Grandpa's ThinkingTea: Something about ecohemp, terpenes and farts, that smell like chewing gum.

[IMPORTANT! The information in the articles/blog should not be equated with therapeutic medical cannabis treatment. CBD in high doses  can influence how the liver metabolize a wide range of medicines via the  cytochrome P450 system in the liver.  If you believe you can benefit from medical cannabis, or you are included in the target group for medical cannabis through the pilot scheme (Denmark) then you should contact your own physician, Cannabis Denmark or a specialist in the field such as  Tina Horsted. ]

The recipe for "Grandpa’s ThinkingTea" with Bornholmerhampen is in the blog.

When I started the blog 4 years ago, I wrote a post, with a recipe for cream stewed puffballs with coconut cannabis oil. [The recipe is here, in English] It didn't turn into more, mostly because I switched to drinking a lot of tea with fresh herbs etc. I also got busy becoming a student in chemistry before I could be admitted to the Medical Laboratory Technologist education at VIA University College in Aarhus.

It also became possible to buy delicious organic hemp tea like Bornholmerhampen, as well as EU approved CBD & CBG products, which I took advantage of because I got good relief from it. Together with a good organic hemp tea, and a lot of fresh herbs that we grow in Julia's garden. So here is an example of how to make, a healthy tea with fresh herbs etc.

Besides it tastes good, and it's funny that one's farts smell a bit of chewing gum, if there is mixed mint and larch in it, it is reasonable to assume that it is at least not unhealthy.

   

Ingredients:

Shopping list: Organic Bornholmerhemp 5 grams, Organic Quince with Ginger, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Honey.

Fresh ingredients: Nettle, Sage, Mint, Blackcurrant + leaf, Lemon balm, Stinging nettle, Dandelion, Sunflower leaf, Wheel crown flower and Raspberry. (Today's choice from Julia's garden)

Bornholmerhampte is a really fine product, made slowly with a gentle hand, just like the other products they offer. If you just drink the tea due to the delicious taste, the oil is not necessary, just let it soak for 10 min.

Put it all in a large pot on the stove, and pour 1½ liters of boiling water over, add a spoonful of oil. Put the lid on and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Cannabidiol (CBD) and the other cannabinoids and terpenes in the tea are not soluble in water, and the oil helps to dissolve and absorb them better. It's the same method there is used if you make herbal tea from BEDIOL, medical cannabis that is prescribed over the course of the trial scheme in Denmark.[1][2]

The prerequisite for infusing the tea with CBD is, of course, that it is present in the material. Bornholm hemp is of the Felina variety, which typically contains 2-3% CBD [3] and is suitable to produce hemp seed oil and flour. Hemp seed oil is rich in Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids in the ratio 3: 1, which is perfect for humans, and therefore provides a high nutritional value. These fatty acids are essential and must be supplied through the diet.[4]

In October 2018, I did a thin layer chromatography test [5], of the CBD content in Bornholmerhampen, with Alpha-Cat's home test kit that can show the occurrence and potency of 6 different cannabinoids, CBD, CBG, CBC, CBN, THC & THCV.[6] I have made a figure, with the result of the Bornholmerhampen and a random HPLC[7] test from Felina grown in Spain.[8]

Bornholmerhampen & Felina grown in Spain compared.

As can be clearly seen, there is of course a big difference in the accuracy, of the two different methods, but with practice, an accuracy of +/- 1% can be achieved in the TLC test. [9] When testing material with different potency, you change the ratio between amount of material and eluent (solvent). This means that the accuracy also varies, in the sample from Bornholmerhampen it is +/- 4%, under optimal conditions.

Another significant difference is that the TLC sample has been heated to 150 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes, whereby the content of the precursor CBDA (cannabidiol acid) is decarboxylated to form CBD. You can do a so-called chemotype TLC test[10] of all 6 cannabinoids in the sample. Then you use 3 lanes on the TLC plate, 2 heated and one raw sample.[11] The 4th lane can be used to advantage, as a kind of control of the kit performance, by using a sample with a known value, such as 3% CBD oil from Matas.[12] Is the color spot approx. as large on the decarboxylated sample in the control, there are approx. 3% CBD content in the sample.

The simpler test I did, was more of an indication that it's probably Felina and contains CBD, than the in - depth analysis. When the potency of the other cannabinoids is so small in the Bornholm ecohemp, it would still only be possible to trace, very inaccurate and low amounts.

    

Alpha-Cat Cannabiniod TLC test kit and testing in progress.

