What Makes Our Teas Different
With all the crap available out there in our world, we try to be careful with what we put in our bodies. It costs a little more, but we think it’s the only way to go. If you’re looking for the highest high for your buck, quite honestly we’re not for you. We don’t price our cannabis tea based on THC content; instead, we price for purity and medicinal value. And we test everything many, many times in our own lab, as well as externally with a certified cannabis lab.
In addition, our CBD is sourced from a whole-plant extract that is grown in Mendocino, Calif., from a high-CBD-strain. This is important because it’s been clinically proven that CBD from the cannabis plant is more medicinally effective than CBD from hemp. See our Proof page for information on “the entourage effect,” which explains how the medical efficacy of CBD is enhanced when paired with low dose THC.
Most cannabis-infused products out there today are “approximate” doses. Ours are exact to pharmaceutical standards. In other words, if we tell you there are 7 milligrams of THC in each cannabis-infused tea sachet, it means we have tested many samples from each batch to ensure that the accuracy of the dose falls within the pharmaceutical industry’s acceptable range. (For the record, we typically beat that figure.)
A shocking number of marijuana-infused products are made from cannabis that was not organically grown and often contains mold or pesticides — toxins that only become more concentrated when you refine the plant to oil. Mold is a mycotoxin that can cause inflammation throughout the body as a result of an immune system gone haywire, and pesticides are known to be carcinogenic.
We were also horrified when we dug deep into the tea and cannabis industries and learned that there are often toxins in teabags as well as on cannabis plants. Teabags are typically made of paper, plastic or nylon. Let’s start with the plastic and nylon: these have the potential to leak chemicals into your tea. As for the paper bags, many are treated with a compound called epichlorohydrin, which is used to produce epoxy resins and acts as a pesticide. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) labels it a potential carcinogen, and it’s been shown to cause cancer in animals, impair fertility and weaken immune function.
Additionally, you know that string that’s often attached to the teabag? If it’s white, it’s typically been bleached. Yep, so there’s a chance you may also be adding residual bleach to your chemical tea.
After learning all this, we searched far and wide for a nontoxic tea bag. We finally found one in Japan made with polylactic acid from plant starches (sugarcane, cassava and corn) woven to form a fine fiber. This means they are 100% compostable and biodegradable.
When we started this business, we didn’t know very much about tea or about cannabis. Now we know a lot about both. Like the fact that whole leaf teas and herbs are so much tastier and healthier than cut teas (the “tea dust” you find in most teabags, which is made up of cheap leftovers). We use only top-shelf, artisanal, organic teas, herbs and flowers. And for you tea snobs who prefer loose-leaf tea, consider Kikoko to be loose-leaf in a bag. The sachet is simply so you don’t over-serve yourself and end up riding the Crazy Train.
We also couldn’t understand why most cannabis products taste heinous, but we knew we didn’t want to make nasty-tasting teas. Solving that problem took some work, but we figured it out. Unlike many other companies, we don’t just grind up weed and stick it in our teas. Nor do we spray the tea with cannabis oil. We have our own proprietary method of making the cannabis water-soluble and masking the taste with natural herbs.
Cannabis is an oil, and therefore it doesn’t like water. Naturally and organically (and with some clever scientists), we solved this problem. You will not find an oil slick on the surface of your tea, nor will you find any remaining in the cup (as is the case with many other products that claim water-dispersibility but are not). How did we do it? We can’t tell you. That’s our proprietary technology, but we can tell you that we call the organically grown, 100% water-dispersible outcome KikoGold.
Whether it’s our scientists or anyone else on our team, we surround ourselves with the very best. The development lab we work with has put all the rigor of their biology, chemistry, neuroscience and pharmaceutical expertise into distilling the precise cannabinoids that are clinically proven to address specific issues. (Click the Proof tab; you’ll find links to plenty of credible research.)
