Honey Bananas, Where I’ve Been, and Why Now?

Hello again, Stoned Coasters! I’m back! First, I’d like to apologize for my absence. After my last post about the problems with Hemp-derived THC, I felt as though I had invigorated myself to finally make this a blog more focused on the larger cultural issues surrounding and permeated by cannabis, rather than just reviews. (Not that I don’t like reviews, and not that I would stop doing reviews as well, but…) I’ve wanted to write more about the science and specifically the health issues concerning cannabis. I’ve wanted to explore issues of bias, legality, and social significance. I’ve wanted to soap box more. Those who’ve seen my budtending in person (or my closer personal friends and family who’ve been subjected to my sometimes Hamiltonian-style outrage on occasion over the last few years) know that I can whip myself into a rhetorical or pedagogical frenzy when properly stimulated by a topic. I’ve always felt I brought my passion for cannabis – and perhaps my passion for helping people with their cannabis needs as well – to the blog, but I feel I could do more with it.

Following that last post, I started and stalled on several topics, but nothing felt right. I’ve written in the ballpark of 100,000 words on this blog over the last two years plus, and after some encouraging words about maybe turning this whole thing into a memoir of sorts a while back, I found myself trapped in a classic writer’s conundrum of bouncing back and forth between not knowing what to write next and having a vague but grand plan for myself, should I be able to get over whatever obstacle was keeping me from putting more words to page at the moment. I’ve also toyed with the idea of adding a partner project to all this where I choose a strain and a crafting project (I’ve mentioned that I paint miniatures and craft terrain for tabletop gaming like Dungeons & Dragons before, but also just for fun, like the Ninja Turtles below), and then use that strain to inspire and fuel that project, record the whole process, and then edit it down to a consumable and hopefully edutaining video. This is most likely going to happen, so keep an eye out, but it was also a huge distraction from just getting back to writing.

Some of what was stifling my writing was the feeling of there being a bit of sameness to my reviews. Maybe that’s not how you dear readers are seeing it, but when I sat down week after week to do justice to an individual cultivar of cannabis, after nearly 80 of them, I started feeling like I was falling back on familiar phrases and relying too much on my pre-set adjectives from the form I use for taking my notes.

I have this self-imposed semi-scripted response when customers comment on how insanely specific I get when talking about similar strains (“This strain is creative and engaging and present, where this one is also very creative but with more of a traditional elevating head high,” for instance), where I smile and mention that “At one point I had 93 different strains of flower, not to mention more in pre-rolls, concentrates, and carts, so I have to get pretty granular with my descriptions sometimes, or else why bother having so many strains in the first place.”

But to find those micro-differences, I’m frequently tapping into some responsiveness to the individual customer’s needs or wants to find the distinction that will be meaningful to them. Writing to my blog audience of (if the numbers don’t lie and I’m interpreting them correctly) many hundreds of people or more on any given week, I’m writing for broadness, not specificity.

All this is to say that as I get back into this, if my reviews are a little weird, if my descriptions are oddly specific, and if my recommendations for contexts within which to enjoy the effects of a particular cultivar are narrow or niche, I hope you will all indulge me in my exercise of jump-starting myself back to life, so-to-speak.

So that covers the middle part of the title, “Where I’ve Been.” I’ll get to the first part in a moment, but first I need to address the third and final part of the title of this post: “Why Now?” Well, honestly, I’ve been trying to re-light this fire under me anyway, but now I’ve got an external motivator. This very blog was nominated for Best Blog/Website on Portland Old Port’s Best of Portland 2025. Little ol’ me! I was scrolling through the lists when the voting opened, and I was knocked on my ass to see myself there. I’ve no idea what kind of scale we’re talking here, as far as how many people actually vote on this, and the crippling self-doubt that I take great pains to keep in check tells me that there’s no way I’ll win, but I honestly have no idea, so while I’m not getting my hopes up, it would be pretty great to get a ton of votes. There are only nine total nominees in the category, one of which has won four of the last five, and their one loss was to another nominee this year, so while it seems like I’m up against a bit of a dynasty, maybe my readership is more rabid, even if smaller in number. Thanks so much for all your support, everyone! Get out the vote!

And now to the point. As I sat down to force myself out of this slump, I took a look at my more recent reviews, my spreadsheets of notes, my photos of flower and dabs, and I was struck – dumbfounded perhaps – by a startling revelation: I have not reviewed a strain that I regularly refer to as a top three of all time: Honey Bananas. I first treated myself to the cold cured rosin of this strain nearly two years ago, and was a fan from… well, if I’m being honest, just knowing the lineage. I hadn’t even had it yet, and the cross of Strawberry Banana and Honey Boo Boo sounded not only delicious but that it was going to be an excellent and euphoric high. Each step along the way only enticed me more, and when I finally got that little gram home and ripped my first dab, I was hooked. I kept telling myself that if we didn’t get the flower at work that I’d go get some from somewhere else, because I needed to get to know the source flower of such a great extraction.

