edible lime betel

[opiumfreak]

In my mouth I have betel tobacco and lime

and let me tell you the lime boosts the tobacco a lot!

[kadakuda]

ya, no lime no go for these things. Though tobacco is too strong without lime for me. why no leaf for the betel?

watch out for burnt mouth...ouch!

[kadakuda]

its nice man, very "normalizing". makes a good booze combo as well.

[opiumfreak]

My mother-in-law sells betel nut from her little shop. I must give it a try.

 

maybe she can sell me some too

[dreamscape]

Would love to know where to get some whole betel nuts from all I have found is sliced pieces. Any ideas?

When I was in yap (Micronesia) they chew all day literally streets, well dirt roads, stained with red from the

constant spitting. The way they prepared it was to first bite the betel nut in half then add a small amount of

Lime powder. Which the made from ground then burnt coral from the surrounding reef, then about a fifth of

a cigarette, close the nut up wrap in piper leaf and chew. The first time i ever had it i spewed and sweated

and generally didn't keep my chit together. The locals laughed for ages then i was told that the island that it

came from was well known for their super potent betel nut.

[opiumfreak]

Would love to know where to get some whole betel nuts from all I have found is sliced pieces. Any ideas?

When I was in yap (Micronesia) they chew all day literally streets, well dirt roads, stained with red from the

constant spitting. The way they prepared it was to first bite the betel nut in half then add a small amount of

Lime powder. Which the made from ground then burnt coral from the surrounding reef, then about a fifth of

a cigarette, close the nut up wrap in piper leaf and chew. The first time i ever had it i spewed and sweated

and generally didn't keep my chit together. The locals laughed for ages then i was told that the island that it

came from was well known for their super potent betel nut.

 

would love some of that superpotent betel

[Mycot]

Sometimes one can get the betel nut in a premixed ready to go form which isn't uncommon. Some years ago I'd get this mixture that had betel nut, lime, cardamon and various other spices thoroughly mixed. Very nice.

[kadakuda]

dreamscape, getting sick is often a result of swallowing the juice. the first few mouthfuls of saliva are important to spit out as they have the bulk of the lime...lime isnt too great for you.

Dried is never going to be as good as fresh. just isnt. but in many areas thats all that is available. betel palms grow tall (though are selectively bred for shortness in Taiwan) and are tropical. they grow too tall for a greenhouse, and cant handle the cool winters in much of north america. unlike other ethno friends of tropical origin that can be growin indoors in cold climates, these palms cant branch. jsut one straight shot up, which obviously makes it VERY hard to grow long term where it cant be outside....unless you have a 30' tall greenhouse, then maybe you can play.

google some stuff in Taiwan, they seem to be the world leaders in betel nut development and have many different kinds, always fresh though, never dried. the one i always buy uses the piper flower, not the leaf. its yummy and seems stronger.

[ballzac]

Lime does very little for me, I find, except give me blisters. With tobacco or betel I don't find the absorption is improved from lime. I have literally used enough lime to cause my entire mouth to still hurt the next day, and not found it to be effective. I use bicarb. A half a teaspoon of bicarb works wonders, and there's no risk of burning your mouth.

I found the shredded betel from SAB to be very effective, though I needed a fair bit. The whole ones I can't get much effect out of. They're so woody that they're not really chewable, so I've actually tried grinding several to a fine powder in a coffee grinder, mixing with bicarb, sugar, spices, and a dash of water to bind it. Even with more than half a dozen nuts all I got was a mild buzz. With the shredded stuff, I was bouncing of the walls from a cheekful.

[opiumfreak]

Lime does very little for me, I find, except give me blisters. With tobacco or betel I don't find the absorption is improved from lime. I have literally used enough lime to cause my entire mouth to still hurt the next day, and not found it to be effective. I use bicarb. A half a teaspoon of bicarb works wonders, and there's no risk of burning your mouth.

I found the shredded betel from SAB to be very effective, though I needed a fair bit. The whole ones I can't get much effect out of. They're so woody that they're not really chewable, so I've actually tried grinding several to a fine powder in a coffee grinder, mixing with bicarb, sugar, spices, and a dash of water to bind it. Even with more than half a dozen nuts all I got was a mild buzz. With the shredded stuff, I was bouncing of the walls from a cheekful.

 

where do you get your stuff?

[dreamscape]

Quick question dose anybody know legality on importing the stuff... Quarantine issues? Would be cool to be

the Aus rep for whole betel nut sales. I imagine there would be decent demand for it.

[ballzac]

where do you get your stuff?

 

Everything I've mentioned is from SAB except the tobacco (EDIT: correction, the bicarb, sugar and spices are from Coles, and the water is from my tap, lol). Most tobacco I get is from cignall (www.tobaccoblends.com.au) in frankston. I just use pipe tobacco. Most pipe tobacco is too weak for me both as a smoke and for chewing, but this particular cignall sells several stronger tobaccos the #4 rope is great both for smoking and chewing. The 1792 flake, bracken flake, and virginia flake are all great for smoking, with the virginia being not as strong but has a beautiful natural sweet virginia flavour. I tried chewing the 1792 flake and the flavour was way too intense. Alexanders (www.cigars.com.au) sells some strong tobaccos from too. The peterson irish flake is strong enough to chew and interestingly, I can taste lime in it. The Gallaher's irish cake is strong too, but I haven't tried chewing it and suspect its too hard and perhaps too strong in flavour to be an enjoyable chew.

