WHAT DOES A STRAIN NAME TELL YOU?
Every day there are new strain names popping up, with more and more people claiming to be ‘breeders’.
In more recent years there has been a trend in naming strains after their flavor profiles or aromatic qualities, contributing to marketing appeal and ‘hype’.
For the newbie cannabis enthusiast, the strain names can be both confusing and misleading.
The reality is that the manner in which a specific strain of cannabis is grown and processed contributes greatly to the final product. Simply put, let’s pretend that two people grew the same Purple Haze strain in two different locations, using two different grow methods. The composition of terpenes and cannabinoids in the final products of the two respective grows can end up being drastically different. For this reason, strain names alone cannot be relied on for medicinal purposes. TEST YOUR WEED if you want to know what’s in it. Recreational puffing is one thing (and that’s what we specialize in), but making medicine from cannabis is serious business and requires serious know-how.
The name of a strain, however, can give you some kind of general idea of what to expect with regards to flavor and effect.
In obvious cases, the strain name will hint at the flavor profile or aroma of the bud. ‘Sour Diesel’, for example, has a strong, gas-like taste. ‘Strawberry Cough’ smells intensely of strawberries. You get the point.
The word ‘Haze’ in ‘Neville’s Haze, Super Lemon Haze or Amnesia Haze’ would insinuate a more cerebral effect, implying a sativa dominance. The word ‘Kush’ in ‘Afghan Kush, Purple Kush or OG Kush’ would imply an indica dominance.
‘Indica’ and ‘sativa’ refer to different types (or species) of cannabis plants. Below is a list of the four types of weed plants.
- Sativa plants grow taller, skinnier, and more slowly than indica plants. Their leaves are thin, and their buds are airy and light. The dominant effect of sativa cannabis plants when consumed is more cerebral or ‘of the head’. Users feel buzzed, thoughtful, creative, etc.
- Indica plants are shorter, fatter, and faster growing than sativa plants. Their leaves are fat, and their buds are heavy and dense. The dominant effect of indica cannabis plants is more of a ‘body high’. Users feel physically relaxed, heavy, weighted down, or ‘couch-locked’ – as we like to say.
- Hybrid plants are blends of indicas and sativas, resulting in a more balanced effect on the user. A vast majority of the strains we grow and smoke today are hybrid strains.
- Hemp is also part of the cannabis family, but different in that it contains fokol THC (less than 0.3%). This makes it incredibly unappealing to us as recreational cannabis users, but hemp is one of nature’s most amazing resources. The use of hemp could quite literally change the world as we know it – if some important people started caring. Hemp can be used to create biofuel, plastics, textiles, clothing, shoes, industrial materials (like flooring, roofing, insulation, bricks and hemp concrete), food and paper. Read that again. Ask your government why they’re not doing the responsible thing; investing in hemp farms.
If we serve the plant, she will serve us too.