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A Deep Dive Into Wonderbrett, One Of LA’s Most Beloved Weed Brands

December 17, 2021 by newhiphopnews

Wonderbrett strain review and tour tf — Courtesy photo

The cannabis industry loves a good origin story. A story like Wonderbrett’s. The brand is named for Brett Feldman, a grower whose flavorful indoor-grown weed inspired a phrase heard around Los Angeles weed circles during the late ’90s and early 2000s — “You got that Brett?”

Equally important to the brand’s foundation is Feldman’s collaborator, Cameron Damwijk, also a master cultivator. The duo formally launched Wonderbrett in 2014, back during the Prop 215 (medical-only) days in California. Before that, Feldman and Damwijk were legends in Los Angeles music, street, and weed culture.

The quick story goes a little something like this: Back in 1997, Feldman was given a cut of OG Kush by Josh D, who along with another storied grower, Bubba, first brought the now-iconic strain to California from Florida in 1992. This may seem quaint now, but back then, this was before OG Kush was a thing outside of very select circles. Feldman went back and forth from the Bay Area, re-upping his supply of the newly in-demand strain for the Los Angeles market. Eventually, it became clear that this wasn’t the most efficient way of getting poundage in the hands of buyers, so Josh D bestowed upon Feldman a clone and basically said “have at it.”

The Brand:

Recognizing he had something special, Feldman took time to learn how to properly grow the strain in order to “not fuck it up,” he said while we toured his now 80,000-square-foot indoor grow facility in Long Beach. “When Kush was given to me, I had to figure out how to grow weed immediately,” he says. “I couldn’t kill the plants!”

And learn to grow he did. Due to the surging demand of OG Kush in Los Angeles during the late ’90s, Feldman soon found himself in the company of hip-hop’s biggest stars: Xzibit, Snoop, B-Real, and Dr. Dre among them. He was even invited to come chill in the studio during recording for Dr. Dre’s album, 2001. B-Real confirmed to me in a separate interview that it was Feldman who introduced him to Kush way back when.

Today, that legacy has turned into Wonderbrett, a full-fledged cannabis and lifestyle brand that maintains roots in the music community — Poo Bear, who is a recording artist and producer for Justin Bieber, Lupe Fiasco, Skrillex, and many others, is one of the brand’s major investors. In fact, Feldman, who is also a visual artist and the man behind the weed’s packaging design, recently released a new album of his own, “Wonderbrett: Volume 2,” which is a vibey, ethereal mix of beats perfect for — what else — smoking weed.

In addition to flower, Wonderbrett also makes solventless rosin gummies, pre-rolls, and dabs.

The Grow

Wonderbrett’s Long Beach indoor cultivation site is massive. The brand grows with a 22,000-square-feet canopy footprint across 36 individual grow rooms. Altogether, it’s about 30,000 plants. Even at his highest capacity back in the pre-legal days, Feldman says he could never have imagined producing at such scale, and that while scaling has gone well for them, it remains the number one challenge.

“On a small grow, it’s easy to have control,” he says. “You’re always going to be able to be the guy who is there all the time, who sleeps at the grow, right? This is different.”

Nowadays, they have 14 proprietary cultivars in rotation, which are selected according to a number of characteristics that make Wonderbrett weed what it is. The brand’s slogan is “flavors on flavors,” and all it takes is one whiff of a jar to see why — to paraphrase Darth Vader, the terps “are strong with this one.” The focus on this aspect of weed makes a strong point often lost in today’s shopping landscape: THC percentage is merely one part of the equation, and not necessarily the most important one.

Wonderbrett Dispensary Review — Wonderbrett/Uproxx

“If you buy weed on THC alone, you’re a dummy,” Feldman says.

It’s also about the terpenes and flavonoids, which is why it’s been so damaging to consumers to not be able to smell the weed they’re considering purchasing. Smelling it tells a massive part of the story. That’s not to say Wonderbrett’s weed isn’t strong — I am puffing on a 34.06% THC sample of the brand’s Pineapple OG as I type — but it’s true that THC potency is skewed as being the dominant marker of quality.

Walking into a Wonderbrett grow room with towering fat buds mere days away from completion makes an even finer point. I was smacked with smell every time I opened a door, whether that be an actual Peach smell in the Peach OZ room or the straight gas emanating from Black Orchid. The vividness matches the brand’s marketing strategy, which is to match dominant terpenes and flavonoids with the strain name as much as it makes sense — making an actionable connection in the customer’s mind. If someone is buying a strain with the word “peach” in the name, might it be a good idea to then pheno hunt for a variety that displays those very characteristics? Feldman says, “Yes. I’m glad you noticed that.” He offers an intentionally cartoonish laugh. “It means my strategy is working.”

The Weed

Feldman told me early in my tour — and I can confirm, after seeing it firsthand — that at Wonderbrett they dry trim only, which preserves trichomes, most importantly. Those are the little crystals that contain the fun cannabinoids, like THC, that make us high. He dries and cures for two weeks only. In general, from the day the weed is harvested, then tested, then dried and cured and finally packaged, Wonderbrett’s turnaround is about one month from harvest to package.

Wonderbrett’s jarred eighths aren’t cheap — they average for about $60 — and because they are constantly churning out new buds from their stratified and well-timed grow rooms, their customers are getting as fresh bud as one can possibly get on the legal market. The smell that lingers in the jars confirms this, though the bud is sometimes a bit dry. That’s more of the fault of legalization than any one individual grower.

I walked away from Wonderbrett’s facility with my head swimming in flavor, which is their intent. But does the bud stack up? I tried six: Black Orchid, Pineapple OG, Cherry Trop, Grapes of Wrath, and Chomp, which is the brand’s collaboration with rapper Russ.

The Strains

Pineapple OG

Retail Price: $60

Strain: Indica

THC: 34.06%

CBD: 0.08%

Dominant Terpenes: Limonene, Myrcene, Linalool, Caryophyllene

Easily considered a signature cultivar of the brand, Feldman told me Pineapple OG’s roots go back to 2008, though 2014 is the first time anyone could buy it legally. These are the buds Wonderbrett led with once they could sell in the medical market. He also said it’s been one of the most consistent producers of high THC — the batch I tried, which clocked in at 34%, was no exception.