Edited May 7, 2011 by ballzac

[kadakuda]

what does a person (that is not well experienced with chewing tobacco specifically) look for in tobacco for chew. i grow many different tobaccos and am interested in chewing my leaves, but i have either ended up in spin space or just sick....neither of which is pleasant in the least i never swallow it.

[ballzac]

Some tobaccos make me gag for some reason. I feel fine when they are in my mouth but as I spit them out I gag or sometimes spew. For some reason fresh leaves are fine for me but home-cured leaves make me gag. The rope I mentioned never makes me gag in this way, but many other commercial tobaccos do to some extent. If you're getting a headspin and feeling sick it is just dosage dependent. If you're not addicted to nicotine, then a leaf (or part thereof) about the size of your hand with a bit of bicarb (or lime if that works better for you) should be plenty. I have gotten pretty good at judging how much rope is a good dose and if it feels like too much I don't chew it as hard. I am also more used to the warning signs when it's getting strong, like sweating, and I spit it out before it gets too much. It always gets stronger before it gets weaker for a few minutes after I spit it out, so you have to be aware of the warning signs rather than wait until it's too late.

[planthelper]

i have seen whole, fully intact betel nuts, sold by street vendors in cairns.

i think they would be good enough to grow, if anybody of you lives in cairns, i would love to get my hands on some of them, i promise you a good trade...

[ThunderIdeal]

I use bicarb. A half a teaspoon of bicarb works wonders, and there's no risk of burning your mouth.

 

thanks for the tip. i have always wondered how do you know you have the right kind of lime and where do you get it from. i'm pretty sure you can get lime stronger than builders lime which would probably cause a very serious injury in seconds. so, i don't know what lime to use, but i don't need to know anymore

[kadakuda]

yes, sweating! thank you, that always happens before i go into "awww shit" mode. thanks for posting that, i can see a few things that tended to happen to me now and for some reason overlooked.

pardon the ignorance, bu what does "rope" mean with tobacco? like a quid?

plant helper, try and find yellow seeds. once they start turning yellow, they should be ok to grow, but fungus is an issue. not sure about OZ but in Borneo, Malasyia and Philippenes the betel nut i saws sold was all moldy and shitty...which is fine for chewing because they cut the inner seed out to eat, they dont eat the whole thing. but moldy nuts probably wont do a lot for you germination wise.

[ballzac]

Rope is just rolled up tobacco leaves. It's the same as twist or pigtails. It's usually made from dark fired african tobacco leaves. Here's a pic. I partially unrolled one so you can see what the leaves look like. Sorry about the shitty phone pic.

EDIT: I usually snip of a mm or two with a cigar cutter and that is plenty. I can adjust the strength just by chewing a little softer or harder. Sometimes I will unroll a bit and tear off a piece of leaf to chew. It doesn't absorb as quickly, but feels nicer to chew on.

Hear are some better pics found online:

The best way I can describe the tobacco to someone who's never had it is that it's similar to drum or white ox, which both also use african fired leaf. The difference is the strength and depth of flavour of the Samuel Gawith rope far surpasses any commercial rollie tobacco.

I'd love to try (smoking) some of this black rope:

It's pressure cooked, which aparently reduces the nicotine but changes the flavour considerably. It sounds interesting.

Edited May 7, 2011 by ballzac

[kadakuda]

that PC'd stuff LOOKS "interesting"....i can see some African getting kicks off selling snake shit ropes lol.

but it is very interesting indeed. Is there any particular reason its african? could i not try and use the stuff i grow to make rope? it is pretty cool looking stuff. i thought rope would have had a whole new meaning, but it is actually like rope.

[ballzac]

The actual rope is British, but the leaf is African. I don't know if it's the strain of Nicotiana tabacum, or just the curing process (dark firing), but there is no other tobacco in the world like it as far as I know. Virginian tobacco, Burley, and Turkish leaf are all very pale and not as strong in vitamin N, and very different in flavour, then there are your condiment tobaccos, different again. There are other African tobaccos, like African Burley, but I think of the dark-fired stuff as being very 'manly' tobacco. It's what I would imagine Indiana Jones would smoke/chew. Perhaps because the rope looks like a leather whip, lol. I have a lot of respect for other tobaccos. The SG Virginia flake has a particularly beautiful flavour. But very few tobaccos are strong enough for me, and the rope hits the spot perfectly.

[opiumfreak]

betel chewing is apparently related to use of kava:http://www.azarius.net/encyclopedia/3/Kava_kava/

Edited June 12, 2011 by opiumfreak

[opiumfreak]

Im high on chewing tobacco can take you pretty high in the right amount

[opiumfreak]

how is Torstens betel nuts has anyone tried them?

[Coja]

Ask for supari, pan parag and best of all paan when you go to an Indian grocery store if you want some tasty betel nut preparations. None typically have the fresh nut, but all can be nicely active as a mild stimulant. I'm a big fan of the milder, sweet meetha paan which is betel with a little lime paste, no tobacco, and about a dozen other ingredients such as rose syrup, date paste, fennel seed, cardamon seed and others all wrapped up in a betel leaf for after dinner chewing as a treat or digestive.