Sour Trop Cherries, Linguistic Accuracy, and Degrees of Uniqueness

I have this problem with linguistic accuracy, or more specifically, a part of my cognitive pathology concerns feeling an overwhelming discomfort in being misunderstood, and so I struggle with wording and rewording what I say or write for the sake of accuracy. In doing so I sometimes accidentally sacrifice clarity, which in turn can call into question the accuracy of what I am trying to convey, and thus rewording and revising, or simply repeating with variations, again and again and again. This is a large part of my tendency to do what seems like rambling (and I even call my non-review, non-recipe posts “Rambles”), but even that is not 100% accurate because rambling verbally is by definition confusing or inconsequential, but I also love alliteration, so “Reviews, Recipes, and Rambles” wins out.

To the point, I really want to refer to this week’s strain as “the most unique” in some ways, but my struggle with accuracy and being understood is coming into conflict here, because “unique” is not something that has degrees. Something cannot be more or less unique, strictly speaking. Something is either unique, or it is not. But now that I can say to myself that I have explained my cognitive dissonance to my readers so that they understand that I am using “unique” in a more figurative and colloquial fashion, I can move on without the constant nagging feeling that I am misusing a word. When my customers at the budbar ask me about a product that will help them quiet their brain so they can just get on with things, I see them, and I feel that, and after a few clarifying questions, I always know where to go with my recommendations.

All that being said, Sour Trop Cherries cultivated by Jar Co. is… the most unique looking and smelling strain I have ever encountered. I’ve talked about strains that immediately get reactions from the people I present it to, either from the aroma or the look, or perhaps some other quality that can be experienced with the senses (people react to THC around 30%, but that’s a little different), but this one is special among even those others. I’m thinking specifically of the way I described how people reacted to the aroma Devil Driver (also by Jar Co, now that I’m thinking about it. Good on you, cultivators ar Jar).

Over two and a half years into working directly with recreational cannabis customers, I am still regularly taken back by the different ways people shop for weed, from the most casual (“I just need a couple of pre-rolls, and I don’t really care what, ‘cause it all does the same to me.”) to the most particular (“I’m looking for flower, and I can’t do anything citrusy or over about 18% THC because I get anxious easily from cannabis, but I need something good for daytime that won’t have too much of a body high, and that doesn’t smell like that classic weed smell, because my teenage kids can smell it on me if it does.”) I was initially surprised that most customers shopping for concentrates shop almost entirely by look, and flower customers shop almost entirely by data points (THC, terpenes, etc), but if they do shop for flower using a sensory input it’s more often aroma than it is the look of the flower.

I’m reminded of a specific customer whose only parameters were “Sativa” and “bright green.” He really didn’t care about any other details, not the aroma or flavor, not the THC content, not the price, not the common effects, nothing. Just that it was a bright green Sativa. And it seemed a little frustrating at first, because we were having a hard time narrowing down the strains he might choose from because out brightest green display buds at the time were almost all Indica, but at the end of the day I just reminded myself that this is an adult who seems to have his wits about him, and he can pick his weed based on whatever strikes his fancy, so I gently guided him to the menu even though he wanted to shop the display, so that he could easily see which were listed as Sativa as he perused the buds. And we got there. And he seemed happy with his choice.

So when I opened up the jar of Sour Trop Cherries – a strain I’ve had in a vape cartridge before, but never in flower – I found a strain that I was going to buy based purely on what the buds looked like, which may be a first for me. I’ve certainly been impressed with how different cultivars have looked before, but never so much so that I would have purchased it to try even if all of its other qualities didn’t interest me. Even if this had smelled awful (it doesn’t), or somehow had less than 1% THC (it’s just over 15%), or been so dry that I would question its production date (it’s fresh), or any other oddball qualifier that might otherwise make me think twice, I was going to try this one.

