Boulder is renowned for its high quality bud, and here at Elements Boulder Dispensary we pride ourselves on carrying some of the best flower around. I believe the key ingredient is that, for the most part, all of us employees here are flower smokers, and we try only to stock flower that we ourselves would like to smoke. I’ve worked here three and a half years, and while I miss the good old days when we had our own Elements grow operation, the quality of our flower has only gone up since I started here. We try to shop around for quality flower, based not just on THC testing and price point but on nug quality, terpene profile, high, and cultivation practices. We stock flower from a number of cannabis growers: In The Flow Boutique Cannabis, Veritas Fine Cannabis, Masters Farm, Dutch Botanicals, and Artsy Cannabis.
At In The Flow, they believe that marijuana can be more than just a recreational pastime. In The Flow touts that they “strive to carefully cultivate a flower for everyone so that they may experience an elevated purpose within their own lives and Find Their Flow.” But what do they mean when they say find your flow? The name of the company refers to the psychological discipline developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi known as Flow Psychology. Psychological Flow is a positive mental state of total focus and utter absorption in the moment, where you are wrapped up so completely in a task that the rest of the world falls away. Csikszentmihalyi describes Psychological Flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” This state of Flow has been studied in all manner of settings, be it in musical performers, writers, artists, yogis, craftsmen, and athletes. In fact, a significant part of modern training for Olympians revolves around finding one’s flow state, so as to help alleviate much of the psychological pressures of international competition in front of millions upon millions of spectators, allowing instead their physical training and conditioning to work to the utmost. But finding that flow in our daily lives isn’t always as easy as we might hope. I can tell you personally as a writer it can be difficult to turn off your internal censor and really hit your stride. That’s where In The Flow comes along. Marijuana as a substance is rather remarkable in that it can fairly instantly put you in a new frame of mind, be it calming, energizing, stimulating, or cathartic depending upon what you’re looking for. How can cannabis really make that much of a targeted difference for individual users, given we each have unique body chemistry and are all affected differently from one another? The answer: an unparalleled focus on terpene content. Their website has the terpene profiles for each of their strains, and all of their bud is lab-tested for terpenes, cannabinoids, and contaminants, meaning you can get a look at the exact percentages of terpenes by weight present in each batch. It’s pretty fancy stuff conducted by our neighbors over at RM3 Labs.
Personally, their award-winning indica strain Danky Kong ticks all the boxes for me. Amazing taste, cure, trim, and most importantly a potent yet mellow high with notes of grapefruit. It’s my all-time favorite strain and nobody grows it better than In The Flow. More of a sativa fan? They’ve won many awards with their Chemmy Jones, Lemon Skunk, and Glue strains, and they grow a fantastic African land race, Durban Poison. They’ve also recently added some wonderful new strains like Gelato Cake, Purple Sunset, Black Fire OG, and Black Cherry OG to their line-up. We carry the largest selection of In The Flow strains of any dispensary in Boulder and much of the surrounding area. These guys produce our highest quality connoisseur flower. Come in and talk to your budtender about which of their cannabis strains can help you find your Flow State.
Veritas is our other top-shelf grower whose buds are always of high quality, potency, and unmatched terpenes. Each of their strains comes with suggested pairings to give you an idea of the sort of high you may experience when enjoying their flower. In Latin, ‘veritas’ translates to ‘truth’ and also refers to the goddess thereof, Veritas. Truth is a tricky thing and it’s not always easy to nail down, as we all well know in this age of ‘fake news.’ And while Dionysus is the real Roman god of getting fucked up, one of the reliable ways to find Veritas is in wine–“In vino veritas,” as they said in Ancient Rome–“In wine [there is] truth,” roughly. But considering cannabis is a Latin word by way of the Greek κάνναβις, it’s not much of a stretch to think you can find Truth through another popular mind altering substance of both their time and ours. Don’t get me started on etymology and weed; as a classicist cannabis enthusiast with a love for words, history, and the history of words, that’s a deadly trap. But I digress.