If you take the theoretical starting point from the TLC test and the recipe (5 grams hemp) and be able to infuse 100% of the CBD, you will get between 112.5 - 119 mg CBD (22.5 mg x 5 & 23.8 mg x 5) in the 1.5-liter Grandpa’s Thinkingtea. When I say theoretical starting point, it is because it is a common rule of thumb that you just put a 0 after the percentage of cannabis in the cannabis.[13] The real infusion in the tea is lower and I do not think one should expect more than 50%.

So, in 1.5 liters of Grandpa’s Thinkingtea, there may be about 50 mg of CBD, but that's an uncertain estimate. Divided into 2 days, it gives a dose of about 25 mg CBD / day for DKK 3.63 + the price for other ingredients. Whose one compares, with the price of Matas CBD oil, it would be DKK 28 daily. A price per. mg. CBD of resp. DKK 0.15 / mg (Bornholmerhamp) and DKK 0.56 / mg (Matas, incl. 20% discount). PLAESE NOTE, do not drink Matas CBD oil, it is intended for skin care.

In Grandpa's Thinkingtea, there are a lot of terpenes.[14] Sage (Salvia) contains a lot of essential oils with terpenes. An example of terpenes in essential oil from sage: alpha-pines (4.1-5.4%), camphene (6-7.1%), beta-pines (9.3-14.5%), limonene (2-2.3%), camphor (19.8- 24%), alpha-humulene (5.1-6.8%), and manool (4.2-7.7%). [15] In Mint (Mentha) and Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), there is also menthol, methone, anthill, linalool and carophylene.[16][17] These, and many others, are also found in hemp, herbs, weeds, and roots.

These are associated with cannabinoids, along with what is popularly called the entourage effect, which describes synergistic effects between cannabinoids, terpenes, and the body's own endocannabinoid system.[18][19] There is access to Sinnika Kvamme's[20] article about the discovery of this system in the blog's sidebar.

Most of the research on the entourage effect, for which there is proper evidence, deals with the interaction between THC and the other cannabis substances, such as CBD and then the terpenes that occur naturally in reasonably high concentrations, in cannabis varieties such as those used in the experimental scheme.[21] When CBD sellers online and in stores, tell customers why exactly their 3% CBD oil, is simply the best, it is most often that kind of research that is referred to. But as in the video below, which I made for the blog over 3 years ago, shows, the prominent terpenes are not to be found, in a large part of their own batch tests. If they are not there, there is no built-in entourage effect.

However, this does not mean that CBD is without effect, for beneficial treatment effects of cannabidiol (CBD), has been shown in several cognitive impairment conditions, including neurodegenerative (Alzheimer's, Huntington’s, and Parkinson's disease), neuroinflammatory (sepsis-induced encephalopathy) and neurological disorders (ischemic brain damage). Research from 2018 indicates that certain terpenes (linalool, alpha-pinene and beta-caryophyllene) and CBD in combination, may have better therapeutic effect for these conditions. For the healthy, perhaps the most interesting thing in the article is, that CBD also protects against the negative cognitive effects, that THC has on learning ability.[22]

CBD has also shown an effect against inflammation, in preclinical studies, also against the conditions mentioned, but there is still a lack of more research into the effect on humans.[23] CBD has also shown antidepressant properties and potential as a treatment for anxiety disorders.[24][25]

The mentioned terpenes, as well as a lot of others, are on the other hand present in copious amounts, in Grandpa's Thinkingtea, along with infused CBD and terpenes from Bornholmerhampen. Then the possibilities for a given entourage effect are at least present. If you are sitting and thinking, where should I get all this, Bornholmerhampen also offers organic Relax tea (with mint, licorice root, chamomile, etc.) and organic hemp tea with lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora).

Research from 2021 has shown that licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra) has potential as medicine[26] and lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora) contains the mentioned terpenes limonene and linalool. Lemon verbena is used as a natural medicine for upset stomach, nervousness, sleeping difficulty and colds.[27]

October 2018: Bornholmer hemp, organic ginger, licorice root powder and flower petals tea.

Essential oils with a lot of menthol / menthone from peppermint (Mentha piperita), have shown that the participants who received active substance did better in challenging cognitive tests than the participants in the placebo group in a trial from 2018.[28]

So, so purely hypothetical, there is probably some basis for calling it Grandpa's Thinkingtea. If you have read along all the way, hoping for a good explanation of why one's farts smell like chewing gum, when there is fresh mint, larch and CBD in the tea, I have not found any explanation, in the referenced research. I'm sorry, but still hope it's been an interesting read.

Live long and prosper

Thomas F. Kortholm - Viking Herbalist August 2021

Ref: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]