Strains & products

Leafly Buzz: 14 best hash brands of the West

Published on June 30, 2021 · Last updated August 13, 2021

Everyone deserves affordable, excellent cannabis concentrates—from budget shoppers seeking BHO, all the way to aesthetes sipping live rosin from Puffco Pros.

Top-shelf terp heroes on a quest before July 4th and 710, fear not: Leafly’s oft-copied, never-replicated Buzz is focusing on hash this month, and it’s about time.

The multibillion-dollar, rapidly evolving, cannabis extract world is full of hit-or-miss products. Small batches of the best hashes can fetch more per gram than pure gold and sell out faster than Yeezy slides.

Below, guest Buzz author, pot journalist, and Emerald Cup judge Jimi Devine cuts through menus to highlight the real heat—like Cup winners, and new and exotic terps.

Time to blast off.

Hash pro lingo: Solventless—An extract made without butane or other volatile solvents. Often made with water, ice, fine screens, heat, and/or pressure. “Show me everything solventless, I wanna ball out.”

Hot-hot new-new in stores

Humboldt Terp Council—Live resin sauce and diamonds

A thick, amber Fruity Pebbles sauce and diamonds jar from Humboldt Terp Council. (Photo by Jimi Devine for Leafly)
Fruity Pebbles sauce and diamonds from Humboldt Terp Council. (Photo by Jimi Devine for Leafly)

At the back-to-back world champ Humboldt Terp Council, they only speak two languages: Heat, and Terps. Whether it be crazy OGs or the Fruity Pebbleslive resin we’re featuring here, HTC is where terpenes go to learn how to sing. Their Arcata, CA office stash of live resin Zkittlez was so good, I felt my eyebrow get a little sweaty; very rare for me these days. Spotted at Satori Wellness.

Critical Concentrates—Live rosin batter

Critical Concentrates ‘live rosin’ in a jar has a white color and batter consistency and comes from fresh frozen flower and solventless extraction. Potent. Hyper-flavorful. Pure plant resin. (Photo by Jimi Devine for Leafly)
Critical Concentrates ‘live rosin’ has a batter consistency and comes from fresh frozen flower and solventless extraction. Potent. Hyper-flavorful. Pure plant resin. (Photo by Jimi Devine for Leafly)

The return of Critical Concentrates is upon us. For years we’ve waited for one of the top dogs of the mid-2010s hash scene to find their way to the legal market, and now that wait ends. We got the chance to go visit the custom, personally designed lab at the giant Natura campus in Sacramento, CA.

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The lab sits close to over a dozen, massive, high-tech, mixed-light greenhouse bays that pump it full of material. The first runs we saw of solventless Strawnana batter were hyper-competitive. Expect to see Critical all over the state shortly.

Globs—BHO

We dab for every tax bracket here at Leafly, and the deals and steals of the modern era are way nicer than the stuff most people were dabbing a decade ago.

Globs is the newest discount BHO brand to enter the legal marketplace. Shatter and sugar priced for the people comes to a dispensary near you.

Tippity top-sellers

Biscotti Resina—Bubble hash

A picture of a sand-like one gram jar of Biscotti Resina cultivar Runtz. (Courtesy Biscotti)
Biscotti Resina cultivar Runtz. (Courtesy Biscotti)

For those looking for something a bit more old school, Biscotti sells Resina, one of the finest traditional forms of bubble hash you can get your hands on. Since 2017, the Biscotti team positioned themselves as one of the top affordable solventless hashes in California, and over the last couple of years, they’ve hit the gas on quality even harder. This makes a great gift for people who smoked hash before skillets and quartz bangers got in the mix.

Raw Garden—Live resin carts, sauce, diamonds

A one gram jar of solid, clear THC diamonds—new in 2021. (Courtesy Raw Garden)
Drippin’: Value meets high-quality and mega-scale in Central California at Raw Garden. Above, solid, clear THC diamonds—new in 2021. (Courtesy Raw Garden)

Over the past few years, Raw Garden has had a major impact on the concentrates world. When their $40 sauces first hit the market in 2018, world champions lowered their price points. Many of the other guys’ prices crept back up in the years after, but Raw Garden honed their growing and extraction process to keep prices down—like for this bargain exotic Strawberry Lime Mojito, spotted at Golden Gate Cannabis Co.

It’s no surprise they continue to maintain their position as one of the state’s top-selling extract brands.

Related
Fields of flavor! Leafly visits Raw Garden’s 2020 harvest

Certified must-scoops

Emerald Cup Supply Co—Live rosin badder

Emerald Cup Supply Co.’s rendition of MAC 1 batter may be the best solventless representation of the strain we’ve ever seen. The terp profile is sweeter than the MAC flower for sure, and the consistency of the batter is elite. And you know The Emerald Cup isn’t going to put its name on something unless it’s absolute heat.

Hash pro lingo: Live rosin—Fresh-frozen flower that’s ice-washed, sieved, and pressed through a screen to yield hyper-potent, max-flavor dabs. “Have you seen these new live rosins? You’ll never go back to BHO.”

Suprize Suprize—Live resin

A one-gram jar of amber Suprize Suprize Vanilla Frosting collab in an open box set amid rocks. (Courtesy Suprize Suprize)
Suprize Suprize Vanilla Frosting collab.(Courtesy Suprize Suprize)

Put simply, when you’re talking about the best hash collaborations on the planet, there are probably four or five groups with a seat at the table. The Suprize Suprize team has had their butts firmly placed in one of those seats since 2017 when their original Royal Key Organics in-house line dropped, even before they began to do collabs under the Suprize Suprize label.

