Plant dehydration, alkaloid concentration, and cytotoxicity on ayahuasca traditional tea

Abstract

Ayahuasca tea is a decoction prepared with leaves of P. viridis shrub popularly known as rainha, chacrona or chacruna and stems of B. caapi commonly known as mariri, ayahuasca, caapi, jagube (Callaway et al., 1999b; Miranda et al., 2020).The decoction of the plants together is the traditional way of preparing Ayahuasca. This tea has been used in traditional indigenous medicine of the Amazonian peoples for healing and also in spiritual rituals since pre-Columbian times (Estrella-Parra et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2019). In several countries, such as Colombia, Peru and Brazil it is the fundamental element of indigenous cultures (Gaujac et al., 2012; Labate & Feeney, 2012).