Cloudy tea with whitish stringy goo: Is it okay?

[cthulhuchan]

Hello All,

I hope someone could be of help in this situation because I am a bit stumped. I made some Amanita Muscaria tea with Amanita Dreamer's method, strained it through a coffee filter, and froze most of it in an ice cube tray. All seemed normal. I thawed one of my cubes in the refrigerator, and noticed that it had white-ish cloudy bits floating in it. It smells fine and it literally JUST thawed after being frozen, so I can't imagine how it could have gone bad? What do you think? Is it safe to drink? Should I toss my whole batch? I thawed another cube to check and this one did the same thing. I could pull the floaty stuff out potentially and drink it but I wouldn't want to make myself sick. However, I just don't understand how it could have gone bad while frozen. It wasn't even frozen very long. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks.

What do you guys think? Any response would be really appreciated. This is my first batch of tea so I'm not sure what to expect and I could find absolutely nothing online.

Thanks!

[Matt]

... noticed that it had white-ish cloudy bits floating in it. It smells fine and it literally JUST thawed after being frozen, so I can't imagine how it could have gone bad? What do you think? Is it safe to drink? Should I toss my whole batch?

Is the white cloudy bit thick enough to pull out or does it easily stir back in? I have just made my first Amanita tea and have been keeping it in the coldest part of my fridge in a small mason jar. I've noticed something I'd describe that way, but it very easily stirs right back into the rest of the liquid and disappears. I've used as much as 1/2 tsp in a cup of tea without any bad effects whatsoever. So there's that, for what its worth.

[cthulhuchan]

Is the white cloudy bit thick enough to pull out or does it easily stir back in? I have just made my first Amanita tea and have been keeping it in the coldest part of my fridge in a small mason jar. I've noticed something I'd describe that way, but it very easily stirs right back into the rest of the liquid and disappears. I've used as much as 1/2 tsp in a cup of tea without any bad effects whatsoever. So there's that, for what its worth.

I tried to pull it out with a fork and it didn't come out in one piece, but there was some on the fork. It doesn't exactly "stir back in" but it kind of just looks like the tea is separated. My instinct is that it is just mushroom remnants separated in the tea possibly from the process of it being frozen and thawing. The gooey stuff isn't very thick at all I rubbed it in between my fingers after pulling it out and it just sort of absorbed into my skin, so maybe it is some kind of lipid from the mushroom? For food I usually go by: if it smells bad, its bad and if it smells good, its good. And this stuff definitely smells good. I might just try a bit and see if I get any stomach ache or anything.

[Rebis]

I get this stringy goo too.
Your tea hasn't gone off. I was told it is 'chitin'. I presume this 'chitin' is the cell walls of the fungus, which can't be broken down, at least not by this method of preparation.

When I make my tincture (which I mistakenly called a 'tea' in my post on it) for microdosing, I get this stringy goo which forms instantly when I add the alcohol as a preservative. It makes the solution go cloudy, as you say. I just pull the bulk of it out with a small wooden tea spoon. It sticks to the wooden spoon quite well. Then filter it through a cotton wool bung in a funnel. I don't get on with coffee filters - it takes for ever. The stringy goo looks like grey chewing gum once out of the solution.

Hope that helps.
Rebis.

[AmanitaN00b]

I noticed this in one of the small batches that had defrosted over night, mentioned in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=604
Although No one's replied… yet!

I pulled it out and have continued to used it over the next few days. Seemed okay.

Does anyone have a definitive answer as to what the white stringy stuff is?