Veritas grows only top-quality cannabis with a nose for terpenes. They grow their plants in coco soil and hand water each plant. Their growers use up to 100 bamboo stakes per plant to spread the branches and make sure the plant receives even light exposure. According to Veritas, “This process creates an optimal environment for forming trichomes, the foundation of the terpene rich flower that Veritas is known for.” And when curing and trimming they even take the climate into account. “Adjusting the cure process to Colorado’s changing seasons is the responsibility of our team of quality control masters. This specialized group uses their highly trained nose, discerning eyes and years of experience to determine when the flower is ready to be trimmed.” It is this expertise that led the Cookies brand to contract out to Veritas all the growing of the Cookies genetics here in Colorado. All of the flower Veritas produces is high quality, hand trimmed, and pre-packaged. We also sell their .6g pre-rolls for a song here at Elements Boulder. I buy about ten of these little guys a week, easily. I don’t usually mess with pre-packaged flower because I like to see what I’m getting when I purchase it but Veritas I trust well enough to buy their primo flower sight unseen because I trust their quality. I have never smoked a strain from Veritas that didn’t taste delicious, and they grow a huge variety of strains that are sure to delight any smoker, regardless of their palate.
Masters Farm is one of our all-organic growers who cultivate some of our best-selling house and premium strains. We’ve worked with Masters Farm for nearly three years since they first converted their grow to be completely organic, even helping them narrow down which phenomes got the best response from employees and customers when they were trying to decide which phenomes of each of their strains were most popular. All of their flower is cultivated in living soil, which is to say they use organic soil that is nitrogenated by living worms. Since indoor cannabis cultivation is generally a no-till process, using living soil long term can cut down on costs because you don’t have to replace the soil every so often, as the worms churn the soil constantly and replenish the nutrients depleted by the plants’ growth with their castings. This living soil mimics the outdoor growing conditions cannabis naturally favors while allowing the grower to maintain the quality control provided by indoor growing conditions, lighting, cultivation, etc. Living soil also contains beneficial bacteria and fungi which helps to create a healthy living biome in which the plant was designed by nature to thrive in. Also as the soil ages, it requires less water than it would if you are replacing the soil and then having to rehydrate it each time the soil gets swapped out. In the long run living soil is not only more cost-effective but more environmentally friendly than most other means of cultivation. There’s a reason our customers keep coming back for something of the house favorites like Animal, Strawberry Glue, Hercules, Guptilla, Night Nurse, and Ghostship. Their buds never disappoint: they’re crystally and terpy as all get out, and their nugs tend to have large, solid structures that boast an impressive weight. Their quality is always high, especially for the low price we sell them at on our house tier. I regularly recommend Masters Farm’s strains on the house shelf over flower we have on the premium shelf, depending on what the customer is looking for. Masters Farm is my go-to grower because they have a great product that meets you halfway on the price, so you don’t have to sacrifice quality for cost. Masters Farm is our meat and potatoes, and we love them for it. Not sure what to try from their selection? Ask one of our budtenders about their favorite strains and I guarantee a number of Masters strains will be on their list.
