NOTICE: THIS IS NOT A SALES POST OR AD. REQUEST FOR PROCUREMENTS, SOURCE, PLACE WILL BE REPORTED TO THE MODS. THIS IS AN INFORMATIVE ARTICLE ONLY
Helloo psychonauts! I Could not be excited enough to start this informative and valuable information I learnt about this beautiful and unique Concentrate over many many years.✨
I bring forth good wishes, well being and prosperity to all you ents out there!! I bring only Knowledge on the table, unfiltered and everything I know. 🌼
Is Charas just a result of a different resin collection technique? Or an ancient handcraft that got passed down the line thousands of years ago to generations?
I personally like to believe it's both, charas collection has evolved itself over the years in terms of technique, not just hand rubbing but from the very scratch i.e genetics/ seed selection.
Frenchy cannoli said and I myself believe strongly in it. "Charas is the first ever cannabis concentrate humans would have discovered". Why did he say that and why does it make sense?Imagine being a human back in the day just touching the buds and finding some sticky residue on his fingers after that.✨ He immediately would not have figured out what it is, but that must have been the first time resin was collected from the cannabis flower. Later when we would have figured out about this plant's medicine, curious minds must have thought about that sticky resin that smells loud like the plant,has that pungent sniff to it, It would have eventually moved forward from there and evolved to what we call "hand rubbed and collected".
• Is Charas and Hashish (hash) the same Thing?
No. Charas and Hashish are not the same thing. Hashish is a different form of artisinal resincraft that is made from dried flower, separation technique of hash is Seiving.
Charas is unique because it's collected from a live plant and comes under the category of Live Resin (in modern terms).
The collection technique is rubbing the live flowers between your palms and fingers gently. It is dried and cured after collection unlike dry sift which is dried and cured before collection.
Which one is Better?
Both have equally pristine standards in my eyes!🔥 Both are unique products in itself and one can't compare apples to oranges ✨
We can have a separate Detailed Thread about Hashish, I do have intermediate experience with ice water hash so it'll be a fun discussion 🌼
Understanding Charas/Brief evaluation.
Finally to talk about the piece of study for us for the coming year..It would be the one in the Pictures.
We'll go with the drill today with the quality of your piece, how to judge/evaluate it,Smell and burn test are some few key pointers to know about your smoke and notice these things everytime to form a monitory pattern overtime in your mind.
We'll discuss how I store and age my smoke and why aging is highly recommended and beneficial!
Most of you must be wondering why this Piece? It looks like some normal hash none of the stretchy super stuff!? It's on purpose and I'll explain why!
I like to believe this could be the perfect piece to show y'all how aging can actually transform your charas and hash both to a completely different level.
I really considered this piece as it's like my regular smoke, something I enjoy on a regular basis and this is my bechmark, like even on the Worst day I'll atleast smoke this kinda quality. This is the kinda grade most folks get as cream, so it should be great info for them as well, maybe I can clear the term jungla/jungli out better with this piece using % as a metric.
it's overall most distributed/accessible kinda specimen to help people relate to, it has everything in it to explain plant material (i prefer material as contaminants sound really sad to me🥲), it has both calyx, bracts and good amount of resin in it to help everyone see the transformation over the year by the process of aging.
This piece is somewhere from the parvati Valley at the altitude of 2750m from sea level. Its great smoke and it'll become unimaginable smoke after 10-12 months.
In the 1st image you're looking at an unpressed piece of some high end jungla/jungle from the valley. Why do I call it high end jungla? Because you can zoom in(img 2.) a bit and can see enough plant contaminants, mostly calyx and very trace amounts of seed bracts. If you look more closely at the intersection image (Img 2.) and you can see dense brown resin too (light shade of green is also there).
If you take a gram of your specimen and spread it out or tear apart from between for an intersection like in (Img.2) and observe. If more than 35% of your piece has plant material, it's jungla.
Is it bad? NO. It's just hash made for quantity. End goal of hashmakers who make jungla is quantity. Number of grams per number of hours ratio is the game in it. It's cheap and if your eye and evaluation is good you can find some fire smoke like this one!🔥
Why this Piece is good?
This piece is great because of a combination of factors ie. Genetics/Selective Breeding with efficient grow teks, Placement of Farm and technique of the hashmaker/s.
"No matter how great of a hashmaker you are, your hash is great not because of you alone but also because of the the farmer who grew the plant. He did 80% of the job done right and now you will do the 20%"-- Frenchy Cannoli
Hashmaker is nothing without the farmer. They both are yin and Yang, the sea and sky of Charas/hashmaking. Grateful to the farmers who taught and allowed me to work along with them,eat with them and help me pass on what I learnt.
Farmer grew a great crop at a great altitude which produced BIG trichome heads compared to a regular trichome you don't usually see around lower altitudes.
Rubbing such big heads eventually benefits trichome volume in this piece. Refer to (image 3.) this is the image of the same piece upon pressing it, hate to say but in tier 1 Cities people sell these as cream too. It's the same piece as (image 1 and 2) after pressing it. It took that malleable shape because it has enough trichome along with other plant material/contaminants.
