Walk into the concentrates section for the first time and it sounds like a dessert menu: shatter, budder, sauce, crumble. Behind the fun names is a simple idea: take the best part of the plant, the sticky resin, and leave the rest behind.
The result is strong. Flower usually sits somewhere between 15 and 30% THC. Many concentrates are 60 to 90%.
Made with solvents
Most concentrates are made by washing plant material with a solvent, like butane, propane, ethanol or CO2, which is then purged away. What happens next decides the texture.
- Shatter: glassy, amber and brittle. Snap it like toffee.
- Wax, budder and crumble: whipped while it sets, ranging from sandy to creamy like soft butter.
- Live resin: the flavour chaser’s choice. Made from plants frozen right after harvest, so it keeps more of the fresh, living aroma. Often sold as a glistening “sauce”.
- Distillate: refined until it’s nearly pure THC. Very little flavour on its own, so producers often add terpenes back. You’ll find it in many vape carts and edibles.
Solventless: just heat, pressure and water
- Kief: the golden dust that collects in the bottom of your grinder. Pure trichomes.
- Hash: kief pressed together. One of the oldest cannabis products in the world.
- Bubble hash: trichomes shaken loose in ice water, then dried.
- Rosin: resin squeezed out with heat and pressure, nothing else. “Live rosin” starts from fresh-frozen plants and is prized by connoisseurs.
How to enjoy them
Concentrates are usually vaporized: in a vape pen, a portable device built for concentrates, or a dab rig with a heated nail. Some people simply sprinkle a little kief or hash on top of a bowl of flower.
Try this
If you love flavour, compare a distillate cart with a live resin or live rosin product side by side. The difference in taste is usually night and day.
A little goes a long way
A dab the size of a grain of rice is a normal starting point. Go slow, wait, and enjoy.
Browse our concentrates and the titanium tools that go with them.