It’s gassy, redolent of its OG roots, and boasts flavors of sweet and sour fruits, like pineapples, guavas, and passionfruit. It’s easy to see why people love it, and it’s would be a solid go-to in any experienced smoker’s repertoire. Feldman also mentioned it’s a “hardy” cultivar, ideal for breeding, which he has done for other Wonderbrett strains, like Orange Banana.

Black Orchid

Retail Price: $65

Strain: Hybrid

THC: 22.70%

CBD: 0.05%

Dominant Terpenes: Limonene, Caryophyllene, Linalool, Humulene

Another favorite of mine is Black Orchid, which is a much more functional smoke than Wonderbrett’s other options, owing to its more balanced cannabinoid profile and dense flowers. THC is registered at 22%, which is a “Goldilocks” percentage for me — not too much, not too little, but just right. There are higher percentages of CBG and CBGA, as well, which is said to aid in relaxation. Limonene, Caryophyllene, Linalool, and Humulene are the dominant terpenes, which means this cultivar has a little bit of everything I like: citrus, earth, flowers, and a hint of gas, which one would expect from an OG Kush and Gelato cross.

Peach OZ

Retail Price: $60

Strain: Sativa

THC: 30.0%

CBD:0.01%

Dominant Terpenes: Caryophyllene, Linalool, Limonene, Humulene

The buzz that results from a Peach OZ smoke is definitely suited for daytime, but 30% THC suggests a daytime activity like taking a leisurely stroll in a beautiful location or sitting on the beach rather than anything that requires serious motor skill function. The smell and flavor match up on this one: peach, sweet citrus and a hint of vanilla round out this cultivar, which was made by Peach Rings and OZ Kush, a pheno gifted from Cannabis by Corey, which originally came from Dying Breed Seeds.

Chomp

Retail Price: $60

Strain: Hybrid

THC: 26.91%

CBD: 0.07%

Dominant Terpenes: Limonene, Humulene, Linalool, Caryophyllene

We already reviewed Chomp, which is a collaboration with the rapper Russ timed to release alongside his EP by the same name. It’s a heady strain, much more suited for cerebral activities – like, say, recording a rap album — which I attribute to Limonene as the dominant terpene.

Grapes of Wrath

Retail Price: $60

Strain: Hybrid

THC: 27.65%

CBD: 0.07%

Dominant Terpenes: Limonene, Linalool, Humulene, Caryophyllene

Put simply, this is pool weed, a hybrid of Jet Fuel Gelato and Grape Pie. The high is heavy, befitting 27.65% THC, but uplifting, owing to the strong Limonene and Linalool content. It’s euphoric, something that would be greatly aided by listening to music, especially. This sounds weird, but it tastes like grape cake.

I’m not exactly sure what that means in reality, but a strong grape flavor accompanied by a yeasty, bready undertone makes sense to me here. The genetics are from Compound Genetics, purveyors of some of the hypest fire California’s breeders have to offer.

Cherry Trop

Retail Price: $60

Strain: Hybrid

THC: 26.43%

CBD: 0.06%

Dominant Terpenes: Caryophyllene, Limonene, Linalool, Humulene

One of the grow rooms that displayed some of the most beautiful bud, in my opinion, was Cherry Trop, which popped with deep purples and even reds, depending on the light. It’s a hybrid mix of Cherry Cookies and Trop Cookies, which came from a seed pack by Relentless. The overall flavor is fruit: stone fruits and citrus, redolent of a sunny day spent eating sour candies. At 26% THC, it’s strong, but it won’t knock you on your ass. This is a stimulating daytime smoker for any activity that requires movement and focus but not too much intellectual brainpower.

Wonderbrett’s music connection is still strong

In addition to trying some of Wonderbretts current cultivar offerings and palling around with Feldman, I also got to talk to Poo Bear, who puts his money where his mouth is, as far as Wonderbrett is concerned. He said he was initially drawn to the brand through its highly stylized packaging — the brand’s signature color-blocked boxes – which struck Poo Bear as “very professional” in an era when weed was anything but. In the end, it’s really all about the weed and the man behind it, though.

“Brett always had the best product, you know, so when the opportunity came about to come in as an investor, I was like, ‘I would love to.’ I was investing in Wonderbrett because I just believe in him so much,” Poo Bear says of Feldman.

Poo Bear is also a major believer in Los Angeles weed culture, which he says isn’t just having a moment now – it’s always been quietly dominant. It’s just that people are finally starting to understand and recognize its greatness.

“I think LA took over awhile ago,” Poo Bear says of California’s mostly friendly competition between regional cannabis cultures. “You know, the Bay always had their purps, the things they were famous for. But L.A. has always been pushing it with these different flavors. It was probably like five or six years ago, scientists and growers just really started pushing the envelope in L.A. and I started to hear less and less about the Bay and L.A. just started filling that gap with consistency and variety. You see it with all the cannabis cups — L.A. wins all the cups. It’s definitely the cannabis capital.”

It goes without saying that Poo Bear thinks Wonderbrett was instrumental in making that happen and that the brand will be a staple of L.A. cannabis culture to come. After seeing their operation firsthand and smoking through the line, I’m ready to say I agree.

The Good, The Bad, And The Almost Un-Smokable Of Celebrity Weed Brands

December 8, 2021 by newhiphopnews

Celebrity Cannabis — Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

The world of celebrity weed exists independently from the weed world at large. For the most part, these brands, as well as their namesakes, have little to do with cannabis culture or the cannabis they’re selling. Many celeb weed brands (especially those that popped up right after legalization) are little more than exercises in marketing — where flashy campaigns and absurd profit margins eclipse any intention of delivering a good product.

But there’s a catch with the celebrity weed industry that makes it trickier to navigate for the rich and famous than other celeb-branded spaces. Weed is a subculture with a distinct cool factor. Interlopers can be spotted from a mile away. Just because a celebrity puts out a brand, doesn’t mean smokers are going to like it. Even if they’re fans. These days, celeb brands are actually given more scrutiny than normal weed brands.

Why? Partly because there are so many of them now. But also because as cannabis culture is devoured by the mainstream, stoners have grown wary of business Chads and celebrity vultures swooping down to cash in on our magical plant and the subculture it’s created. There’s very much a sense of “where were you when we were getting high?”

