditional, chewing/tea (low alkaloid absorption) use of the plant and toward a moar abusive/abusable (high alkaloid absorption) relationship.

The natives in Peru mix wood ash and some sort of sweet resin (activator) with their coca leaves before placing under the gums for better quicker absorption. Some are now using baking soda.
I noticed a big difference between raw leaves and mixing with baking soda, but not so much of a difference with the activator.

And more cost-effective!

Thanks for the info Dreamer ... So I guess you just dampen the powder and mix in the baking soda, is that correct? Then leave overnight? Also, how long did you leave your leaves in the alcohol? I've been leaving for a month, but that's probably way longer than necessary ! Did the resulting tincture that you made taste of Baking soda?

Also, thanks for the words of caution. I'm interested in Coca as a teacher plant and also as a coffee stand in... Been experimenting with Coca tincture because I've been making others ... Ginseng, lavender, Ganja etc and now I'm hooked on the process!

I mixed a bit of baking soda with my tincture this morning and it certainly made the numbing more pronounced, not sure if it upped the stimulation much though, but it tasted bloody awful!! normally the coca tincture tastes very nice ... I make drinks with it in my cafe ...

Coca CocoLoco! ... Coca tincture, Coconut flower cider vinegar, ice, soda water ....

Not really, thats the same logic the heroin user uses when he switches from snorting to IV (First i got more high for the cost)

It is only better the first time, you forget that with increased absorption, the rate the tolerance builds up is exponentially greater, so you'll need more and more and more and more to get the same effect.

less is moar in this case, same goes for drinking espresso, overall caffeine content is lower in one of those cups, but will get you higher than drinking an entire pot of drip would , without any side effects of too much caffeine, withdrawls or tolerance build up

I usually mix the powdered leaf material with the baking soda first to ensure even distribution of the base before I add the water and start the freebasing process. Leave it under a fan and stir it a few times to ensure it fully dries out before making your alcohol pulls. It certainly doesn't take a month, the alkaloids are readily soluble and move to the alcohol in seconds, but I'll usually soak for an hour or two per pull for good measure.

With this method you want to use a minimal amount of baking soda just enough to thoroughly coat the leaf material (say 1/8th to 1/4 the amount of leaf material max, and even that's probably highly overkill). This leaves the leaf flavor much moar in tact than adding soda directly to the tincture as you did.

Brilliant dreamer, thanks!

I'll give it a go with a small amount of leaf material and see how it goes...

What is the best alcoholic rate for the alcoholic pulls. Got 38° and 90° here.

Do you mean 38% and 90%? 38° and 90° would correspond to 19% and 45% respectively. But for sure where I live I can get 38% and 90% as well.

With those two strengths you can mix to any desired value in between.

It's probably worth noting that using a tincture of coca leaf is likely forming cocaethylene in vivo. This compound carries a bit higher risk than cocaine, so it's a good idea to be aware of it.

Here in metric system, degree of ethanol egual the percent of éthanol. So 90 percent pure éthanol is also 90°. 38% vodka is also 38°. Not same as proof in the US system. So yeh might try pull some on vodka. Was Just wondering what optimal percent of éthanol is to Pull. Of course I Can also make my own dilution if 70% is recommended.

I use 98.8 % pure ethanol. I haven't used anything else, so not sure how well it would work, but pure (almost!) ethanol works great...

I figured I'd try this with the coca leaves I had leftover from my trip to Ecuador this summer. I didn't have a whole lot, 8g in tea bags and another estimated 4-5g loose leaves for a total of approx 12g (my scale is packed away in storage right now).

I ground up the leaves to a powder in a coffee grinder and based with baking soda and a small amount of water. I let the paste dry overnight under a fan and then did 2 separate 24hr pulls with around 500ml (which was far more than necessary) of 95% ethanol, shaking it now and then. After combining the pulls I reduced to 50ml.

5 droppers of the tincture gives moderate stimulation and strong local anesthesia in the mouth. This definitely works, though I'm not sure I'd recommend it over traditional approaches. It's more potent but I don't have the wholesome happy and productive feeling I'd typically get from quidding coca or making a tea. This feels more like an intoxicant and not really like the useful medicine that coca is. It was a fun experiment though, and I'm surprised to get this kind of effect from such a small amount of leaves.

Interesting Praxis...

I've used my tincture a few times now after dropping in a little baking soda and holding it in my mouth for a few minutes and I feel nice clean stimulation from it, not too strong, but certainly noticeable and effective.

I will try basing first and then pulling to see what effect that has. I'm not looking to replicate a cocaine high though ... Am just interested in what the plant has to say to me

I also have some Calcium Hydroxide knocking about somewhere, has anyone tried making a snuff (Rapee) with Coca? I've heard of it but have never come across any accounts of usage.

Sounds like you added too much baking soda. It really doesn't take much. For enough leaves to to put under one side of ones gum, it takes only a small pinch of baking soda. Grind it in with the plant material so that it is evenly mixed and there is no baking soda visible and pop the green mass under your gum.

And just to put things in perspective, coca leaf with baking soda is to coca leaf alone as crack is to cocaine.

Sounds like you added too much baking soda. It really doesn't take much. For enough leaves to to put under one side of ones gum, it takes only a small pinch of baking soda. Grind it in with the plant material so that it is evenly mixed and there is no baking soda visible and pop the green mass under your gum.

And just to put things in perspective, coca leaf with baking soda is to coca leaf alone as crack is to cocaine. [/quote]

Yes, Syberdelic, too much baking soda! I've tried it now, with just a pinch and it tastes much better.

I'm interested in what you say in that Coca with baking soda is as crack is to Cocaine.... How does using baking soda differ to using the alkaline ash that is used in South America? I have tried this and get numbing and stimulation similar to the tincture and baking soda .... Does the baking soda freebase all the alkaloids, or just the cocaine? Or, does it just aid in the absorption through the mouth tissue?

It's been rather a long time since I took any Cocaine, but I don't find using the tincture is really anything at all like using Coke, or speed .... I find a pleasant, but slight lift in my mood and some slight stimulation, akin to a good espresso ... I do though find a clarity and focus in meditations and Shamanic journeys, that is interesting and makes me want to explore more....

Because of this clarity, I've had the urge to take some tincture before using DMT / Harmala's, but am not so sure that this is a good idea! Anyone have any experience mixing Harmala alks with Coca? I've heard of Coca being used as an admixture with Ayahuasca, but can't find anything except anecdotal evidence ...

Baking soda freebases all the alkaloids present in the leaf, there is little difference between the ash mixtures used traditionally to base coca leaf when chewing and using baking soda, the baking soda is a bit moar effective ime, but the same result is being achieved, which is the freebasing of the alkaloids.

While many people have done it and been fine, it is generally inadvisable to combine SDRI compounds (like cocaine) with MAOI's (like harmalas). Coca combines much better (and moar safely) with achuma.