Magic Mushroom Lemon Tek: A Way To Trip Harder

Making psychedelic trips more potent is something many strive to do. Fortunately, increasing the strength of magic mushrooms and magic truffles is simple, and requires nothing special. Let's take a look.

If you’ve read anything about taking magic mushrooms, you’ve probably come across references to lemons or lemon tekking before. Rumour has it that adding lemon juice to your mushrooms holds the key to creating a faster, stronger trip.

Here we look a little into the science behind lemon tekking and then tell you how to do it yourself.

How does a lemon tek work?

A lemon tek is akin to performing alchemy in your own home, at the end of which you have a magical potion. At the very least, you’re performing a simple chemical conversion that gives you a potent psychedelic cocktail.

Lemon tekking uses acid to convert psilocybin into psilocin. Though fresh lemon juice is often used, you can also use lime juice, orange juice, or even vinegar! We wouldn’t recommend the latter, though.

The most abundant psychoactive compound in dried magic mushrooms and truffles is psilocybin, which can be considered a prodrug. Once psilocybin is ingested, stomach acid converts it into psilocin. At this point, it can be absorbed by your body, reach your brain, and get you high. Why not outsource the procedure?

This conversion can occur outside the body by covering ground shrooms in lemon (which is acidic). But why bother? Though contested, most agree that there are some benefits to lemon tekking:

• Faster come up
• Stronger effects
• “Cleaner” high
• It could be considered an easier way to take mushrooms

Lemon tek vs tea

Many people also like to make mushroom tea. Depending how this is made, tea can be very similar to a lemon tek, or quite different. In short, if you add lemon juice to the tea, you are still essentially lemon tekking—the conversion will happen in the tea.

But there are some advantages and differences with tea compared to a simple lemon tek.

• Sip, rather than take the whole dose at once
• Can mask the flavour with tea
• By extracting the psilocybin from the mushrooms/truffles and into the water, there’s no need to actually consume the mushrooms/truffles, which can help avoid nausea

But for those who want the most potent hit possible, a lemon tek is the way to go!

How long does it take lemon tek to kick in?

The speed at which lemon tek shrooms or truffles take hold is one of the major draws for people. As you don’t need to wait for your body to covert psilocybin into psilocin, it can take effect much faster than eaten shrooms.

It will differ from person to person, but a lemon tek on an empty stomach takes significantly less time to kick in than eating shrooms normally. Moreover, not only will it begin faster, but the come up could be much “harder”. This increased potency is because the whole dose can hit you at once, rather than trickling in gradually as the mushrooms are digested.

How long does lemon tek last?

Again, a lot of this is based on anecdotal evidence. However, the psychedelic community is large, communicative and those in it like to help one another out, so there’s plenty of anecdotes to go off.

So given that, the general consensus is that a lemon tek trip may last for a slightly shorter period of time, due to the immediate hit of psilocin. However, it’s more nuanced than this. Although the overall trip might be shorter (it also might not), the main body of the trip is no shorter. In fact, it could be that the time you spend properly tripping is both stronger and slightly longer, but the come-up period and the tail are both reduced.

The best way to know is to find out yourself, surely?

How to lemon tek

Making a lemon tek is easy, but there are a few things you’ll need.

Equipment for lemon tek

Here’s what you’ll need for a lemon tek, and most of it will already be in the kitchen.

• Dried mushrooms/truffles
• Coffee grinder/knife
• Shot glass (or any glass)
• Lemon(s) or something similarly acidic

Directions

1. Grind or chop your mushrooms/truffles into a super fine powder—as fine as you can. You can use a coffee grinder to do this.

2. Using the shot glass, cover your powder with lemon juice.

3. Let sit for about 20 minutes, but do not leave it for longer than that. If it begins to turn blue, the psilocin is breaking down, and you must drink it immediately if you don’t want to waste it.

4. (Optional) Fill the glass with water and thoroughly mix.

5. Drink the entire glass when ready to start the trip—ground bits and all!

Does lemon tek work with lime?

Yes, as mentioned, a lemon tek will actually work with any kind of acidic liquid. Lemons tend to be used firstly because of their flavour and secondly because they are highly acidic. For an even better flavour, you could use something like orange juice, but the conversion is likely to be less comprehensive due to their lower acidity.

Lemons are tried and tested (hence the name) and a very popular option. So unless you have a specific reason to avoid them, they’re probably your best bet.

Is lemon tek worth it?

If you are able to do a lemon tek well, then it is certainly worth it. Doing it well basically means cutting/grinding it well enough and then making sure it doesn’t turn blue. The smaller the pieces, the larger the surface area to volume ratio will be and the greater the conversion. For instance, whole mushrooms will not work well with a lemon tek.

In terms of the effects, there are clear benefits to lemon tekking. But those benefits could also be drawbacks, especially if you’re not very experienced with mushrooms or truffles. Coming up hard and having a stronger trip sounds great, but mushrooms can be pretty strong anyway, so be careful before amplifying this.

Though only anecdotal, reports of cleaner, clearer highs when lemon tekking imply that a psilocin experience could be slightly different to psilocybin, and potentially better. In the end, though, only you can judge this.