If the celebrity in question was not in the trenches, using their platform to advocate for cannabis use with the stoners they’re now trying to sell weed to, the brand has a major problem and is likely going to get ridiculed within the community. It’s also the brands from non-stoner celebrities that tend to have the worst weed.

While great celebrity brands are heavily involved with the cultivation and selection of the strains they implement, others rely on white labeling — where cannabis is bought in bulk then re-branded (you also see this in plenty of celebrity booze brands too). The result is a totally polarizing sub-genre of the cannabis industry with some fire-ass weed, a lot of mids, and a handful of expensive trash.

Here’s a list to help you suss out the good, the bad, and the almost-un-smokeable of celebrity weed brands out there.

Cookies by Berner

The Brand:

While it seems almost redundant to write anything about Cookies as they’re possibly the most visible brand in the weed world, it’s easy to forget that not only is Cookies a celebrity brand, it’s the most successful one of all time. Founded by Bay-area rapper Berner in 2012, Cookies has ballooned into its own empire– complete with a hype-beast subculture of avid fans.

Bottom Line:

With over 30 retail outlets in eight states and two countries, Cookies maintains their reign with proprietary genetics like their eponymous Girl Scout Cookies strain, as well as working with some of the best farms and growers in the world, like their recent collaboration with the Humboldt legacy brand Ridgeline Farms.

Insane by B-Real

The Brand:

Insane by Cypress Hill artist B-Real is a perfect example of a celeb weed brand that checks all the boxes. Great weed? Check. Bonafide stoner owner? Check. Insane in the membrane? You betcha.

Bottom Line:

B-Real is one of the most legit businessmen in legal weed today. He’s the owner of the Dr. Greenthumb dispensary chain and now the cannabis company Insane. Each carefully curated and extremely potent strain is a reflection of B Real’s lifelong commitment to loving, smoking, and creating great cannabis.

Mind Your Head by Mickey Heart

Mind Your Head Cannabis — Mind Your Head Website

The Brand:

Mind Your Head is a magical preroll brand from the legendary Mickey Hart, drummer for the most stoned band of all time, The Grateful Dead. With two offerings, Magic Minis (mini prerolls) and Space Tickets (blunt-like prerolls infused with ice-water hash), this brand from a true OG is sure to steal your face.

Bottom Line:

Though it’s not clear where the weed comes from for these prerolls, Mickey Hart can do no wrong in the eyes of the stoner community. That passes the vibe check with kaleidoscopic colors.

Forbidden Flowers by Bella Thorne and Glass House Farms

The Brand:

Forbidden Flowers is an example of a different type of celeb weed brand, the collab. It’s often that celebrities (with little connection to the cannabis industry) will team up with an already existing brand to put out their line. In my opinion, this is a more reputable route to take than the straight corporate white label. At least the celeb is coordinating with people who care/know about weed in some capacity.

Bottom Line:

While Bella Thorne definitely smokes weed, this is a brand that feels more branded in her likeness than something she has a ton to do with. Glass House is a good weed brand, though, so at least the flower is worth smoking. And I like the glittery packaging.

Houseplant by Seth Rogen

The Brand:

Now for one of the most polarizing brands in celebrity cannabis today, Seth Rogen’s Houseplant. A bit of an enigma, Houseplant has garnered significant criticism for a brand coming from such a well-liked and extremely stoned celebrity. I think this is in part due to the fact that the cannabis community expected much more from one of our own.

The Bottom Line:

Houseplant flower is beautifully branded, totally expensive, and grown by THC Design, a popular Los Angeles cannabis brand known for high THC indoor flower with insane bud structure. Unlike Forbidden Flowers, whose Glass House collab is front and center in their marketing, Houseplant tried to keep their THC Design connection a secret, which didn’t particularly sit well when it came out. For example, Houseplant’s Pancake Ice strain is basically just rebranded Crescendo by THC Design, the #1 selling flower in California last year. Come on, Seth. You can do better than that.

Tyson Ranch by Mike Tyson

The Brand:

Now for one of the most confusing brands in the celeb weed world, Tyson Ranch. When Mike Tyson launched Tyson Holistic Holdings in 2016, he had big plans. Aside from cannabis and edibles, the brand would include the first cannabis resort of sorts, a 418-acre ranch in the desert that would include a festival venue and the world’s longest lazy river, among other things.

The Bottom Line:

Despite countless feature articles that claim to take you “Inside Mike Tyson’s Cannabis Ranch,” the photos are all drawings, and everything exists as a hypothetical. The reality is that, five years later, there is no ranch — only mediocre weed and subpar gummies. I love Mike Tyson and hope he realizes this bat shit idea as only he could. But so far, no dice.

Peaches by Justin Bieber

The Brand:

As we near the end of this list, things are only getting worse. Next up in Dante’s descent into the inferno of celebrity mids is Peaches by Justin Bieber. Everything about this brand is annoying to me as a lifelong stoner. One, Justin Bieber has one of the largest platforms in the world and has never once used his voice to advocate for cannabis use. Suddenly entering the arena now that it’s socially acceptable seems like a cash grab from a dude who has plenty of cash.

Bottom Line:

The weed sucks. Grown by Palms Premium, it will get you high, but it doesn’t taste like anything or particularly smell like anything either, two major signs that the weed isn’t good, and clearly grown in some kind of industrial juggernaut that harvests 20 times a week and douses everything with chemicals.

Even if you get your peaches out in Georgia, I suggest you get your weed elsewhere.

Monogram by Jay-Z

$60 Monogram Preroll — Monogram Instagram

The Brand:

Monogram by Jay-Z is far and away my least favorite celebrity cannabis brand. While the packaging is gorgeous and the celebrity founder has extensive cannabis chops, the flower is terrible and absurdly expensive. Like…. $60 for a “hand-rolled” joint expensive. Even for the highest quality flower infused with kief or live resin, $60 would still be very expensive for a blunt. Instead of top-shelf flower, this joint is filled with shwaggy dried-out weed that honestly just makes you feel weird because it’s been so juiced for THC.

And that’s their flagship product.

The Bottom Line:

Their version of an eighth (four grams) is $70. This price point is usually reserved for some of the best weed on the market, not total mids from who knows where. The fact that the founder is a literal billionaire who came from nothing makes it all the ickier. He should know better and does.

This totally exploitive pricing system on shitty weed is nothing short of a bummer.

