Exotic Pot Contest Transbay Challenge IV LA Winner
America’s next legendary weed strains continued their ascent into the pot pantheon from the dirty streets of LA on Saturday at the epic Transbay Challenge IV.
The long road to fame for ganja farmers in the legal $25 billion weed game was through a scorching, graffiti-strewn warehouse and lot on Olympic Ave. and the 10E freeway. Just a short Lyft ride from Skid Row, the all-day, sold-out flagship event hosted dozens of booths and several hundred industrial cannerati.
The competitive fair offers the best place in the world to feel the pulse of global cannabis culture. With a population of 9.9 million, LA County is home to the largest legal cannabis market in the world. Weed celebs flew in from all corners of the state to see the best in boutique, craft, indoor flowers and hash. With Instagram knowing no borders, smokers worldwide have watched from the galleries as we sweat and toast amidst roaring fans, pounding bass and blazing torches.
Leading breeders Compound Genetics, Capulator and Masonic Smoker sold seeds and clones of Pavé, Glitterbomb, Trans Am and feminized Wilson crosses.
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A large group of highly tolerant colleagues from breeding (Masonic), cultivation (Ted Lidie of Alien Labs) and media (Lindsey Bartlett of Forbes; Jon Cappetta of High Times) spent the day judging all entries in a Herculean step. Behind velvet ropes, they blinked and scribbled, sometimes waving and smiling down at us Earthlings from orbit.
For 12 Hours in LA, promoters Jimi Devine (LA Weekly columnist and Leafly freelancer) and Chronic Culture’s Neil Delacava helped make weed fun again—really fun. Lord knows we need it after surviving the Rona and everything else.
So who won the Transbay Challenge IV?
Two credible players in the craft industry moved to new positions to earn their plaques: Fidel and LA Family Farms.
Best Flower – Fidel’s “KMZ”
Influential infused maker Fidel of Fidel’s Hash Hole—a dizzying joint with a worm of hash in it—has chosen Best Flower as their breeder. The 30-year-old prevailed against a world-class field of 21 participants with the strain KMZ, a Kush Mints x Zkittlez cross. Expect to see a lot more of this suddenly obvious smash idea. Zkittlez brings aromatic volume, depth, and color to Kush Mints’ Mint Gas Dark. It’s a clear victory for white-green weed in the era of purple pot partisanship. We saw our first KMZ as the Xeno from Alien Labs (our favorite of ’21), then got some ‘KMZK’ at Tradecraft, LA a few weeks ago. It’s damn strong and tastes better than Kush Mints alone.
Best hash – “Rainbow Belts” by LA Family Farms
Craft boutique LA Family Farms switched positions from grower to win the Best Hash Challenge with Rainbow Belts. “I love what I do,” said the LA Family Farms rep.
This solvent-free, pure, off-white, electric fruity, gassy hash has never touched butane. The expensive extraction process relies on ice water, cold, heat and pressure, labor and time.
Sacramento breeder CAM also received her 1st Place Plaque for Best Hash Infused Joint, aka Best Hash Hole, at Chronic Culture’s event, the City Ride Smokeout.
The “Z” + “Mints” era is coming
What does the Transbay Challenge IV mean for global weed culture?
Shop these Z crosses, especially in the Mints line. (Or make your own salad and get closer.) We don’t yet know who made the KMZ (aka KMZK or Xeno or Zkittlez Mints) — there’s likely more than one. Let us know.
In the meantime, Rainbow Belts is Zkittlez to Moonbow from Archive Seed Bank. Followed by Moonbow Zkittlez, Leafly Strain of the Year 2021 brings Dosidos, also by Fletcher Watson, TheDocta, from Archive Seed Bank.
Can you see all the Z-Genes flying around? Join them and thank you Terp Hogz Z-Team.
It’s a market for weed buyers
Promoters Chronic Culture insisted on a private event where you could smoke and dab, but also buy legal weed from the exhibitors through delivery service Alpaca Club LA. Alpaca crushed it. A QR code at the stands opened a menu on your phone, you filled your shopping cart, checked out and the bag was waiting for you at the alpaca table. cash or direct debit.
Some of the best buys in legal California cannabis were on display at the show:
- Los Angeles Family Farms’ $50 gram of their award-winning Rainbow Belts hash rosin. Rosin prices continue to fall thanks to a growing supply of fresh-frozen flowers – a boon for heady bois.
- Capulator’s LA made ‘Cap Junky’ flower eighths for $40. And Cap-certified MAC1 for $35. The ability to buy MAC from Cap makes the Peace of Green/LA Made State at 1155 E Pico Blvd, LA one of the best in this universe.
- The Red Runtz of Ember Valley (Red Pop x Runtz) eighths cost $35.
- MOCA’s California State Fair Winner Wookies (The White x GSC) went for $40. Wookies were tested in the state with the highest THC levels.
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The state of the terpene union? Strong
High taxes, thick bureaucracy, monster competition and the resulting falling prices make Californian producers brutal. The top? The pace of innovations in terms of appearance, taste and effect continues to increase. We sniffed every jar at every booth to get these release notes:
- Deep East released some of the most anticipated flowers of the year, her Zoap Crosses – we scooped Opal and Y Squared (The Y bx2). Stay tuned.
- wizard trees had her new RS54 and sangria.
- I wanted to pack had the new scratch and sniff.
- fiore Sold out by GOAT Milk due to high demand.
- We need Sacramento Z Farmers Heisenbern’s BTY (Better Than Yours) new CereZa and Fresa in our lives.
- Broken Promises clothes sister pot label, Your Highnessdebuted a delicious Shady Meringue from their Shady Apples (Kush Mints #11 male x Apple Fritter).
- They water indoor soil beds by hand Fuego family farms in Santa Cruz Breed Crazy 8s (another Zkittlez cross). and MOCA in Eureka also gardens in earth, inside, shatter Gary PaytonCherry Lime Runtz and the Terpinolene Forward Peach Tree.
- Keeps those terps fresh – Addison DeMoura’s pyramid pipeline operates one of the first low-temperature controlled cannabis supply chain networks. MOCA also refines a “cold chain” that keeps weed below 60 degrees until you smoke it.
“We are terpene farmers. But we are also terpene protectors.”
MOCA Humboldt Aaron Salles
The low-tech alternative when you can’t keep your bud and hash cold is to just smoke it faster, DeMoura joked.
“Two grams of rosin? shhh That’s just four swabs!” he cackled.
Rural and urban farms compete for the ring
Central California is now connected head-to-toe with coastal cities for the best indoor-growing trees—from Sacramento’s CAM or Turtle Pie (get their Sidewalk Sundae) to Redding’s 1,800-light Ember Valley to TruLeaf (buy the Run TMC) in Modesto, CA.
Winner Fidel is now gardening in Adelanto, California on Tatooine. Nobody can deny this desert heat.
“You’ll see a lot more of this,” Fidel told the crowd.
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David Downs
David Downs leads news and lifestyle coverage as California Bureau Chief for Leafly.com. He has written for WIRED, Rolling Stone and Billboard and is a former cannabis editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of several cannabis books including Ed Rosenthal’s and David Downs’ Marijuana Harvest. He is the co-host of the Hash podcast. TW: @davidrdowns | IG @daviddowns
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