Possible windfalls from legalizing hemp and CBD may get all the headlines, but terpenes could have just as much commercial potential. Terpenes are responsible for the smells and flavors that help us distinguish different strains of pot; like elevator songs and character actors, you recognize them without knowing what they are.
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Want to design your own high? Pay attention to the newest area of cannabis research: terpenes. These essential oils give each cannabis strain the unique smell, flavor and taste that you’ve come to love (or hate). Terpenes also offer special medicinal and therapeutic benefits that help with everything from insomnia to infections to depression. Here are the top ten things you need to know about terpenes:
Sharon Letts |
Anyone who has ever used a vaporizer has tasted the sweet green of good bud |
While the cannabis industry’s appetite for energy use is already widely documented, we’re still learning more about other forms of legal pot’s impact on the environment, such as packaging and extraction waste, as well as how growing nutrients affect soil.
One environmental factor we didn’t see coming? Terpenes.
Terpenes are molecules responsible for the smells and flavors of cannabis, hops, pine trees and every other plant aroma. As growers began to breed cannabis to achieve flavor profiles that taste more like oranges, grapes or pine than weed, terpenes quickly became all the rage in legal cannabis — to the point that they’re now extracted and mixed with THC concentrate for a more flavorful dab.
“Tang” is one of the more difficult flavor concepts for me to grasp. Is it sweet? Savory? Sour? A mix of all three? Calling something “tangy” at a family dinner table will often lead to an argument from someone who thinks tangy and tart are the same thing, thanks to powdered-drink-pushing chimpanzees. In actuality, tang is supposed be slightly sour while adding another fresh or zesty characteristic, as with plain yogurt, sourdough bread or certain tomato sauces.
Need a little spur in creativity to finish that essay or Powerpoint presentation? Cannabis isn’t always the cure, but there’s no doubt it will put you in a different state mind. That elevated perspective can take you to a new world for a few hours, kickstarting a brainstorm session or helping you critically review your work.
Below are ten strains we’ve reviewed over that past year that have provided a creative boost, helping us read, write and rock and roll on a whole ‘nother level.
Cannabis legalization has not only spurred a wide variety of new industries, but it’s reinvigorating some old business models. Noticing the growing interest around terpenes — plant compounds found in cannabis and hops (and fruits, flowers, coffee and pretty much anything else grown on Earth) — Niki Sawni decided to start a line of non-alcoholic beverages geared toward cannabis users.
After medical marijuana was legalized in California over two decades ago, the technology behind cannabis consumption started taking off, and it’s truly exploded since 2014, when Colorado became the first state to legalize the plant for recreational purposes. The innovations took the industry from older, water-based extractions, like bubble hash, to advanced methods using solvents such as butane and CO2 to create wax and shatter.
But hash makers didn’t stop there. They soon figured out that freezing cannabis flower immediately after harvest preserves terpenes and plant oils before extraction, leading to the rise in “live” concentrates, like live resin. The newer, stankier product became the preferred dab for connoisseurs, further pushing back solventless and water-based extraction. But the progression of cannabis concentrates continues at a quick pace as newer extraction methods using rounds of ice-water extraction, heat and pressure produce concentrates that easily stack up with their solvent counterparts.
Like many other cannabis writers, I routinely express my interest in and love of terpenes, the compounds found in cannabis and other plants that are responsible for a plant’s (or strain’s) smell and flavor. Cannabis has them, hops have them, lavender has them, citrus fruits have them…see the connection? One of the most common and popular cannabis and hop terpenes, myrcene, is also relatively abundant in mangos. The high myrcene levels in both pot and mangos has made some cannabis consumers swear that eating the fruit after smoking enhances their high, while myrcene has also shown potential for aiding with pain relief and muscle relaxation when paired with THC. So give it up for mangos, fellow tokers. They’re here to help — with the munchies, at the very least.
So where are all the mango-named strains?
Sales data has shown a consistent growth in cannabis extracts and other forms of consumption as the legal pot industry advances. While part of the allure is sheer novelty, many new technologies have given medical patients more standardized treatment and retail users more consistent effects.