![](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/emerald-cup-judging.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
After simply enjoying the festivities at the
\nEmerald Cup for so many years, this harvest season, I had the opportunity to
\ntake part in the world championship of sungrown marijuana as a BHO judge.<\/p>\n
It all started when I ran into the head flower judges, Cannabis Now contributor Nikki Lastreto and her partner Swami Chaitanya. The pair also founded Swami Selects<\/a> together. Whenever I see any of The Emerald Cup<\/a> judges, I\u2019m hoping to talk shop, whether it\u2019s Nikki and Swami or the judges of any other category. Anyone in the position tends to really have their head around what they\u2019re judging, and more importantly, knows exactly what they are looking for in their quest to define what makes high-quality cannabis. <\/p>\n In the process of our chat, Nikki and Swami informed me there was an application process to judge the Emerald Cup this year. I went home and immediately filled out everything, linking to articles I\u2019ve written that I hoped might provide some relevance. The application required picking two categories of cannabis products that you were applying to judge. I picked flowers, and then without hesitation, I picked BHO<\/a>. It was almost instinct and I didn\u2019t even think about it.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n Eventually, I got a call from an organizer at the Emerald Cup. She informed me that I had been selected to be a BHO judge. I thought there had been some kind of mistake \u2014 someone more deserving was certainly meant to get the spot \u2014 and so I declined. Then after hanging up, I remembered I\u2019m the person that writes The Year in Globs<\/a>!<\/p>\n I called the organizer back and she said they In hopes of keeping the BHO judging teams\u2019 First, there was Kitt Hall \u2014 who helped launch the first high-end lounge in San Francisco, has been involved in the dab scene since its earliest days and helped found California\u2019s original boutique concentrate delivery service. I ended up rolling north with Hall to the judges\u2019 meeting. Hall has a sweet vintage clothing store Trove SF<\/a> on Haight St. in San Francisco too!<\/p>\n Second, Ted Lidie from Alien Labs<\/a> always worked with only the finest extract artists on the planet when dealing with his own material, so I knew he\u2019d provide a refined eye. There is a solid argument to be made that he is one of a handful of people that really established Sacramento as a place with quality cannabis in recent years.<\/p>\n Third, April Black has been following the globosphere for a decade. I first met her and the rest of the High Times 2000s crew back at the Freedom Rally in Boston as a young student activist. She got a kick out of it when I recalled watching High Times\u2019 editor Rick Cusick get arrested with NORML founder Keith Stroup for puffing on the Boston Common. She\u2019s since founded Higher Way Travel<\/a> and her husband Bobby, one of the original journalists covering dabs in the late 2000s, helps out on the project.<\/p>\n Fourth, glassblower Chris Hanson was certified \u201cI have enjoyed judging the Emerald Cup the past few years, but really enjoyed judging the BHO this year,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cI really appreciated the companies that brought new and different flavors to the table. I was relieved to see very few Diesel<\/a> mixes, but was surprised by the amount of Jack [Herer]<\/a> that that ended up in things that shouldn\u2019t have that flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n The final judge was Todd McCormick, a legend. The Pot Prince of Bel-Air has been one of America\u2019s leading patient-advocates for nearly 30 years. Back in the day, when people like Jack Herer<\/a> and Dennis Peron<\/a> were arguing about what the future of cannabis looked like, McCormick was literally sitting in the room taking pictures of it. He also loves dabs and I enjoyed his time on the \u00a0Hash Church podcast back in the day when I was able to catch it. <\/p>\n We all met up together in Mendocino at the It turns out that it was just the name of the I took all of my 40-plus liquid BHO entries We started judging as a team, but eventually \u201cWe\u2019re using the STAVE system,\u201d I likely The BHO team agreed on a lot in the early It would take me about 36 hours to make my The other judges and I jumped on the phone It only took us about 45 minutes to hammer \u201cI have judged 12-plus cups and being invited In the end, the cream did indeed ride to the 1. Zkittles \u2013 Terp Hogz\/Humboldt Terp 2. Banjo \u2013 Humboldt Terp Council, Humboldt<\/p>\n 3. ErrlHill-BlueBerryMuffins live resin from 4. Forbidden Jelly Suprize \u2013 Suprize x Neukom 5. Peach Z \u2013 Humboldt Terp Council, Humboldt<\/p>\n 1. Rainbow Driver Suprize Suprize \u2013 Sabertooth 2. Strawberry Banana Batter ArcataX, Royal 3. Live Resin Project Red Congolese CWG 4. Hibiscus Batter ArcataX, Fire Mountain 5. Larry Bird Live Resin Budder Big Oil, Co TELL The post Sauce Boss: Judging the Best of California\u2019s Concentrates<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After simply enjoying the festivities at the Emerald Cup for so many years, this harvest season, I had the opportunity to take part in the world championship of sungrown marijuana as a BHO judge. It all started when I ran into the head flower judges, Cannabis Now contributor Nikki LastretoContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40212,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,240,478,4531],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40213,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40211\/revisions\/40213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwere hoping I\u2019d change my mind! Crisis averted!<\/p>\n
\ncarbon footprint to a minimum, I got the names of the other judges in hopes of
\ncarpooling up to Mendocino County to kick things off. I got a list of straight
\nchampions. <\/p>\n
\nas a terp ninja in my eyes when cannabis consultant Sam Edwards found out I was
\njudging BHO and told me about Hanson\u2019s prowess. I have complete faith in Edwards\u2019s
\nopinion on most cannabis subject matter (he was judging flowers this year for
\nthe Emerald Cup after a few years judging distillate). Hanson proved to have an
\nextremely refined palate and general love of hash. A lot of the chats that
\nkicked off over the course of the week amongst all the judges came from his
\ncommentary. <\/p>\n
\nsame place that the solventless judges were meeting. Four of us were the first
\npeople there, so we grabbed a spot in the corner. Eventually, one of the solventless
\njudges came up to us and told us we were in the wrong spot, BHO judging would
\ntake place in the \u201cbunk house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nother house and not an adjective, so the comment wasn\u2019t really the solventless
\nsuperiority statement we thought it was. Eventually, they laid out all of our
\nsamples in bags on a bunch, and then everything got wild. <\/p>\n
\nout and started judging immediately. Hall was the elder statesman of the group,
\nhaving previously judged BHO at the cup. He looked up the old scoring system
\nthat focused on smell, taste, appearance, viscosity and effect. I decided to
\nname it the STAVE system, and laughs were had. <\/p>\n
\nseparated a little bit. Around dab number eight, one of the solventless judges
\ncame over and asked how we were scoring.<\/p>\n
\nmumbled and they looked at me confused for a second before Hall jumped in to
\nexplain.<\/p>\n
\ngoing. We only got to judge in the same room for a few hours, but then we
\nstayed in contact throughout the week. We weighed in on samples, our likes and
\ndislikes. <\/p>\n
\nfirst full pass at over 70 entries. From there, I narrowed the field down
\npretty quick, to 30 above average submissions, before I eventually decided my
\ntop five in liquid and solid BHO. <\/p>\n
\nwith the Emerald Cup the Thursday before the competition kicked off on
\nSaturday, Dec. 14. We all agreed on essentially everything. We\u2019d basically come
\ndown to the same general groups of favorites we just had them in different
\norders and we usually had an outlier we liked better than the other judges. <\/p>\n
\neverything down. All of the judges were absolute pros. <\/p>\n
\nto be an Emerald Cup judge was the highest honor,\u201d Blac said. \u201cI take it very
\nseriously, as this is people\u2019s life\u2019s work. What was most notable to me was
\nthat even though we judged independently of each other (with packaging on the
\nentries), we all had the same selections in our top 10 \u2014 give or take a couple
\nof personal flavor profiles that people liked. It goes to show that the cream
\nalways rises to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ntop. The winners took top prize fair and square, and the Strawberry Banana
\nBatter from ArcataX smelled like Barack Obama was president again. <\/p>\nBHO \u2014 Liquid<\/h4>\n
\nCouncil,\u00a0 Mendocino<\/p>\n
\nthe Humboldt Seed Company \u2013 ErrlHill x The Humboldt Seed Company, Humboldt<\/p>\n
\nFamily Farms, Humboldt<\/p>\nBHO \u2014 Solid<\/h4>\n
\nFarms, Humboldt<\/p>\n
\nBudline, Humboldt<\/p>\n
\nBotanicals, Alameda<\/p>\n
\nFarm, Humboldt Seed Co., Humboldt<\/p>\n
\n(Bear Labs), Critical Concentrates, San Bernadino<\/p>\n
\nUS,<\/strong> what is your favorite cannabis concentrate?<\/p>\n
\n
\nRead More: Sauce Boss: Judging the Best of California\u2019s Concentrates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"