The 2021 Emerald Cup winners and where to buy them
California smokers have some new all-stars to buy in stores.
On Sunday in Santa Rosa, California, and online, the organizers of the Emerald Cup 2021 announced the winners of the prestigious pot contest in a 90-minute livestream. Now is the time to buy up these successful brands and strains and try a piece of fame.
The awards ceremony began on Sunday at 4:20 pm with recorded skits by Abdullah Saeed, musical performances by Ziggy Marley and an interview with the 2020 Willie Nelson Award winner Winona Laduke.
Even during a pandemic, the cream of California’s breeders, breeders, extractors and manufacturers did their best for what Leafly previously called “the world’s largest commercial outdoor cannabis competition”.
Despite an increasingly poor fire season with many outdoor growing areas burning, the competition categories soared to 37 total this year. With legalization making information easier to access, cannabis is proving to be far more complex than its THC content.
A new categorization system organized tribes according to their most dominant aroma molecules, the terpenes, as well as awards for:
- highest terpene content;
- THCV content;
- and most unique cannabinoid profile.
Here are the top winners and where to buy them:
Best flowers of the Emerald Cup 2021
Best in Show
Give up on the trendy indica hybrid ice cream cake bred by Seed Junky and cultivated by Local Cannabis Co., Ice Cream Cake gave the nod for “7 Weeds For Hibernating” as well as second place for “Top Strains of.” 2020 “.
Best indoor weed in California
In January, Leafly predicted the Lemon Tree X Gelato 41 Cross Gelonade would have an epic year. In fact, Gelonade from Connected Cannabis takes the Emerald Cup as the best indoor flower. Yew! You can’t go wrong with lumps of lemon syrup married to creamy berries and delicious cookies.
Best sunflower in California
Pink Boost Goddess by Emerald Spirit Botanicals, bred for Flow Kana, won Best Third Party Certified Sunglasses. Meanwhile, Farmer and the criminal’s gorilla snacks have won the sunglasses category, proving that consciously grown cannabis is gaining traction.
Best Mixed Light (aka Greenhouse)
Ready for? Ice Cream Cake, bred by Seed Junky and cultivated by Local Cannabis Co., took the finest greenhouse herb. For the second year in a row, the buds from Seed Junky and Local Cannabis Co. took first place.
Best pre-rolled flower joint
Can’t you roll your own No judgement. That’s why we have pre-rolls. Look for the Atrium brand for their first place GMO Cookies x Juice Z. Second, the 5-pack from ZRUNTZ. Third place goes to LitHouse for Lemon Lava.
Best hemp flower
A collaboration between Hakira and the Biotech Institute resulted in a fragrant plant with a unique cannabinoid profile. Guava Jam 2.0 has a ratio of CBD to CBDV of around 1: 1, which can help prevent seizures.
Where to Buy:
Best solvent-free concentrates (water hash, rosin)
First, let’s talk about extracts made without butane or other explosive solvents – commonly referred to as “solvent-free”.
Check out Strawberry Jelly from Papa’s Select – they effectively swept their category, taking first, second and third places for ice water hash.
Kalya’s Patty’s Cake was first placed for pressed rosin. Kalya also took 4th and 8th places in rosin.
Best hydrocarbon concentrates (BHO)
Many tasty forms of modern hashish come from hydrocarbon extraction, such as medical-grade butane.
First place in solid hydrocarbon extracts goes to Moonbow “Butter Frosting,” which is made through the successful combination of Surprize Surprize and Alien Labs.
A jelly extract from the Humboldt Terp Council won in the liquid hydrocarbon category.
Where can i buy it?
Best foods of California 2021
Best foods: sweet and savory
Full spectrum and hash based foods have a moment, so a Feeling Frosty collaboration with OM Edibles had to win their category. OM & Feeling Frosty Mixed Berry Vegan Rosin Gummies, for victory!
In the hearty food category, the food company Potli won with a Sriracha sauce!
When it comes to drinks, the top of the pop went to Cannacraft and Lagunitas’ Hi-Fi Hops Unplugged.
Best tincture in California
It should come as no surprise that the tincture was also made from solvent-free concentrate in the first place. The winner is a sip, but congratulations to Lempire Farmaseed Dirty Zkittlez Rosin Tincture from LH Manufacturing and Compassionate Heart Mutual Benefits Corp.
Where to Buy:
Best California Vape Products 2021
Best Vape Carts in Cali 2021
Freshly frozen flowers often become “living resin extracts” that are sometimes squeezed into a disposable vape cart. Last year’s flower winner Runtz wins gold again in the form of the Arcata Fire Live resin vape cartridge.
In the traditional “Distillate” vape cart category, the Blue River extract artisans dominated with a chocolate orange jelly sauce stick. This was unique in that Blue River’s jelly sauce is a proprietary premium, solvent-free oil (which has no competitive category), not a distillate at all.
Where can i buy it?
These hashes are so elitist that we can still track them down in stores. Find and buy concentrates nearby with Leafly’s Extract Finder.
Full list of Emerald Cup 2021 winners
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? These aren’t even all of the winners in every category! For a full overview of the winners, runners-up and participants in the Emerald Cup Award, see the full list of Emerald Cup 2021 winners here.
Watching the Emerald Cup Awards on a smartphone doesn’t have the same effect as standing in an auditorium to find out who’s on stage through a smoke storm, but Tim and Taylor Blake and their team used their quarantine time to do the multi -day weed convention at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California, with a week of panels, artistic performances and awards for the online platform Social Club TV.
Cheers to them for doing a virtual shindig and hopefully never having to have a purely virtual cannabis event again!
Which Emerald Cup winner would you most like to try out? Comment below.
Amelia Williams
Freelance cannabis journalist Amelia Williams is a longtime budget tenderer and a graduate of San Francisco State University’s journalism program. Williams has contributed to the San Francisco Chronicle’s GreenState, MG Magazine, Culture Magazine, and Cannabis Now, and is the author of the Barbary Coast Pharmacy’s Bud Blog.
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