Amarelo, One of Many of that Name

I’m not diving deep into this week’s pre-ramble lesson, but I wanted to take a moment before diving into the strain review for Amarelo to point out something that I haven’t gotten into before, but that in doing my research on this strain I was reminded of.

I’ve pointed out with SuperBoof/Blockberry that some strains have different names but have the same genotype; that is to say that they have the same lineage, the same parent strains, but they are distinct enough phenotypes (see Strawberry Grapefruit Banana from a couple of weeks ago for more on phenotypes) that they have become their own “strains” even if on paper they seem to be the same thing. I haven’t done a deep dive into numbered strains, but the quick on that is that when you see a number in a strain name (GG4, Gelato 41, etc) that it is typically a reference to a specific phenotype or the number of times that strain has been bred with itself. There are likely other reasons too, but those are a couple of the most common reasons.

What I haven’t gotten into is when the same strain name is applied to completely different genotypes. If we’re using the phenotypes and human genetics comparison, this is like when two people have the exact same name, but (as would be expected in the human case) come from different parents. John Smith, meet John Smith. I’ve seen it once before that I know of for certain at my budtending job, where we had two different versions of Mango Mints from two different growers, with different lineages and profiles. Luckily, for the sake of talking to customers about them, we didn’t have them at the same time.

Now, with Amarelo, we haven’t had another version of it, but as it’s from a third party cultivator, we didn’t have the full profile in our internal catalog when I first saw the strain pop up on our order So I started looking into it on my own, and found three distinct lineages (sort of) just in the first page or so of Google results. The one I was admittedly most excited about but which would turn out to not be the lineage we were getting was Brazilian Landrace crossed with IBL (which stands for “in-bred line,” or a strain that has been bred with itself over and over again) implying that the IBL was also Brazilian. Another was “a closely guarded secret,” which is also very intriguing, but always concerns me because I’ve had some not-so-comfortable highs from certain types of strains, so I don’t typically love diving in if I have no idea whatsoever of what I’m about to smoke or dab. The last, and the lineage that we received, is Str8 Lemonade crossed with Banana Punch #9. Look at that, another numbered strain! Amarelo was begging for this intro, I guess. I’ll do a deeper dive in the future into the numbered naming conventions for a strain that itself is one.

So onto Amarelo.

So, this Amarelo is another Firefly Organics cultivation, and the Cold Cured Live Rosin was processed by Helios, as Firefly’s rosin has been for a while now. This one continues the trend of Firefly x Helios producing an absolutely top-tier product.

I’ve written and referenced several times that I love that first smell of a new strain, and Amarelo stood out in this case even in ways other favorites haven’t where you could smell the rosin before you brought it closer to your nose. I’m talking at almost arm’s length, the sweet, citrusy aroma makes it to your nose clearly. The look of surprise on my coworkers’ faces when I brought it around to share was satisfyingly similar. Each of us expected to get a look at it from a foot or foot-and-a-half away from our faces, and then bring it in for a deep inhale, but instead got that smell as soon as we looked at that distance.

The rosin itself has an excellent texture for most uses. It’s a medium gold color, and has a thick, buttery/waxy texture which was just firm enough to easily scoop clean doses, but just sticky enough to stay on the spoon until I tapped it into the chamber of Gary (my PuffCo Proxy in a Ripple bubbler).

I was assuming that given the strong aroma I would find the flavor just as intense and flavorful, but I was shocked to find that there was almost no flavor. What hint of flavor there was still the sweet and citrusy of the aroma, but the flavor – and the vapor itself – were so light and smooth that it turned into one of those situations where I’m looking at the bubbler as I’m drawing to make sure that it’s actually working. It was. Using my note-taking Google Form, I felt I had to put something in the responses for flavor and vapor quality, but it was only so that I wouldn’t think in the future that I left it blank out of laziness. There was a bit of a lung-feel at the end of the first couple of hits, which gave me the smallest of coughs, but I chalk that up to the incongruous feeling of there actually being something at all in my lungs while it felt like I hadn’t drawn in anything to begin with. After that initial bit, it was entirely smooth sailing.

Speaking of incongruous, the high was fairly strong. If something hits with that little flavor and texture, and the THC isn’t terribly high (as is the case here), I wasn’t expecting it to hit so hard in the brain. It floats around in the stoned/euphoric/elevated/sleepy categories, having a wonderfully broad effect that I effortlessly enjoyed while watching adult cartoons, the new season of Bake Off…

[Oh my god watch the new season of Bake Off. If you’re a fan, you may be familiar with the typical range of people they get for the show: a teenager, an eccentric old guy, an eccentric grandma, a dashingly handsome guy, an adorable 30-ish woman, a young woman who is obviously the hot one, a dad, a young guy who way overestimates his abilities, a young guy who way underestimates his abilities, one or two complete weirdos, and so on. If you know, you know. This season is ALL WEIRDOS. It’s amazing, and I’ve only seen the one episode.]

…and working on some miniatures that I’m painting. The high was just fantastic. I was happy and laughing, but also chill and relaxed. When it came time to go to sleep, I didn’t need to switch gears and hit some heavy Indica, but I didn’t feel like Amarelo was so much making me tired as it was just allowing me to go to sleep when I was ready. Add to that that I’ve been struggling with some leg pain at night, which I haven’t experienced the last two nights following dabbing Amarelo, and I’m really looking forward to trying this during the daytime and seeing what shenanigans I enjoy when the sun is still up.

This has become a top recommendation of mine, just in the one shift I’ve worked since trying Amarelo, and I expect it will stay there until I sell out. If I wouldn’t be denying customers the experience, I’d buy this up, it’s that good. Top 5 strains good, probably. I don’t keep a specific ranking, as these all have such different uses, but sometimes a strain is so good that I have to call it a top favorite, and Amarelo is one, for certain.

---