Working with harmala, (extracting and smoking/drinking) has been part of my life for about 15 years now.

My latest job was a 5 kilo peganum whole seeds extraction. This must have been 7 years ago and I still have 15 grams or so left of it.

When I was visiting a friend in Brazil we were talking about plants and I mentioned caapi leaf. My friend said. Look, from the veranda of his house in the mountain he pointed to a orhinho vine growing 15 meters from his home and on the right of it was a capuri vine growing.

I harvested just a few leafs of both and dried them. a few days later at night we we smoked the orhino and the day after the capuri. Without a doubt, capuri is way way stronger. This was not new to me> I am aware of capuri's power. Several times I had aya with a capuri fundament.

For years I have been convinced that the whole ayahuasca brewing in south America could be completely different. More eco-friendly in many ways. Instead of cutting so many old and wise vines from the forest. or non-stop planting and harvesting from private nurseries. ayahuasca could simply be made with caapi leaves.

Boiling times would be heavily reduced. Instead of 2 times 12 hours just an hour of boiling time for each extraction would be enough.

A lot of wood to fuel the fires would be spared. The vine would never have to be harvested or at least a lot less.

But I guess people are stuck in their, beliefs, and spiritual/ traditional constructs or have even never ever considered this new approach.

So, what I can do is do my own investigation and share my results.

From my travel, I brought back a bottle of capuri extract that I brewed with my friend. This was 850 grams of fresh caapi leaves teas reduced to one liter.

Right now I am in the first base and things are looking great. I really want to know what kind of yield this will bring.

I will report as the process goes along.

How do I upload a picture it has been a long time and I see I just can't simply upload it to my post.

Figured it out

The two main types of caapi in brazil is Caupurí and tucunacá. Caupuri grows mainly in the northern areas of Brasil like Para and Acre but can be grown anywhere and is the knotted vine. Most think this one is the strongest but I prefer tucunaca. Tucanaca is grows smooth and is much better in colder areas like the south where I live.

There are quite a lot of research papers over the years and it seems that a drought period is the main thing that will increase alkaloid content (like with most plants researched).

I recently bought some caapi online from a farm in Para and it was caupuri which was around 14-16 years old. I received a massive node which alone was 1.5kilos.

There are many different practices and churches but most prefer tucunaca because of the higher thh content. They purchases barrels of a few hundred kilos at a time when preparing some times. The leaf is active however due to ease of harvest and other factors I doubt they will be used often.

I pressure cooked 300grams for 30 min with a dash of citric acid and have around 25mg of harmalas per 50mL. I didn't condense the tea but the color is quite dark even after filtering. I take 50-100mL a few times throughout the day and feel amazing. I take a coffee without issues but also drink less since feel less tired and quite alert.

Ourinho usually not used pure since it is quite sweet and most want a neutral drink but each church does it a little different.

I am collecting the leaves from my small caapi but unless they are much higher content then vine most wouldn't collect.


EDIT: also the boiling time has been shown to convert some of the alkaloids to thh. I'm not sure by how much.

Finished the first basification on the Capuri.

As in other times, caapi basification visually is very different from peganum basification. Instead of instant clouding when adding the base it almost looks like nothing happens. Clouds do form but are more faint. Filtering was done by vacuum and with an MN615 round filter. Caapi base harmala's are really really fine.

The result from 850 grams of fresh leaves of 85 grams of dried leaves was 0.106 gr. That is quite low, especially if you would compare it to what peganum yields.

After seeing the yield do you think using the leaf is viable for churches in Brasil considering the member size easily reaching close to 100?

I had a yield of .5% with a single 'pull' using PC for 30 minutes. There are some churches that use large scale pressure cookers however a part of the practice/religion is the ritual itself. Some join all the male members to beat the vine in prayer or song and the women collect and wash the psychotria.

The leaf is a not terribly low at 1/5 the strength of a single pull vine. peganum has nice yields however in Brasil is quite expensive.

Well, my conclusion is that I find it hard to believe that caapi leaves generate such a low yield. What I believe ( and I read from others on this forum) that caapi and or caapi leaves harmala's are super fine. I am convinced that I missed quite something with filtering.

Because I was in the flow I basified 100 ml of caapi extract, strong extract, at least 15 kilo caapi vine per liter extract.

this resulted in 200 mg of harmala alkoloids.

But I kept the base liquid and after a few days I saw more on the bottom. I siphoned of the most liquid and the rest I poured in a filter, no vacuuming.

Most of the base alkaloids just went through the filter.

I guess I will need even finer filter paper to catch all.

Could there be a way to grow bigger harmala base ?
Adding base over a period of days ?
Not going too high with the PH directly ?

@mordern Of course it can be viable, leaves are a good source of harmala.