The power of Ultrasonic Caapi paste 

By Thomas • 20 March 2023

For years our traditional 30x Caapi pastes have been among the best-selling products in our store. Now we are introducing a new version of this age-old formula. One that is born from the combination of long-term collaboration with indigenous communities, and the expertise as herbalists that was gained over 30 years of making premium-quality extracts. We call it: Ultrasonic Caapi paste.

It is by far the coolest sounding product in our store. But what does it mean? How does it perform in relation to traditional Caapi 30x pastes? This blog is here to demystify this product and give you an idea of what kind of power it holds.

Before we dive in:

While we will always respect sacred traditions, we believe it is important to innovate to bring the highest quality herbs to people around the world. By using modern extraction techniques, we can get closer to delivering the plant’s identity in its purest form.

Ultrasonic Caapi paste, a stronger product.

In short, our ultrasonic Caapi paste is an extract that we make by using state of the art extraction equipment that produces ultrasonic frequencies. Our ultrasonic Caapi paste is a stronger product compared to other pastes on the market. 

I hear you ask: “How is that possible?”. Our traditional pastes are generally classified as 30:1 and 30x, while the ultrasonic paste has a mere 4:1 ratio. The answer lies in how we calculate and communicate the Caapi content of each paste. 

It is weighed differently. 

First, the enormous difference is explained by the disparity in the way we calculate the ratios of our different pastes. When we started out 8 years ago with our 30x pastes,; we weighed the total amount of freshly harvested vine before it underwent any type of processing. The weighing would take place before drying, cleaning, removal of the bark, and the lengthy process of cooking the vine.  

For the ratio calculation of our ultrasonic paste, we use a more precise way. We weigh the exact amount that is used for one kilo of Ultrasonic Caapi paste. In this case the raw material we use, is the dried, stripped and cleaned vine which weighs a lot less than a freshly harvested vine. 

It is extracted more efficiently.

The advantage of using ultrasound over boiling the plant is that the active components do not get damaged by heat.  The process of our ultrasonic extraction is set to never exceed the 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit). It is an highly efficient process which only requires a couple of hours of extraction time, compared to boiling the plant for days on end on open fire.  

We start by placing the Caapi vine chips and purified water in a large tank. We then blast this mixture with high frequencies under controlled temperatures. Ultrasound is known to rupture the cell-wall of plants. When the cell wall bursts, the active components flow out of the cell  and into the purified water.

After ultrasonication and filtration, we concentrate the solution into a thick paste by reducing the liquid to about 1/30th of its orignal volume.  

A cleaner product. 

When we say that our Ultrasonic Caapi paste is cleaner, we mean that the paste itself does not contain any burnt carbon. Where with traditional pastes it’s very difficult to avoid combustion of carbon due to the long exposure to high heat. The process of our new paste never exceeds 38 degrees Celsius, which means it is impossible to overheat or get burnt.  

This Caapi paste is more sustainable. 

Due to the efficiency of our extraction method, we need less Caapi vine to produce the same amount of paste.  

Test results. 

To find out about the potency of our ultrasonic paste, we had several of our pastes tested by two professional laboratories. To give you a bit of background information, the main active compounds in Caapi that have MAOI activity are in a group of alkaloids called Harmalas. 

Below are the results of several compounds that fall under that group: 

As you can see, our ultrasonic paste is higher in both Harmaline and Tetrahydroharmine, whereas levels of harmine are comparable between both types of paste.  Tetrahydroharmine is a compound that is generally associated with feelings of ‘bliss’ and ‘euphoria’.  

These tests were done by two independent labs. One commercial lab, and a university laboratory as part of a larger study.  The results displayed above are the average of the results from the two labs. 

Less is more.

We sampled our Ultrasonic caapi pastes amongst some long-time customers. We received feedback that people used 70% of the ultrasonic paste relative to our traditional 30x pastes. 

So which paste is better? 

The answer is: ‘It depends’. If you value traditional, shaman prepared Caapi paste, our 30x extracts are perfect for you. 

If you would like to focus more on a stronger, cleaner, and more sustainably prepared product, our ultrasonic Caapi paste may be the answer for you.  

You can check out our full range of Caapi products here.