Stomach churn can really get in the way of a spiritual awakening.

Your mind craves mushroom-fueled transformation, but your body must digest the raw fungi first. And mushrooms don’t go down as easy as your morning coffee. It can take an hour or more for your system to break down psilocybin and eight hours for the psychedelic trip to subside. In the process, you might experience persisting pain, nausea, and vomiting. Sure, you can push through the discomfort, but you probably won’t unlock the secret to life’s purpose along the way. Fortunately, you have another option that reportedly minimizes nausea and intensifies psychedelic journeys. The method is known as lemon tekking.

In this beginner's lemon tekking guide, we’ll teach you how to lemon tek, discuss the pros and cons, and theorize on the shamanic origins of this trip-enhancing strategy.

What Is A Lemon Tek?

A lemon tek is a blended concoction of magic mushrooms soaked in lemon juice. The acids from the juice break down magic mushrooms into a more digestible form, so the stomach has less work to do by the time the fungi arrive. This process helps hide the taste of these earthy psychedelics and helps prevent the dreaded belly knots.

Additionally, a lemon tek drink reportedly makes psychedelic journeys more potent and shorter in duration. Researchers don’t definitively understand why lemon tekking intensifies the trip, but most psychonauts agree that it works.

How Does Lemon Tekking Work?

When magic mushrooms sit in lemon juice for twenty to thirty minutes, the fruit’s acids kickstart the digestive process before they hit your mouth. This is essential because your body may not have the necessary enzymes to break through mycelial walls efficiently.

Lemon juice’s pH level falls somewhere between 2 to 2.6. In comparison, your stomach acids fall between 1.5 to 3.5. So, by mimicking your stomach’s natural acids, lemon juice breaks through the walls and breaks down psilocybin into a form your body can absorb–psilocin. The result is a more bioactive liquid mushroom extraction.

Similarly, if you’ve ever taken a liquid medication vs. an extended-release capsule, you know its effects arise faster. That’s because you’ve ingested a bioactive form of the substance.

Dr. K Madrae, the co-author of the Psilocybin Mushroom Bible, points out that the explanation for lemon tekking makes logical sense. Still, he clarifies that scientific research doesn’t draw a direct line between the mechanism of action and the effects.

This disclaimer is critical, but citric acid digestion and user reviews are real.

Countless lemon tekking testimonials confirm that lemon tekking makes magic mushrooms hit harder and faster. Some even report deity-level epiphanies. “Yesterday I lemon tekked…and thought I was the second coming of Buddha,” said a recent Reddit user in the r/shoomers board.

As exciting as that sounds, lemon tekking isn’t a fool-proof method. So it’s essential to be well-versed in lemon tekking and prepare the mixture with the proper dosage for you—more on that below.

Most people say lemon tekking magic mushrooms creates a heightened psychedelic journey that starts fast and subsides quicker than eating whole dried varieties. Others report no difference at all. Only you can say what lemon tekking feels like for you, but let’s look at some trends.

Many people report that lemon tekking feels less somatic (bodily) and headier. In other words, lemon tekking creates more visuals and revelations. People also agree that lemon tekking feels like doubling or tripling the magic mushroom dosage.

If you’re an experienced psychonaut, that description may excite you. However, if you’re not seeking Buddha-level transcendence, you might consider cutting your dosage in half or thirds. Better to be safe than struggle through a challenging trip.

How Long Does A Lemon Tek Trip Last?

Lemon tek concoctions typically kick in and subside much faster than raw shrooms. Dried mushrooms take 30 to 90 minutes to digest, persisting in various waves of intensity for eight hours or more. That’s a full-day commitment you may not be willing to make.

Conversely, lemon tek effects generally arise in ten to forty-five minutes and come with fewer waves. This allows you to reach the peak altered state in about two hours and arrive back at baseline in four to six hours.

Whichever method you choose, the process will always speed up if you’re on an empty stomach. So if you lemon tek with nothing in your system, you may feel the effects instantly.

Is Lemon Tekking For You?

We can’t answer that for sure, but we can offer guidance on the matter.

First, the better question may be, is lemon tekking right for you right now?

If you’ve never experienced psychedelic mushrooms before, the answer is probably no. Lemon tekking can amplify the journey exponentially, which may not be appropriate for you at this moment.

The bicycle metaphor works perfectly here.

You probably didn’t jump on a two-wheeler before mastering training wheels. You would’ve landed face down on the pavement a few times first. So, before deciding to lemon tek, you may want to experiment with low doses of raw dried mushrooms.

However, if you’ve dabbled in psychedelic mushrooms and feel comfortable with your dosage, it may be the perfect time to soak your stash in citric acid. Lemon tekking benefits make the juice worth the squeeze for many fans of the method.

Lemon tekking benefits include:

• Shorter onset
• Shorter duration
• Easier on the stomach
• Does more with less
• More mental than physical effects
• Better taste

How To Lemon Tek

Learning how to lemon tek is simple, and not limited to lemons, ironically.