Tear apart your piece next time and observe the amount of plant material to evaluate. Less plant material is a better hand than higher plant material. By hand i mean hands that rubbed the charas. Lesser plant material means time has been consumed on cleaning the hand while rubbing too, which if done right can affect your Charas tremendously in a positive way.(We'll get into it in the next article)
YOUR CHARAS AND HASH SHOULD BE BROWN AND NOT GREEN ☺️
Green colour is a clear indication of chlorophyll in your hash and it's not bad, these pieces had chlorophyll in them, they were green in and out, that light green color you see during start of rubbing season (mid Sep-Oct end) it dries off and eventually chlorophyll will kinda corrose itself within the resin overtime without harming it if preserved in the right manner. It's been 27 days of drying and curing(more about it below in dry/cure/age segment) and the piece is gradually turning brown.✨
So just because it's green it doesn't mean bad, but if you can see 40% really dark green tone and 60% light green tone in your hash when it's recently rubbed, have trust it'll disintegrate with time like this piece did.
Smell/Fragrance as a Factor to Evaluate
This is highly subjective and the most tricky one. For me its like I can tell if my piece has some mixing/adulteration in it easier than trying to describe how fire hash smells.
I'll try to describe this Piece. Just after rubbing till the next 15 days most charas, including high end super cream smell like just normal grass or like a regular plant, because of chlorophyll which releases while rubbing the plant, after that span of time it gradually takes on the smell the plant was throwing off of its flower/sugar. This is a transformation only time can do. higher the chlorophyll/plant material, longer it'll take to adapt to its desired state. Flower drying curing process is almost similar.
After that point and let's say today, its smelling exactly how it smells every year, Lemon/Citrus, Tones of Apple and plum. There's slight gas to it.
"Every cannabis product have a common pungent essense to it. Be it flower,hash,rosin or anything. Try to connect and identify that essense. Once you catch hold of it, you can never go wrong."
-- Frenchy Cannoli
You can even burn little bit of hash and you should smell the flower easily.
Taste Test
Again highly subjective, but generally taste should be like the smell profile or similar if it's good charas. There are many flavour profiles like earthy, spicy, fruity and some are a mix of earthy and fruity. It's vast and it depends on terpene profile of the plant. But surely it should not smell off when you smoke it, it should not be bitter, the smoke should be clean and dense if it's good hash with good resin. There should be a dank feeling in the throat (subjective again).
Coming To the last and most Interesting Point of today..Why is storing properly is really important for us to prevent the precious Trichomes? What is Aging?
Properly storing your Hash is as important as making it right. I'm gonna show you and try to explain why I store my hash like this.
Pressing
Pressing your hash is really important, pressing makes your Trichome head explode and eases out the juice evenly in your hash, no loss in potency is there, in fact it enhances the whole smoke.
Press and make a ball of it(Img 4.) make sure the ball is well compressed, wrap it around a cellulose based cellophane sheet (you can use plastic too, not my 1st choice). Wrap it tight(img.5-6)push it in maintaining the spherical shape and twist the wrapped ends from top. It leaves no space to breathe within that. Plan is to suffocate the piece for air to prevent oxidation.
Make such balls and keep vaccum seal it(img 8.)
Do the above if you're sure about your hash being cured at least 65%
Aging Process:
Compare this process with Wine Aging. Is it exactly the same.
-- Frenchy Cannoli
Aging has been a process that has worked wonders for me. Best pieces I've personally smoked are the ones which were properly aged for at least 1 year. You can age for a really long time .
Hash and Charas both can be aged for long time and for better result over the years.
What Happens When we Age the Charas? Is aging and curing the same thing?
No. Curing and Aging are Two different things. In Charas, because of less plant material than flower as a whole, after 1 month there's barely anything left to cure. It takes the desired terpenes and the effects during this time, preserving it right can enhance it tremendously.
Do try with your stash no matter the grade, I'd love to hear your experiences✨
With aging, charas acts like wine or even a pickle. Overtime it reacts within itself, a chemical transformation happens over the span of months and years. It becomes extremely smooth smoke, all of the chlorophyll(if any in the charas left after drying and curing)also is kinda digested in the dense trichome and it's transformation if it's suffocated well. We'll study more about this particular process in practical and real time with the help of this test subject piece and well open and check it time to time let's say next 2 months later we'll take a sneak peak! And we will continue to observe it till next October arrives. It will change its look, it's resin visibility (shine). Smell(will become louder) and overall consistency of the piece.
I will be discussing More about Genetics, Selective breeding, Hashplants and a bit about handrubbing in next article. Over the year I'll cover in depth details weekly or monthly (depends on the time I can invest here). It's truly important to know the science behind Everything and I'll take a step at a time✨
Hope y'all will like this thread for now that it is, hope you'll like the entire journey till next year October.☺️
Have a good day ahead guys. Boom!💥
Apologies if I could not explain well, not a really good teacher 🙏🏽
For any comments ,doubts, feedback and discussions, you're welcome to use the comments section 🙏🏽✨
NOTICE: THIS IS NOT A SALES POST OR AD. REQUEST FOR PROCUREMENTS, SOURCE, PLACE WILL BE REPORTED TO THE MODS. THIS IS AN INFORMATIVE ARTICLE ONLY