Pop Star Tove Lo Dropped The First Caffeinated Cannabis Drink — Here Are Our Thoughts

September 13, 2021 by newhiphopnews

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” William Shakespeare once wrote in Sonnet 18. While he was expressing his desire for a woman, the poetry makes me think of a cannabis drink I recently tried and had big feelings for. Hear me out.

Generally speaking, I have conflicted feelings about cannabis drinks. That’s not a knock on the product category on its face — in the last year, in particular, cannabis drinks have become a force of their own in the legal cannabis market, growing into a popular way for people to imbibe, especially those who are not keen on smoking. In that time, cannabis-infused beverages have also significantly increased in quality, thanks to advancements in emulsion technology. No longer are they stratified cocktails with a layer of oil sitting on the top. These days, the science has been narrowed down, the molecules shrunken. When drinking one of the many cannabis drinks on the market today, one could be forgiven for not even noticing there was cannabis in it at all, flavor-wise.

Where my skepticism comes in is the actual popularity of these drinks. I have written elsewhere, particularly on this website, that I’m a flower gal — smoking actual weed is far and away my favorite way to consume cannabis. That said, I’m a regular partaker of almost every ingestion method under the sun, which includes cannabis-infused drinks from time to time. But even though I enjoy them, I will admit that I struggle to find out where the drinks fit in my routine.

Edibles, particularly gummies, are easy for me — I pop one, chew a few times, and I’m on my way, usually to my bed or couch to watch a movie. Smoking precedes just about everything for me, including social activities, while dabbing is something I reserve for particularly taxing days when I just want to shut off completely. The drinks are harder to place in my mind because they are marketed as a social product, often as an alcohol replacement. While that is certainly true for some people, the fact is that, for many, ingesting weed is not the most social activity. Edibles and drinkables heighten all my senses, yes, but they also help me turn inward and focus more on my own thoughts and feelings in my body, rather than engaging with anyone else. I prefer the quick pop-in-my-mouth, sit back, and relax fix that a gummy offers rather than the slow sipping of a drink. In my mind, there are other, better ways to enjoy a beverage, especially drinks with more socially-minded intoxicants in them.

I know I’m not alone in that conundrum, but out in the wider world, the numbers tell a different story. Cannabis consumer data company Headset claims that current 2021 sales for cannabis-infused beverages total $123.9 million, compared with the sales in the same category in 2020, which clocked in at $79.3 million. That’s a year-over-year sales increase of 56.2%. Clearly, the appeal of these drinks is catching on.

Which is all context to write this: Last week, I finally found a cannabis beverage that made me truly, genuinely get it. Cann, which is the largest purveyor of cannabis drinks in California, recently debuted a new drink in partnership with pop star Tove Lo, who is also an investor in Cann. The drink is exclusive to dispensaries Sweet Flower and Airfield Supply Co. Called “Passion Peach Mate,” which leaves little to the imagination, it’s exactly that: a carbonated, naturally caffeinated, cannabis-infused peach-flavored drink.

It’s absolutely perfect. It’s also the first to market for caffeinated cannabis beverages.

Infused with five milligrams of THC, the 12-ounce canned drink offers a lower dose option that is perfect for nighttime socializing, owing to the caffeine, or daytime drinking, also owing to the caffeine. That, in my mind, makes Cann & Tove Lo’s Passion Peach Mate” the tour de force that it is.

My first thought when holding the marquee-bright yellow and pink can in my hands was, “Wait, how did they legally combine THC and caffeine?” As an older millennial, I am a veteran of the unregulated Four Loko days. I asked a friend, who tipped me off to the fact that it was because the caffeine came from mate, a caffeine-rich drink made with dried holly leaves from South America. In California, it’s okay to combine THC with naturally-derived caffeine, it turns out.

The result is, basically, a fully enmeshed version of the hallowed stoner tradition, “wake and bake,” which involves someone smoking weed first thing in the morning, often while drinking coffee. The body high and head change from smoking weed balances the jolts and jitters from caffeine. For many, it is a really comfortable and fun state to be in. Four Loko capitalized on those good vibes and turned them up to 11, which proved to be too high-octane in the end, especially for regulators, who eventually put strict alcohol and caffeine limits on drinks that contained both.

The Passion Peach Mate high and buzz never approaches anything resembling the intensity of a Four Loko bender. It’s much more mellow on both fronts and gives the drinker a euphoric altered state. It’s this gorgeous mind-and-body feeling that reminds me of Shakespeare’s sonnet — drinking the Passion Peach Mate is like tasting a summer day in a can. It also goes down much smoother and is more delicious than other options, on top of it.

Taste-wise, it’s lightly carbonated, and the bitterness that usually accompanies mate, which I generally enjoy, is instead replaced by a not-too-sweet peach flavor. It’s delicious and, unlike many alcoholic beverages or other cannabis-infused drinks, easy to drink to the very end. The flavor isn’t too overpowering, tastes nothing of weed, and is not something the drinker will get sick of.

Case in point: I had three in one sitting!

Crucially, it is also infused using nanoemulsion technology which makes smaller THC molecules so they are absorbed into the bloodstream faster and with more of its bioavailability intact. This means it hits faster but it also fades faster, in some ways mimicking the onset times for alcohol. It costs $20 for a pack of four, which is priced similarly craft beers or canned cocktails.

The bad news is that, at present, it’s a limited release through just Sweet Flower and Airfield Supply Co. I can’t even order it from my home in San Diego, which upsets me. If you’re reading this, anyone at Cann, consider this my plea for your company to make the Passion Peach Mate a regular in your cannabis-infused drinks line-up. You have a winner on your hands.

We Sampled Travis Scott’s Cactus Farms Cannabis — Here’s Our Review

August 12, 2021 by newhiphopnews

At this point, what doesn’t Travis Scott do? Aside from being one of the world’s biggest rappers right now, he regularly produces site-crashing sneaker collaborations with Nike, has a clothing line, a middling hard seltzer brand, a McDonald’s meal… the dude knows how to stay busy. Somehow, amidst all of his various projects, Scott found the time to also quietly drop his first foray into the cannabis industry last month. The artist’s new brand, Cactus Farms, is made in partnership with California-based cultivator Connected Cannabis. So far, the line consists of a single hybrid strain, dubbed PYT Jack Flower, hand-selected by Scott himself and now sold at California dispensaries that carry Connected products as well as Harvest dispensaries in Arizona.

