If you’re old enough to legally consume cannabis, you may remember an era before trendy cafes had sprung up on every other street corner. It was a time when much of the country was content to start their day with a hot cup of gas station coffee cut with 2% and sugar – when milk went un-frothed and “cold brew” simply referred to a pot that had been left off the hot plate too long.
No disrespect to good ol’ gas station java, but the point is that Americans didn’t always consider coffee something that could be segmented into different tiers of quality, influenced by factors as nuanced as the origin of the beans, the brewing method, or even the size and freshness of the grind. And that’s kind of where we are with cannabis edibles right now. While plenty of bud connoisseurs are picky about the flower they smoke, your average infused product consumer may have trouble believing that all edibles are, in fact, not created equal.
What makes a truly premium edible? Well, as you might expect from the above coffee analogy… quite a lot of things! Here are a few key tips to help you select the product that’ll give you the most high-quality bang for your buck.
Pay Attention to the Ingredients
This might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how much undesirable stuff makes its way into your average bargain-priced edible. Artificial sweeteners, mineral oils, and other fillers can cause an upset stomach and (quite literally) leave a nasty taste in your mouth. You want to look for an edible that uses real sugar or other natural sweeteners.
But it’s not all about the sweet stuff. One of the biggest no-nos for THC gummies, in particular, is using gelatin as a thickening agent. A protein derived from animal byproducts (like bones and connective tissue), gelatin is not only off-limits to vegans and vegetarians, but it has a shockingly low melting threshold. The average gelatin gummie gets gooey around 90 degrees Fahrenheit – no match for the average summer day in Colorado, let alone Arizona or California. Gelatin also tends to produce a tougher, more rubbery texture than you’d find in gummies made without it.
At Wana Brands, we want as many consumers as possible to enjoy our gummies, regardless of dietary restrictions. That’s why our 11-years-in-the-making recipe contains only kosher, gluten-free, all-natural ingredients (including organic sweeteners and no high-fructose corn syrup). Perhaps most importantly, we thicken our gummies with fruit-derived pectin, meaning they’re not only completely vegan, but they can stand up to even the hottest weather without losing their satisfying, chewy consistency.
Try New Technology
The introduction of lab-testing into the legalized cannabis space has guaranteed consumers a new degree of potency and consistency. But beyond that, recent advances in technology are allowing edibles manufacturers to bring their customers highly customized experiences – from precisely dosed CBD/THC ratios to the buzzworthy, strain-specific live resin gummies popping up on dispensary shelves across the country (more on those in a future post).
At Wana, we’ve harnessed these innovations in a number of important ways, but one of the most exciting has allowed us to make new inroads in the realm of both onset and effects. Specifically, our fast-acting Wana Quick Gummies are powered by a new nano-technology which allows the THC to enter your bloodstream without detouring through your liver first. Not only does this result in an onset time of just 5-15 minutes, but it also delivers a lighter “head high” that feels more like smoking than the intense, body-focused experience of traditional edibles. Through the power of science, we’ve created an edible for people who don’t usually like edibles!
Whether or not Wana Quick Gummies are for you, their very existence can teach us a valuable lesson: when looking for an edibles brand, do a little research to find the ones committed to staying on the cutting edge of cannabis technology. They’re likely to bring you an experience you might never have thought possible.
And speaking of technical innovation, that brings us to our final tip… For the Love of God, Think of the Terpenes!
In case you missed it, terpenes are the chemical compounds that give all plants –including cannabis – their unique smell, taste, and biological effects. They play a big part in determining how a particular strain of cannabis might make you feel.
Some people don’t believe it’s possible to include terpenes in your edibles, since they are stripped away when creating THC distillate. But research suggests it’s possible to reintroduce terps at a later stage of the cooking process (we delved deeper into this topic in a previous blog post). At Wana, we believe so strongly in the power of terpenes that we’ve partnered with a leading research company to create three proprietary terpene blends based on the terp profiles of leading cannabis strains.
Why does this matter? Because these blends – each of which contains more than 30 unique terpenes –allow us to offer our products in class-specific varieties: relaxing indica, energizing sativa, and balanced hybrid. In other words, edibles companies that traffic in terpenes can provide their customers with more nuanced, specific experiences than those who don’t… and the more terps a product contains, the closer it will feel to your favorite variety of flower.
In Conclusion…
When it comes to what makes a quality infused treat, THC potency is really only the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully, these pointers have armed you with the knowledge you need to find the perfect, premium product you deserve!
