Hash is the modern grower's catch-all term for concentrated cannabis resin obtained by physically separating trichome heads: by dry sieving, by agitation in ice water, or by hand-rubbing live plants. The collected resin may be used loose, pressed into a solid, or processed further (pressed into rosin, for example). It is a solventless product unless stated otherwise.
In practice
Growers describe hash by method and quality: dry sift, ice water hash (bubble), full melt, temple balls, pressed hash. Quality depends on the starting material, how cleanly the heads were separated, and how the hash was cured and stored. Colour runs from pale blond to dark brown; darkness can come from plant matter, oxidation, pressing or heat, so colour alone is a poor guide. GenetixBay defines hash types but doesn't give processing instructions.
Don't confuse with
- Hashish: the traditional pressed resin of historic hash-making regions; often used interchangeably.
- Solvent extracts: shatter, wax and live resin use solvents and are not hash.
- Kief: loose heads, unpressed.
Myth check
House position: traditional hash and charas cultures would have been impossible with weak plants; "old weed was weak" is wrong about the genetics. See old cannabis was not weak.
Trichome heads are the bulbous resin-filled tops of capitate glandular trichomes, where cannabis makes and stores nearly all its cannabinoids and terpenes; they are the raw material of hash.Kief is the loose, powdery collection of trichome heads that falls or is sifted off dried cannabis through fine screens; it is the simplest solventless concentrate.Bubble hash, or ice water hash, is a solventless concentrate made by separating trichome heads from cannabis in cold water and collecting them on graded mesh bags.A temple ball is hash worked by hand into a dense ball and cured over time, a traditional Himalayan style associated with a glossy surface and soft interior.Hashish is the traditional pressed resin concentrate of cannabis, made for centuries by sieving or rubbing trichome heads from plants and compressing them into blocks or balls.Live resin is a solvent-based cannabis extract made from fresh frozen plant material instead of dried and cured flower, to retain more volatile aroma compounds.Charas is hashish made by rubbing the resin off living cannabis flowers by hand and rolling it into balls or sticks, a traditional method of the Himalayan regions.Pressed hash is loose trichome resin, such as kief or ice water hash, compressed into a solid cake or slab so it holds together and keeps better.Solventless describes cannabis concentrates made only by mechanical or physical separation, using screens, ice water, heat or pressure, without chemical solvents.