If you’re in the habit of regularly buying weed, you’ve no doubt heard about and have probably smoked strains from Connected before. Not only is it one of California’s best tasting and strongest weed brands on the market right now, but it’s also the priciest — with eighths hovering way too near $100 after taxes. That’s an expensive high for 3.5 grams of herb and those high prices plague Cactus Farms as well — so we set out to see whether or not the new drop is actually worth your cash.

Check our review, below!

PYT Jack Flower

Average Retail Price $80 (per eighth)

Strain: Hybrid

Terpene Profile: Not disclosed

THC: 29.56%

CBD: .07%

The High

Right off the bat, we’ve got to talk about this packaging. For $80 for an eighth, it isn’t too much to expect the weed to be packaged in a glass jar, which Cactus Farms is not. Instead, it comes wrapped in a resealable plastic bag. We’d give Connected and Travis Scott points for at least choosing a resealable bag… if the weed was $30. Because it’s packaged in a bag it does retain freshness in the same way a jar would. My weed was packaged on June 19th, 2021, and here I am smoking it nearly two months later — the buds have lost all stickiness. Another side effect of the bag is that once you’ve ripped open the seal, this stuff is going to stink up your room, no matter how hard you press on that reseal.

Cactus Farms’ labeling also leaves a lot to be desired. It offers no real information aside from THC percentage. No terpene profile, no expected effects, it doesn’t even tell you that the strain is a hybrid. When it comes to the packaging of Cactus Farms, this brand has taken one too many missteps, it’s not even a C effort, this is a straight-up F.

On to the weed…

Despite its lack of stickiness, the Jack Flower held up pretty well for being nearly two months old. The buds were frosty with deep green leaves with brilliant purple streaks tangled in wiry orange hairs. The smell had mixed notes of pine and sweet berries, with dense buds that broke easily in my grinder, turning to a perfect fluff. I smoked out of a Pax 3 vaporizer to really focus on the flavors and found that Jack Flower has a really pleasing taste to it. Those berry notes that tease themselves on the nose are prominent here, mixed with the sort of gassy funk you’d expect from an Indica-leaning hybrid.

The high also delivers, providing a radiating sense of calm that made me feel at peace and relaxed, without feeling totally blown out of my mind to the point of physical and mental debilitation. It’s definitely a weed strain geared towards chilling out with your friends or enjoying good music or a movie, rather than staying active, even though it doesn’t weigh you down. But while Jack Flower won’t force you to fight against couch lock, it’s not exactly something you can smoke without completely wearing “I’m stoned” on your face. After a single bowl, my eyelids were comically heavy — I spent the next few hours looking half asleep and blissfully unaware of anything.

The Bottom Line

Jack Flower provides a powerful high and an experience that is in line with other top-shelf cannabis brands in this price range. However, for this same price, you can pick up an equally powerful and flavorful weed that is packaged with a lot more care. If you absolutely must smoke Travis Scott’s weed, you won’t be disappointed. But if you’re a hard-core stoner looking for a strain to add to your regular rotation, this probably isn’t it.

West Coast Weed Legend Berner Shares His Secrets To The Perfect Joint

July 27, 2021 by newhiphopnews

West coast rapper and weed legend Berner went from spitting on tracks with other California weed rap icons like Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and B-Real to founding one of the world’s biggest cannabis brands and retail spaces, Cookies. Now, the rapper-turned-entrepreneur has his sights set on developing the best cannabis rolling papers that a stoner could ever long for. Developed over a three-year process, Berner “put a lot of shit in my lungs to find the right paper.” That dedication shows with his newly released VIBES.

Available in four varieties — including Organic Hemp, Hemp, Ultra-Thin, and Rice — VIBES presents different rolling papers geared towards specific needs. That level of care and attention to detail ensures your joint comes out a bit better than it would with your standard zags.

“It just compliments the herb,” Berner says, “and that’s what our whole mission is. We want to make the ultimate experience when it comes to blazing. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper… it’s stuff not in the market.”

You might not think all that’s totally necessary, and if you’re a casual smoker you’re unlikely to notice a major difference in the experience. But if your preferred smoking method is the classic joint, you’re going to want that fine attention to detail. I’ve tried out both the Rice and Organic Hemp VIBE papers and the Rice has quickly become my go-to, anytime I’m rolling a joint. I don’t use a roller, I grind up my weed and roll it myself and the texture of the Rice VIBE keeps the stickiest weed from becoming a hassle to roll. It’s a hack I didn’t know I needed!

This week, I linked up with Berner to talk about VIBES’ new products, how bud-tending has changed for the worse, and his secrets to rolling a perfect joint.

Why do we need a better rolling paper at all?

I’ve been smoking cannabis for over 22 years, maybe as long as 25 years. In that time, people like Raw came to the table and brought quality rolling papers and educated the market on the difference between materials in the paper, what makes paper special, and what compliments the flavor of herb. All that time, being a connoisseur, understanding what was in the market gave me a chance to understand what wasn’t in the market.

When we came out with the Ultra-Thin VIBES and now with the Organic Hemp VIBES, that quality of paper is just next level. How thin it is, how clean it is, how pure it is. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper, and also come up with some innovative SKUs like the Cubano; the Cali, which we are dropping soon — it’s stuff not in the market and that’s what we’re working focusing on right now.

What makes a rolling paper perfect?

My thinking is it all starts with what you’re smoking. What makes a perfect paper to me is pairing it with the perfect herb. Certain bud I’ll get that’s extremely flavorful, it’s perfectly cured, I’ll put it in a Hemp VIBE knowing it’s not tough to roll. That’s the biggest thing, how is your rolling experience going to be? That’s why we have our different SKUs.

For instance, our rice paper is for that stickier, thicker, crazier herb that’s just gonna be a problematic roll. The paper is just a little thicker, it burns a little better with a stickier bud. And Ultra-Thin and the Organic Hemp is perfect for that connoisseur head sesh that you tuck away and hide for yourself. For me, it’s all about pairing.

I know you have your history as a Bay Area bud tender. Has bud tending changed for the better or worse? These days there is a lot less interaction because of prepackaged products.

