Calea Zacatechichi, a plant revered for it’s dream-inducing properties, is one of the most widely used herbs for dream work and lucid dreaming. The two most traditional methods of ingesting the plant are to either smoke it as a cigarette or to boil the leaves and make a tea out of it.

The “problem” with Calea Zacatechichi tea is that it is notoriously bitter. And I mean bitter! Once the first drop of liquid touches the tongue, it’s as if the bitterness itself is an invisible  entity, absorbing the tongue in all its wrath!

The good news is that this bitterness can be tamed. How? The best methods are wide ranging and might even sound a little silly. One dreamer reported that the addition of kool aid to the tea was his favorite method! Other suggestions include adding honey to the tea, boiling additional teas together (such as mint or any strong-tasting tea), mixing juice with the tea, or  dissolving hard candies into the tea to sweeten it.

Perhaps another way of looking at it is that the tea is bitter and this is just part of the process. (Did the shamans of Mexico sweeten it with kool-aid? I don’t so.) With that in mind, you might enjoy just sitting back and slowly, slowly sipping the tea, so that you’re not overwhelmed at any one point while drinking it.