Dutch Botanicals is one of our two new growers that we’ve brought on this year to get more variety among our strains, and they’ve quickly become a fan favorite. No joke, theirs are the stickiest buds I’ve encountered in Colorado. They get your fingers real sticky and almost require a grinder to break down efficiently. Their weed is delicious, their nugs glistening and resinous. Dutch Botanicals employs one room of hydro grow and one room of organic, living soil. Based out of Aurora, they’re a newer company on the market but they’re already making waves. Currently we have their Blueberry Headband, Crescendo, Gelato, and Purple Sunset in stock with more new strains to come. The owner and head grower, Jenny Tran, is very passionate about her work with their plants, hand selecting batches to send to retailers and offering suggestions as to which strains came out best this harvest in order to assure only the highest quality of cannabis reaches the consumer. Jenny originally hails from China and has worn many hats in her time. According to Jenny herself, “Before I started my Cannabis operation, I was working in the Investment industry, specialized in Real Estate and High Technology. I got my first Master degree in Business from Europe and the second one in Science in the US. My experiences in Asia, Europe and the US shaped me as a very curious person. Since I started my career in Cannabis, I have been focusing on listening to experienced growers, learning to convert valuable experience to scientific measurements, and finally implementing and optimizing efficient SOPs as we move forward.” Jenny’s background in science isn’t hard to trace to their grow where they implement some of the latest and greatest technologies in the creation of their fine flower. Part of what sets their bud apart from others is how sticky it is–I kid you not, you can take a nug and squish it against the wall and it will stick there defying gravity. The first time I transferred one of their pounds of flower over into our display jars, my gloves instantly became tacky with all the trichomes. Here in Colorado with the dry desert air, the secret to their cure process is to raise the humidity in their high-tech CureTubes by two percent after the initial cure process to ensure that the customer gets the highest quality product even after they get home as opposed a lot of prepackaged bud that loses water weight rather drastically over time as it dries out here in the mountains of Colorado. Jenny also makes sure to sample her own product to make certain it’s up to spec. Every strain I’ve tried from them so far has been fantastic, juicy, and super dank. You can’t open a jar of Gelato in the budroom without making the whole dispensary smell like stanky Gelato. I love it. And flower isn’t the only thing to come out of Dutch Botanicals’ grow. They offer infused pre-rolls that we may be bringing on, and soon their MIP will start producing distillate cartridges for a touch screen operated vape pen that Jenny had a hand in designing herself. Dutch Botanicals is a real up and comer to keep an eye on. Come into Elements Boulder and snag some of their new sticky icky.
Artsy Cannabis is our newest grower. They’re brand spanking new and based in Aurora. Artsy is a soil-based grow, using 7 gallons of soil per plant throughout the grow process. Artsy was originally established last year as a medical grower originally but quickly picked up a recreational grow license. The company was founded by Josh Haupt who got into the cannabis industry because as a young man “had seizures as a teen and the medications they gave him made him bald before he turned 20. He sought out a more natural way to control seizures and found cannabis. He’s founded several cannabis companies since, written the ThreeALight book [published October 2015], and been interviewed and featured countless times as the ‘Steve Jobs of cannabis.’ He also created Success Nutrients and was Chief Revenue Officer with Medicine Man Technologies as they turned into Schwazz Holdings.” Additionally, Artsy uses the ThreeALight system mentioned above, which consists of their “in-house nutrient line, Success Nutrients, combined with proprietary grow techniques (outlined in our book) that produce 3lbs of finished high quality flower per light. Our goal with Artsy Cannabis is to continue to prove it’s possible to achieve both above average quality and above average yield with the right genetics, nutrients, and techniques. There are currently ThreeALight facilities in many other states including California, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, and Oklahoma.” So even though Arsty is itself fairly new, the techniques they use have been making waves not only in Colorado but elsewhere in the country as well. They grow some of the best strains I’ve tried in the last few months. So far I’ve only had a chance to try their Lemon Icing and their Confucius Kush, and both are phenomenal. It’s really rare that bud alone gets me so stoned I completely lose track of what I’m doing, but the Confucius Kush has gotten me so high a few times now that I’ve gotten too stoned to play video games and had to switch over to the bright flickering colors of the boob tube. And the Lemon Icing was a nice mellow sativa that was a creeper for me. The sweet, subtly lemon taste masked the potency of the high, and it completely snuck up on me. At first I was pretty chill but by the time I’d finished walking my dog and ran into the neighbor I was ripped enough to make conversation difficult for me, and as a weed salesman, that’s not something that happens often to me. I’ve also been told by their rep to keep my eyes peeled for their Berkel which is a potent, grape-y cross of GDP and Pre 98 Bubba Kush. It’s hard to beat anything involving Pre 98 Bubba or the Grand Daddy himself. Artsy is also known for some of the classics they grow like Super Lemon Haze and OG Kush. I, for one, am excited to get my hands on some more of their buds.
We have all kinds of new flower at Elements Boulder Dispensary, so drop on by and check out the fresh selection of some of the finest nugs in the state of Colorado, always hand weighed in front of the customer, deli-style. The first thing you’ll see when you step in the budroom is our large flower display case right smack in the middle, just as our entire business centers around selling only the highest standard of cannabis for a great price. Never guess again about the quality of the cannabis you’re buying!
-Max Tegethoff
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