For the most part, it’s changed for the worse — because everything is on a screen. You wait in line, you look on a menu, and pick what you want. But at the Cookies store we tried to implement some of that old school 215 vibe, that’s why when you come into our stores you have a dedicated budtender that sits with you through the whole experience, helps you look at things, that’s why we have the jars on top of the table, we’ve designed those custom for you to pick up and smell the bud and look at it. Fully transparent, not like some of those square jars out there.

When you’re done with the experience they send you to the cashier, and the cashier’s sole purpose is to ring you up, but that personal experience with the budtender, we try and keep that there. And its cool to be able to implement that in all our stores around the world because we don’t want that shit to go away.

As a budtender, you use to be able to open up a jar, let people smell it, even give them a bong hit if they weren’t sure they wanted to buy it and that’s missing big time. It’s changed for the worse but we’re trying to keep that vibe alive.

Walk us through the steps for how to roll the perfect joint

First step is you need the best bud possible. You need something you like and enjoy, if you’re gonna smoke you might as well do it right, start off with the best bud you can find that fits you and your body.

Second, you’ll need a tool like our Santa Cruz Shredder — the teeth are designed by a NASA engineer, it’s next level, it’s produced here in the US. I’ve been using our hemp shredders and that gives you the perfect fluff. You need to grind it right, you don’t want to be left with chunks or dust, there is a fine balance. You get the perfect bud, shred it to give it the perfect fluff.

I take a tip and put it in a cylinder, I take an Ultra-Thin VIBE or my Organic Hemp VIBE and I roll that bitch nice and loose. I like it nice and loose for air flow, I hate a pregnant joint. A tight joint that you have to hit hella hard is a bad joint. I want to pull on it softly and get nice rips, so a perfect joint is all about airflow!

Snoop Dogg Smells ‘Wonderful,’ According To Nick Jonas

May 19, 2021 by newhiphopnews

The Voice has a roster of famous coaches, but they up the star power further every now and then with some big guests. Because of that, Nick Jonas has had the opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg. He discussed that on Late Night With Seth Meyers last night, where he and Meyers got to talking about the famed weed enthusiast’s distinct smell.

Meyers asked how his experience working with Snoop was and Jonas responded, “He’s brilliant. He’s obviously a legend. He is, I think, best known for his rapping, obviously, but his production, his awareness of musicality… he’s like a record player. He knows every single song ever recorded, it seems.” He then added with emphasis, “And he smells great.”

Meyers laughed and responded, “He does have a very unique… a very upbeat odor.” Jonas chimed in, “Yeah, it’s wonderful.” Meyers then continued, “I don’t know if it’s crazy to say this: You can kind of tell when he’s in the room.” Jonas agreed, saying, “Yes, totally. I think the whole crew, myself, we were all very happy.”

Jonas also talked a bit about his recent injury, where he cracked a rib after falling off a bike.

Watch the full interview above.

We Talked To G-Eazy About His New Cannabis Brand, FlowerShop, And Smoked His Debut Pre-Rolls

May 13, 2021 by newhiphopnews

If it seems like every week a new celebrity launches a weed brand, that’s because… every… week… a new celebrity… launches… a… weed brand. For the most part, these entries into an increasingly crowded marketplace are pretty forgettable. But occasionally — as with the case of Jay-Z’s Monogram and Seth Rogen’s Houseplant — the right team manages to knock it out of the park, earning permanent shelf space at your local dispensary.

I’m pleased to say that FlowerShop — a new brand launched by rapper and producer G-Eazy, along with co-founders and fellow Bay Area boys Isaac Muwaswes and Gabe Garcia — is one of those select few. But FlowerShop isn’t just a cannabis label. It’s also a wellness company, with a long list of products on deck. Its first drop delivers rolling papers, lighters, ashtrays, and three glass-tipped pre-roll joint packs, called Bouquetpacks. A 1/8th flower jar and “cannabis juice” are coming soon.

The Bouquetpacks offer three different mood-focused strains — dubbed Comfort, Smile, and Joy — each packed in reusable plastic tubes and sporting a glass-filter tip for better handling and flavor. After smoking the Comfort strain, I spoke with Muwaswes, Garcia, and G-Eazy himself about the origins of the brand, their own relationships to cannabis, and why joints will always feel special.

But first, let’s break down the weed.

The Packaging

Right out of the gate, the first interesting thing about FlowerShop is the brand’s design aesthetic. The Bouquetpack’s matte flip-top box features a magnetic top, and four pre-rolled single flower joints packed in resealable plastic tubes with glass filter tips. At four joints per pack and a retail price of $50, you’re looking at a cost of $12.50 per joint.

Since an eighth of Panacea Farms Purple Double Deja Vu will cost you about $60 before taxes, this pack has pretty good value for what you get, it’s a lot better than Monogram’s $60 hand-roll, for example, and the weed is of a much higher quality.

A fifth joint would’ve really set this up as something special though. The packaging is playful and colorful, but we would’ve preferred just a little bit more information for the consumer.

The Weed: FlowerShop — Comfort

Strain: Indica
Dominant Terpenes: Caryophyllene, Myrcene, Pinene, Humulene,
THC: 22.5%

Retail Price: $50

The Experience

One of the things that first struck me about FlowerShop’s pre-roll pack was just how fragrant it smelled after I cut open the sealed plastic envelope it came packaged in. Once the scissors pierced the plastic I was instantly greeted by a wave of floral and slightly minty smells, with a slight pepper edge that tickles the nose. The joint itself is incredibly well packed, just rolling it through my fingers showed a consistent and dense pack that led to a lengthy smoke session with thick clouds of milky intoxicating smoke.

Again, FlowerShop’s attention to detail and design is at the forefront here. Each glass filter utilizes blue-colored glass — fitting with the color scheme. Does that have any effect on how high you get? Absolutely not, but it certainly has an effect on the experience. Smoking FlowerShop’s joints feels like you’re enjoying something special, it’s practically begging to be shared just so you can pass it around as a conversation piece.

Of course, cool filters would feel like a gimmick if the high didn’t deliver. It does. This will be a fun joint to pass between friends when we’re past Covid, but right now I’m not sharing with anyone. Which resulted in me getting — to borrow a Bay Area phrase — hella high.

Comfort is made using Panacea Farm’s Purple Double Deja Vu and the high comes on incredibly quickly here. Well before you make your way through the joint, a pleasing buzz took over me — beginning in the center of the forehead before melting down in radiating waves of euphoric bliss through the rest of my body. Real talk: I did not expect a celebrity-fronted weed brand to hit this hard. FlowerShop chose well by linking up with Panacea Farm for this one and opting for a single-sourced full flower joint (rather than a blend of shake) led to a better tasting, less harsh product.