Let’s review a few lemon tekking preparation methods so you can choose the best recipe for your taste buds.

Citrus Fruits And Tekking

All citrus fruits contain citric and malic acids needed for lemon tekking. So, feel free to choose between high-acidic fruits like lemons, limes, pomegranates, and green grapes that fall below 3.5 pH. Sweeter varieties like pineapples and oranges may not work because their pH level is closer to neutral and are significantly less acidic by percentage.

Once you’ve picked your sour pleasure, make sure to have the remaining substances and tools available:

• Dried psychedelic mushrooms (using half or a third of your regular dose)
• A grinder (such as a coffee grinder) or tool such a hammer, mortar and pestle, hand mincer, or rolling pin
• A straining method, such as a coffee filter, cheesecloth or DIY strainer
• Fresh lemon, or other citrus juice equivalent to one or two lemons
• A smaller shaker or shot glass

Shroom Shot With Lemon

With your grocery list in hand, follow these lemon tek steps to create your perfect shroom shot:

1. Grab your grinder and pulse the dried shrooms into a fine powder.
2. Carefully pour the powder into your shaker.
3. Pour lemon or citrus juice over the shrooms. Make sure to cover and soak them thoroughly.
4. Let the mixture sit for at least 15 minutes and up to 30 minutes.
5. For best results, strain the mixture to eliminate the larger bits of material, making the extract even easier for your stomach. Or skip straight to step six.
6. Bottoms up! Drink the lemon tek in one shot.

Shroom Tea With Lemon

Mushroom tea is another popular way to experience the benefits of lemon tekking. Some prefer this method because it dilutes the concentrated lemon tek, making it even more palatable. Tea also allows you to add more botanicals and flavoring agents to create the taste you want.

To make shroom tea with lemon, follow the steps above to make your lemon tek shroom shot. Then, instead of drinking the lemon, add the shot to your favorite tea. The tea should be hot but not boiling. Lavender tea with a drop of honey complements lemon tek flavors well. Other tasty options include ginger and green tea.

If you prefer chilled beverages, you can add cold water, honey, and botanicals to the lemon tek mixture, along with ice.

Microdosing with lemon Tek. Yes or no?

Depending on how costly magic mushrooms are where you live, microdosing can get a bit expensive for some users. Some of you might already be thinking, "what if I use lemon tek to microdose at half the cost?" but we don't recommend it. 

Why? 

The point of a microdose schedule is to extend the sub-perceptual effects throughout the day and improve the quality of your week. For this purpose, you need long and subtle, while lemon tek offers the opposite: short and intense.

The effects won't be sub-perceptual if you try to lemon tek your standard microdose´s shrooms dosage. The length of the effects will become too short too.

If you try to solve this by decreasing the dose to make it sub-perceptual, the effect's duration will become even shorter. 

If you try to use more than usual to make sure it lasts as long as a microdose is supposed to, all you will achieve is getting high on magic shrooms.

Finally, if you try to solve all these issues by taking doses more frequently, you will develop a tolerance and spend more money, which you were trying to avoid in the first place.

So, if you want to microdose, stick to magic mushroom capsules, magic honey, or any other slow-release method.

Shamans Pee-rfecting Tekking

Long before modern psychonauts soaked their shrooms in lemon juice, Siberian shamans paved a less appetizing path to a similar destination.

Siberian shamans noticed caribou enjoyed grazing on psychedelic (and slightly poisonous) Amanita muscaria mushrooms. The shamans witnessed caribou fighting to drink the deer’s pee. The curiosity must have been strong because these shamans reportedly drank the urine and tripped themselves.

Later, following the caribou’s lead, shamans supposedly began eating Amanita muscaria mushrooms and sharing their urine with disciples. All they needed was a mushroom or two, one strong stomach, and a container to hold the psychoactive pee.

Urine tekking was born.

So, Should I Drink My Own Urine After Taking Shrooms?

Absolutely not.

With great respect for shamanic ingenuity, we ask that you avoid urine tekking–and Amanita muscaria mushrooms altogether.

Studies show that traces of psilocin may appear in your urine after taking magic mushrooms, but not enough to have a psychoactive effect. Some theorize that urine tekking only worked for Siberian shamans because Amanita muscaria mushrooms are entirely different from other varieties. Reddit user, LucidDose, explains:

“Amanita muscaria mushrooms… are not only psychoactive but also toxic…The interesting thing about them is the main alkaloid, muscimol, passes through humans and into their urine untouched. It is said that it can be passed onto to other people up to 7 times.”

In other words, humans (or deer) needed to digest and filter out the poisonous toxins first, in order to create a urine-based extract that left only the psychoactive elements behind.

The Come Down

The jury is still out on why, how, and if a lemon tek provides all the benefits that people claim. However, lemony shroom shots appear to be a psychedelic method worth exploring–especially if high intensity appeals to you. So, if you love psychoactive mushrooms and want to explore lemon tekking benefits, by all means, squeeze the most juice out of your experience