The team had three entries in the top ten solid BHOs at this year’s Emerald Cup, and their Vanilla Frosting came in seventh. The Suprize Suprize team told us the Vanilla Frosting has some haze in it which throws off the Vanilla notes one would be looking for.

Hash and Flowers—Live rosin balls

A picture of a light rosin ball in a dark jar on a black baground. Pre-legalization brand Hash and Flowers returns to legal dispensary shelves with gorgeous, terpy, single-source, vertically integrated Strawberry Guava live rosin. (Courtesy Hash and Flowers)
Pre-legalization brand Hash and Flowers returns to legal dispensary shelves with gorgeous, terpy, single-source, vertically integrated Strawberry Guava live rosin. (Courtesy Hash and Flowers)

Brand Hash and Flowers has blown up so hard in recent months. Their whole lineup is absolute top-class batter, but a few really stand out, including fantastic renditions of Papaya and Strawberry Guava that both explode out the jar.

In addition to those heaters, Hash and Flowers’ Honey Banana is legitimately the G.O.A.T. banana terps, and Rotten Bananas sedates the surfers over at Treehouse in Santa Cruz, CA. Also spotted in San Jose, and Modesto.

Kalya—Live rosin

Kalya’s Cup-winning Patty Cake before a dab. (Photo by David Downs)
Kalya’s Cup-winning Patty Cake before a dab. (Photo by David Downs)

When you’re talking about the rosin world champion teaming up with Alien Labs, it’s safe to have really high expectations. It’s priced more than gold, but thankfully, Space Jam lives up to the hype. But even if you can’t get your hands on the hottest hash collab in the game, anything you can score from Oakland-based Kalya is going to be a way-above-average experience all the way through from the moment you lay eyes on it. Keep it in the freezer so it stays pretty.

Frostys—Live rosin cold-cured

The multi-award-winning Feeling Frosty team produces some of the best live rosins in California. Some of the state’s most coveted material finds its way to their wash room in addition to the great flowers they produce in-house for a single-sourced product. Some of the most coveted jars of the pack are certainly the Str8papaya, a collaboration with Str8Organics. But hash snobs consider anything you can get your hands on from the team led by Frosty a must-scoop. Their Graperade was spotted in Beverly Hills at The Artist Tree.

Hash pro lingo: Low-temp dab—The act of dabbing concentrates at the lowest temperature possible to preserve the delicate terpene profile in the flavor of the dab. “Laser dab thermometers, most notably the Dab-rite and Octive, are the best for low-temp dabs.”

Hype-worthy trends

Fidel’s Hash Hole—Infused rosin pre-rolls

There are thousands of pre-rolls out there, but this is the one: Fidel’s new high-end, hash-loaded pre-roll is the absolute hype. It has a snake of rosin in it, and although it’s hard to have the coordination to make the hash bubble in the middle when smoking, even trying will certainly put you on another planet.

Everything about the rolling process is exciting, and while they are a bit on the high end of the pre-roll market, they’re worth every penny.

See also: Oregon’s High Times Cannabis Cup People’s Choice award-winners for 2021, Decibel Farms and their Banana Punch rosin and bubble hash roll. “If it’s not loud, it will not get dropped,” Decibel promises.

Greenery Hash Factory—Pressed hash

Moroccan pressed hash from the strain Chemmy Jones—flashback to your parent’s spirit journey. (Courtesy Greenery, CO)
Moroccan pressed hash from the strain Chemmy Jones—flashback to your parent’s spirit journey. (Courtesy Greenery, CO)

At 230 stores in Colorado, you can get your hands on some really old-school Lebanese-style hash. Most of the bubble hash we see on the market is unpressed, granulated material. But six-year-old Durango, CO manufacturer The Greenery’s Lebanese and Moroccan offerings take it a step further. They heat-press the granules into balls and cakes, thus sealing in terpy goodness. The Greenery is a three-time Rooster Magazine THC Classic winner, and just won Grand Champion for hand-pressed hash in the 2021 Connoisseur Cup! Spotted at Starbuds, Commerce City, CO.

Cartridge/pod of the month

Alien Labs

The premier, world-class cannabis company debuts one of their newest, hottest strains, Atomic Apple—featuring a crazy sugar and apple terp profile—in the popular 510-threaded cartridges format. Keep your radar up for Alien Labs’ disposable rosin pens, too.

Mind blown yet? Things will heat up even more in the months ahead.

The first round of light deprivation-grown pot is giving extractors tons of new material to work with. And we’re about to see whatever folks have up their sleeve for 7/10. So keep those Puffcos charged.

What are you dabbing on for 7/10? Comment below.

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Jimi Devine
Jimi Devine
Jimi Devine has been involved in cannabis law reform since 2005, and has worked in the Berkeley cannabis industry since 2009, when he moved to California from Lynn, Massachusetts. Currently serving as LA Weekly's cannabis columnist, he's also written for the San Francisco Chronicle's Green State, Cannabis Now Magazine, High Times, 7x7 Magazine, and in Ed Rosenthal's recent book, This Bud's for You. Jimi has a BA in journalism and media studies from Franklin Pierce University.
View Jimi Devine's articles
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