I broke up one of my spare pre-rolls (which I regret) to get a look inside — Comfort has a great medium-coarse grind and the bud is fresh and still slightly sticky.

Flavor-wise, Comfort had floral notes with a heavy gas flavor and a peppery, slightly melon aftertaste. The smoke was remarkably smooth which is rare in pre-packaged joints, resulting in pleasingly smooth drags that didn’t lead to a single cough during my whole experience.

My only gripe is that calling the strain “Comfort” is a bit misleading, they might as well call it “KO” — smoking a full joint solo launched me beyond couch lock and straight into a nap. I had no plans on taking a nap, I wasn’t even tired, so this is definitely not something to mess with if you’ve got plans.

The Bottom Line

Smooth smoke with earthy flavors of cracked pepper and subtle melon and mint, which results in a body-tingling euphoric high designed to knock you out.

The Interview

You’re all Bay Area kids, can you speak to the cannabis scene in the Bay Area while you were growing up. I know it’s always been a big part of the culture.

Muwaswes: I was born and raised in San Francisco, not too far from Haight Ashbury, so some of my early memories of being exposed to weed was going down to Haight Ashbury with my friends to kick it. As a young kid you’re kind of exposed to this narrative around the history and the demonization of cannabis, but as I kind of got into it in middle school going to high school you start to make your own assumptions.

But even then, pretty early on in high school, I started to hear about all these medicinal uses for it and hearing about the groundswell that was happening surround Prop 215. It was really being looked at as a medicine, and I’ve come across friends of my parents who were using it as a medicine as well, so pretty early on I started to see it as “oh this is something we in the Bay Area kind of have a different view upon and are really progressive on” and that intertwined with the cultural aspect, growing up listening to hip-hop, being into all things hip-hop, music, fashion — it was intertwined in those subcultures.

Whatever group of friends I had — whether it was my athlete friends, my friends into music, the friends into fashion — that was one thing we all shared. One experience that connected us all was smoking.

I know the brand takes a heavily sensory approach to cannabis, that’s right on the packaging. What’s the thinking behind positioning the brand this way and how does it differ from other celebrity-fronted brands that are springing up in the cannabis space?

Muwaswes: When we built Flower Shop we really built it as a wellness company as a whole, I think we always looked at cannabis as one aspect or one category of what we’re trying to do from the perspective of wellness. For us, we tried to really define what wellness means to us. One big realization we had was that it’s not one thing, it’s not singular, it’s more about the journey than the destination

Through that, we started to define how we can take people through that journey, and what we do to get on that journey. It’s about inspiring our senses, whether it’s the music we listen to, the candle we burn that smells a certain way, whether it’s the lighting in the room that makes us feel a certain way and opens up our mood to certain elements or experiences, we always knew it tied back to one or many of our senses and we’re already in that mindset for a lot of the other things we were doing previous to FlowerShop. Whether it was in the design world with Gabe or the music world with G, it’s about bringing all of that together in a retailer experience.

That was kind of the genesis of sensory care, and then we started to apply that to everything we were doing from product to packaging to messaging to content.

G Eazy: To jump in, from my perspective as a musician, music can be a healing agent. Similar to flower, it can be something that brings people together, people who share this commonality come together for this shared experience. But as a musician I have a wide array of influences and taste in music, I can deliver “No Limit” but then I can do “Everything Will Be OK,” that wide offering and understanding of mood and emotions are important in anything you offer because you don’t just have one customer, and each customer doesn’t have just one mindset and mood.

We wanted to find what resonates at different times of the day or different times in your life, and wanting to reach people on a level of emotion and feeling, similar to the way music would.

I wanted to ask you specifically about your smoking habits G, are you smoking a bowl before you hit the studio, something you do after to unwind, what’s your creative relationship with the plant?

G-Eazy: There is pretty much a constant burn in the studio. Atmosphere is huge in the creative process, that comes down to lighting, how cold I like it, the people I want and don’t want in the studio, and that comes down to what I’m drinking and smoking. With smoking, it’s not a requirement. It’s not needed to unlock creativity, but nonetheless, it’s something that loosens you up and makes you feel better and makes you feel joy or relaxation, that can only open you up and enable more flow of stream of consciousness.

Garcia: To add to that we started thinking about whether cannabis a creative performance enhancer? We like the idea, we can’t go shout it off the mountaintops, but for us, we like that conceptually and believe it. But to G’s point, it’s not a reliance.

G what’s your preferred smoking method and why did you guys start with the BouquetPack over a flower jar?

G-Eazy: Joints and blunts. It’s what I grew up smoking. Every day in high school coming home from work, I’d get home around midnight or 1 AM and I’d roll up a personal blunt and smoke it in the backyard while my mom was asleep, just to be able to wind down and decompress and get ready for school the next morning. It was just culturally what I grew up doing.

Garcia: That’s the reason we’re excited to share the bouquet pack and included the glass tip pre-rolls, that’s our attempt to elevate what is standard.

Where is the product sourced from?

Muwaswes: Sourcing wise we have a number of really good relationships with cultivators throughout the entire state of California. A lot of the key growers out here we have partnerships with and what we’re doing right now is these drops or deliveries with individual strains and growers. The one you have right now, we partnered with Panacea Farms for — a craft grower under the NorCal banner. We’re doing a number of different things with brands, growers, and cultivators, long term we are going to be having our own genetics out there, but for the time being, we’re trying to find the best of the best that we want to work with that also understand our vision and understand what we’re trying to do from a sensory care perspective with these products.

What brought you to the cannabis business? Your backgrounds are comfortably in design and music, not in the cannabis industry.

Garcia: It came to us really, growing up in the Bay Area and how prominent it is it was probably inevitable. It came through a design project at first. We’ve been in the creative design space for a long time.

We started getting inbound requests from the cannabis end, that’s how it initially started to come to us, and we entertained one specific deal and that’s where it really started. As we got into it and did the research, we wanted to find our foothold and what felt authentic to us to enter the space and it was through design, through packaging through a vision, but as we got into it, we started asking ourselves deeper questions.