But I always have access to flower through work, and while I never stopped wanting to get Honey Bananas, the priority fell by the wayside. We kept getting the rosin, so I was placated. I’ve probably gone back to it more times than any other concentrate. But then a few months ago we suddenly had pre-rolls of Honey Bananas, and while pre-rolls are a wonderfully convenient and affordable way for me to try a wider variety of cannabis, when I want to really get into a strain, I want the whole flower. But ermahgerd the Honey Bananas pre-rolls were amazing. I don’t think I’ve had a strain that tastes as good pre-rolled as this. I needed an eighth, badly, and was lucky enough that we got them soon after.

The rosin, pre-roll, and whole flower of this strain are some of the most fragrant cannabis I’ve ever smelled. Over the top of everything else is a honey sweetness that is somehow simultaneously delicate and rich, like a fresh local clover honey at a farmer’s market. The floral and fruity notes intermingled therein are light and bright, with only the vaguest hint that it’s cannabis. It’s not at all pungent, or skunky, or musky. It’s the kind of aroma that I think some people might not even think was cannabis if they were to smell it without that foreknowledge. I likened the overall aroma to that of Berry Kix in my notes, of which I’m glad to have reminded myself. I was really happy with that aggregation of the different individual aromas.

The buds are fantastic: light to medium greens, long and fuzzy orange hairs in tangled little clusters, and perfectly cured (in this case and in the case of the rosin, vapes, and pre-rolls I’ve had – so all the Honey Bananas I’ve had, we’re talking about Firefly Organics). The buds are just lightly sticky, pulling apart in that satisfying way where they give a little at first, but then you have to give it just the tiniest bit of elbow grease that confirms its proper curing. They’re fluffy but a bit dense, and grind pretty well.

Oftentimes even the most aromatic and delightful aromas are lost or at least dulled in the smoking process. You’re literally burning the thing, so it’s no surprise when the first or most notable difference between the aroma and flavor is “bitter” or the like. But not this gal. The aromas carry through perfectly: sweet and warm, but delicate; the flavor only lingers in the way that a good Lady Grey tea might, more a remembrance of flavor than a cloying of such. Add to that a surprisingly easy and clean smoke in the lungs as well, puts Honey Bananas up there as one of the best smokes I’ve ever had.

But all this might be rendered moot if the high weren’t there, but here too Honey Bananas doesn’t disappoint. As I mentioned, I’d had the concentrate of this strain many times before I’d had the flower, so my use of it was restricted at first to only in the evenings, which tends to bias my takes to the more mellow or relaxing side of the effects, as I’m already winding down, so unless a strain is incredibly energizing, my reviews in general may skew more “indica” than “sativa” leaning. Finally having flower, and in particular the pre-rolled Honey Bananas, gave me more contexts to try this already favored strain. (I’d also had the disposable vape long before this, but there’s a difference I feel between the couple hits here and there the way I’m inclined to use vapes, versus the full high of smoking a whole joint or a bowl or two all at once.)

All this is to say that I have found Honey Bananas to be a great high in pretty much any context. While it neither wakes me up nor puts me to sleep, nearly any other context where I can be even a little high can be a great time for this one. It’s uplifting and social. I find myself prone to anywhere from little fits of giggles to full on uproarious laughter in the proper company. I feel happy and creative, ready to tackle a project solo or indulge my more extroverted side with a group of friends or family. The body high if used earlier in the day is light, hardly energizing as I said, but engaging. In the evening, if I’m already well-acquainted with the couch, it won’t fight me staying put, and even sometimes whispers subtle encouragement to get even more comfortable. Through all contexts, there is a gentle tingling along the surface of my skin, reminiscent of the feeling after a shiver or (for those that get them) ASMR has passed, and everything feels a bit more sensitive, but in a pleasant way. My only beef with Honey Bananas (and I’m prone to these in general, so take this with a grain of salt) is that I get a bit nibbly and fairly thirsty, so heads up if you’re someone who struggles with the munchies. It’s by far not the worst, but it’s enough to note.

All in all, this is simply one of the best strains of cannabis around, as far as I’m concerned. I know I favor fruity and herbal/piney/minty strains over earthy, gassy, or skunky, so this strain has a little leg up there naturally, but if I were forced to pick a single favorite strain, like when customers as me what my favorite strain is and every time I hem and haw and finally say “I guess it depends on context,” Honey Bananas seems like it will always be one of the handful that rattle around in my mind before I weasel out of answering directly. For the record, the others are Blue Widow, Princess Magic Girl, Golden Tiger, Strawguava, Violet Vixen, and most recently Gas Face.

Thanks as always for reading, and thanks so much for your support in the Best of Portland 2025!

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