Walking through Texas Original in South Austin, one can eventually learn to forget what, you know, we’re here for, man.
First, I suit up: paper booties, hair net, lab coat. Then I learn about red, white, and blue lights; injecting plants with nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium; aphids, indoor growing, hermaphroditic plants.
A process manager named Javier Kane, bespectacled and in a lab coat points out a machine that slowly rotates a bulbous glass decanter filled with amber goo in a warm bath. On the opposite end of the machine, in a circular, stationary glass bottle ethanol is dripping away.
Down the hall, that amber goo is run through millions of dollars worth of equipment. An analytical chemist named Heather Howell explains the company’s process of high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatograph mass spectrometry. My head spins like the bulbous decanter.
Speaking with growers about photosynthesis and lab technicians about chemical compounds, I might not know I was in on of just a few of Texas’ licensed medical marijuana operations except for, of course, that smell.
“That’s our goal, professionally,” says Texas Original CEO Nico Richardson, “to make cannabis boring. That’s when you do the most good.”
The company is tinkering with different lighting setups to better grow marijuana plants.
Chris O’Connell/MySA…
