The best flower that showed up at my place this month is going into the freezer without ever getting smoked. That is happening more often, and this month’s haul explains why.
Most Wanted did an outstanding job growing this Guava Tart clone from Purple City Genetics. It is covered in trichomes, the smell is pungent and it is extremely sticky.
I have not tried it. All of it is going into the freezer to be washed into hash rosin.
That sentence would have been strange to write a few years ago. A reviewer gets sent a jar of exceptional flower and the flower never gets lit. But look at what else landed here this month and it stops looking strange at all. One cut arrived as three different products, two of which were hash. Another arrived as flower that I am told is headed the same direction. The bowl is no longer the default destination for the best material in the room.
This is one desk and one month, not a market survey. But when the best-looking jar of the month goes straight to the freezer, that says something about what growers are aiming at.
One cut, three hands
The clearest example of how this works now is the Cal Ripkin, and it arrived in triplicate.
Moon Valley Farms grew it in living soil for Terp Hogz. Terp Hogz washed it into live rosin. CGO hand-rolled a hash hole using the flower from Moon Valley and the rosin from Terp Hogz. Three operations, one cut, three products on the same table.
The flower has a very nice uplifting high with a strong Lemon Z Funk #8 flavor. It is a great daytime strain and the least complicated of the three.
The hash hole announced itself on the first hit. I could taste the lemon and the Z Funk #8 right away, and when it got to the middle it tasted like almost pure rosin. Same flavor, more of it, arriving in stages. The high is very uplifting and this is firmly a daytime hash hole.
The live rosin is where Terp Hogz hit the home run. The first dab gave me a blast of lemon creme flavor that stayed in my mouth for a while. By the second dab the high was extremely uplifting. It is also a conversation starter, and I mean that literally: the whole room was talking after we smoked it.
What strikes me going through all three is how much survives the trip. The lemon that is present in the flower is still the loudest thing in the rosin, and the hash hole sits in between by design, starting like flower and finishing like concentrate. That only works if the cut was chosen for it from the start.
Flower that is still just flower
Not everything is on its way to a wash bag, and the two that stayed in the jar were the two I enjoyed most as flower.
Momochi x Doughnut Shop, grown by Fig Farms. This one looks great, smells great and tastes great, and the smell is the part I keep coming back to. It smells like a bearclaw pastry fresh out of the oven. The taste follows through: fresh doughnut with warm cherry filling, a slight hint of sugary vanilla coffee, buttery caramel underneath. The high is creative and uplifting and relaxing at the same time, which is a harder combination to pull off than it sounds.
Black Lotus, grown by Maven. Black Diamond crossed with Blue Lotus, running limonene, myrcene and linalool. It is a very smooth smoke with an old-school flavor, a little earthy with some citrus. I really enjoyed the Black Lotus. It made me feel good and want to sit back and watch a movie. Physical relaxation, easier mood, no edge to it.
What it takes to get one keeper
The reason any of the above exists is a process almost nobody sees, and Mark Greyshock of Greenshock Farms walked me through his version of it for Pink Rider. I have not smoked this one yet, so treat what follows as the breeder’s account rather than a review.
Pink Rider comes out of an old Jack Herer and Skunk cross. About four years ago Greenshock pulled a phenotype out of that line and called it Pretty and Pink, because the hairs came in so pink and it smelled like pink grapefruit with sugar on it. They crossed Pretty and Pink with Tropical Sleigh Ride, then hunted 30 plants to find the one.
“It was very hard to select down to the keeper because so many good ones showed up. Sometimes these things come from decades of work, and sometimes something new shows up from trying. The important part is recognizing something when it shows up.”
Mark Greyshock, Greenshock Farms
Thirty plants to get one. That is the arithmetic underneath every jar in this piece, including the one going into my freezer unsmoked.
The Guava Tart review is coming. It just won’t be a flower review.