This flower – as you can see in the pictures I took – is almost pink. Those purple leaves that a lot of strains have are so light and bright that it really pushes into fuchsia territory. They’re gorgeous. The greens are also bright, and there’s a little bit of contrast with some darker purple tones between these two lighter colors. The pistils are also a bright orangey color, and the whole of the buds are coated in a frosty dusting of trichomes. It is the prettiest cured cannabis I’ve seen in person.

The aroma too is fairly unique, at least in my experience. I’m sure other strains out there have similar tones, but Sour Trop Cherries stood out in this as well. And on top of that, the take on the aroma between me and one coworker in particular (not my joint guy this time; I know I reference him frequently). Her take was fruity and gassy, like a really bright and sweet diesel. Which makes sense, as one of its parent strains is Sour Diesel, and I don’t not smell that, but for me those were deep undertones. I had an immediate reaction that upon having smelled again and again, and now having smoked as well, I can say with the utmost confidence this strain to me smells exactly like Luden’s Cherry Cough Drops. There’s a sweet, sugary cherry note, strong but not overwhelming, but that is just a top note, under which is the strong and clear aroma of menthol. I’ve never smelled a strain whose minty tone was so clearly menthol and not another mint variant. Triangle Mints back in April got menthol noted in the flavor and aroma categories, but it was mixed in with sage and a broadly herbal characteristic, but this one for me is pure menthol, no question.

The smoke was intensely smooth, and here the menthol broadened to include a more minty and herbal profile as well, though I would still peg menthol as the top tone, while the cherry flavor remained relatively intact. Normally a strain is a bit more bitter in flavor than aroma simply because of the burning of the flower itself, but that didn’t materialize with Sour Trop Cherries.

I could have gone on and on about the sensory experiences of this strain and allowed the high to be an afterthought if it had been unremarkable. I’ve done it before. But here I was caught very off my guard. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again in the future, but I’m no THC snob. My favorite strain is under 15%, and several other favorites are in that range, and this Sour Trop Cherries was just a touch over 15%. Between its parents of Sour Diesel and Tropicana Cherries (two strains I’ve had individually, and in the lineages of many other strains), I thought I knew what to expect: a pleasant stony head high from the Sour Diesel, augmented by the Tropicana Cherries to be a little brighter and lighter, all while having a gentle and relaxing but not heavy body high.

I was wrong. I smoked a normal sized bowl as compared to others I’ve smoked with going solo on a strain and specifically with writing a review in mind. I try to keep things relatively consistent so that the effects can be compared from one to the next. So I’ve smoked my bowl by myself, and I find myself sitting on the couch with my wife, watching some tv after the kids have gone to bed, and when it was time to get up and get a glass or water and maybe a snack, I found I had some jelly legs. And that failure to stand up from the couch on the first try drew into focus how fucking high I was. Like old school, teenager, don’t know what you’re doing, just smoking all the weed you have because that’s just what you do, I have no responsibilities so I can just get wrecked kind of a high. I was a bit disoriented for just a moment, and I don’t want this to be a turn off for anyone. Now that I know what I’m getting into with this strain I can plan accordingly, and maybe smoke just a little less than normal. But I was super high! I don’t feel that very often anymore. This is the first time in my Google Form spreadsheet notes that I marked any of the effects as “Too Much,” which I used in the Fuzzy/Hazy category. That being said, it subsided after a few minutes, and was supremely pleasant after that. I think the “too much” was really more that I was surprised by it more than anything.

I think Sour Trop Cherries may crack my top 10 favorite strains after this. I want to smoke it a few more times before I’m willing to commit to that kind of assessment officially, but I’m leaning in that direction. It’s a beautiful strain, with an inviting aroma, a smooth smoke, and one hell of a high. A thing I do of which my son reminded me by asking when we were grabbing lunch at one of our favorite restaurants recently “Dad, are those pork buns going to make your review of this place 10 out of 5 stars now?” I think I can firmly say that Sour Trop Cherries is a 6/5 stars.

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