This is a two-and-a-half-year project in the making and we’re really proud of it and excited to share it with the world.

What’s special about FlowerShop, what sets it apart from other brands?

Garcia: It’s all in our packaging! We really did our best to make it as recyclable and eco-conscious as possible. We tried to make everything reusable — or unique enough to make people want to reuse it. The tubes the pre-rolls come in, our incense sticks are coming in those, it’s also a tube you can use to clean your glass tips and reuse them, same thing for the box itself.

Our Bud Vase, which will be dropping in 90 days, has a jar that’s able to be reused. With all of our packaging, we’ve thought about how we can inspire people to reuse it and reapply it to something else. The vase is food grade, it can be washed in the dishwasher, it can be used to store yogurt —

G-Eazy: As a shot glass!

Garcia: You know it!

Muwaswes: We were just as focused on what was going into the packaging as who we are sourcing weed from. Using a single strain indoor for our prerolls, not using shake, grinding the best of the best, being meticulous about the grind and the coarseness, consistency on the burn and smoke, even on the sourcing of the paper!

Strain Review — Chomp By Russ X Wonderbrett Might Be The Best ‘Studio Weed’ Out There

March 31, 2021 by newhiphopnews

Russ gave his legion of fans insane, crazy bars on his 2020 EP Chomp. Now he’s offering straight gas with his weed line, Chomp by Russ x Wonderbrett. It’s the exact same strain the rapper smoked while creating the aforementioned project’s lush offerings — five songs featuring elite hip-hop lyricists Benny The Butcher, Busta Rhymes, KXNG Crooked, and Black Thought, alongside DJ Premier and… the list goes on.

In collaboration with Brett Feldman and Cameron Damwijk — founders and cultivars of West Coast cannabis brand Wonderbrett — Russ’s cannabis line is a chance for the 28-year-old artist to offer fans a glimpse inside the Chomp creation experience. It’s also the kind of marijuana that any chronic-loving musician would be hyped to smoke during studio sessions.

Since his SoundCloud beginnings, Russ has been in complete control of his career and has become the obvious example of what it means to work independently in the music industry in the digital age. Releasing as many mixtapes as he has and as dedicated to the craft as he is, launching a weed strain (that won’t leave you slumped) with one of the most reputable cannabis companies in the game feels like it was always in the cards. The point being: it’s a good fit.

When the perfect opportunity to dive into the cannabis business arrived, Russ chose to produce a strain that was something that he enjoys himself. And that meant a balanced strain where users could avoid both sleepiness and overthinking.

“I’m not a heavy smoker who’s just gonna sit around and smoke all day but oftentimes in the studio I enjoy experiencing an alternative yet still tuned in perspective, so keeping a joint of something productive nearby comes in handy,” Russ stated in a press release. “I might as well control what’s in the joint so that’s what I’ve done here with Wonderbrett.”

Feldman added, “The result is a great introductory high that really serves to enlighten and inspire artists to create. It doesn’t give you a couch lock effect.”

The strain itself was created with a male from Wonderbrett’s OZK stable and crossed into a Cookies & Cream female. From there they went through 20 seedlings and settled on phenotype No. 4. Currently, Chomp is only available at Stiiizy — a dispensary located in Downtown Los Angeles. But the brand has promised that new outlets will be added on the daily (stay up to date here), including the Wonderbrett flagship dispensary, launching in LA’s Fairfax District later this year.

Chomp by Russ x Wonderbrett dropped on Monday, March 29th, and we tested it that day in both its flower and pre-roll forms. Check out our review below.

The Products & Presentation

1g CHOMP x Wonderbrett Pre-Roll & ⅛ CHOMP x Wonderbrett Box

Strain: Hybrid

Dominant Terpenes: Limonene, Humulene, Linalool, Caryophyllene, and Pinene

THC: 22.82%

CBD: .06%

Retail Price: ⅛ CHOMP x Wonderbrett Box for $60, ⅛ CHOMP x Wonderbrett Bag for $45, 1g CHOMP x Wonderbrett Pre-Roll for $15.

The Experience

First of all, the packaging. The design. The satin box. The gilded press. The snarling dog, showing its gnashing teeth. The rich, red, gold, and black colorway. The whole Chomp x Wonderbrett branding sets the tone for an opulent affair.

Though I tried Chomp as both flower and as a pre-roll, the experiences were somewhat different. First, let’s talk about what each product has to offer and then what made them different for me.

The pre-roll came prepared inside of a plastic tube container, emblazoned with Russ’s signature Chomp logo and necessary cannabis factoids. Once the top came off and the pre-roll slid into my hand, I was dealing with a Raw cone tightly packed with herb. The light up and pull was smooth to start, then I felt an immediate head rush followed by my nose feeling a bit spicy. This was just the very beginning of what would turn into an intense cerebral high.

After a few minutes, the stinging I felt in my nose disappeared and what arrived was a euphoric sense of happiness and urge to do something. Anything.

Slight overthinking did rear its ugly head, yet the happiness and excitement I was feeling had me floating above it all. Once the high fully set in, I became very grateful and happy — living in the moment. It felt as if all my senses opened up, making all of my perceptions more clear. Not to mention, I had full confidence in my thoughts and wasn’t judging myself for every little thing.

At this point, it’s clear why Russ would dub this as “studio weed” and why sharing a name with his Chomp EP was a necessity.

When it came time to explore the flower option I was met with the soft, sweet aroma of citrus and nuts, and frosted nugs inside a dark plastic container. I love an icy nug and Chomp is fully iced out. The flower itself was pretty rigid to the touch but strong and not brittle.

Once I packed out a raw cone with the minced Chomp nugs and lit it, the immediate head rush and nose-tingling occurred just like with the pre-roll. Once the high settled in though, the happiness I felt with the pre-roll was more extreme, if perhaps more chaotic. Maybe it’s the way I packed it that made the experience different, but I was laughing at everything when I smoked the flower and fell into a fit of laughter more than once. It really made my day fun and gave my mind the freedom for all of my ideas to flow without the weird voice of judgment that I get when smoking Sativa.

The Bottom Line

Chomp is definitely a strain best-suited for catching a late-night vibe at the studio or as a solo mid-day high if you’re a creative working from home. I can also see this as being a great strain to smoke in social settings and, of course, while listening to music. It’s a happy, relaxing herb that gets the creative juices flowing.