Pesh

Pesh is a cactus that grows in hot areas with some water source (such as around desert oases or near mudpots and hot springs) where it often chokes out all other vegetation. Its leaves are a source for the eponymous narcotic, and its spring-blooming yellow flowers bear distinctive crimson stripes and can serve as a non-narcotic spice. The easiest way to make pesh is to cut one of the pesh plant’s leaves and collect the milky sap. The tin, pungent milk begins to curdle after being kept in a cool, dry place for 3 days. An additive called nagri— a bitter salt mined from dry lake beds— is stirred into the curdled sap at this point and the mixture is then allowed to sit for another day. Large white lumps form in the mixture, like curds in curdled milk; a fine mesh is used to strain the lumps (the raw pesh) from the liquid whey. Pesh in this raw, solid form can be eaten plain for a narcotic dose, but is more commonly smoked in a water pipe or hookah. To make refined pesh, farmers must wait for the 2 months each year when the pesh plants bloom. Fat seedpods swell on the plants, and the farmers score the pods with sharp blades. Thick sap oozes from the score marks and hardens into resin. Farmers typically spend weeks of delicate work scoring the pods, harvesting the dried resin after a day, and scoring fresh marks until every pod is dry, save a few left intact to produce seeds. The farmers then add the resin to the raw pesh to form sticky black blocks that can be eaten, rolled into leaves for smoking, or mixed into drinks. Refined pesh is much more potent than raw pesh and is considered a high-quality item for nobles and rich traders. The poor are more likely to consume pesh whey, stirred into tea, sopped up with bread, or held against their gums by gauze pads.