A jar of hash rosin carries more numbers on a smaller label than anything else on our shelf. Almost all of them describe how it was made. None of them are lab figures. So here is the label, top to bottom, the way we read it out at the counter. The name Hash rosin starts life as flower, so the name on the jar is the cultivar the maker washed. It is spelled the way the grower spells it, which is not always the way a dictionary would. Beside it you will usually find the maker, and sometimes the farm. Rosin makers are particular about where their flower comes from, because nothing in the process can improve it. What “solventless” means walks through that process from the start. The micron numbers A micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. In ice water extraction the trichome heads are washed off the plant and poured through a stack of mesh bags, each one finer than the bag above it. Every bag keeps whatever is too big to pass through. Common sizes run 25, 45, 73, 90, 120 and 160. So 90u on a jar means the heads that slipped through the 120 bag and were caught by the 90. A range like 73 to 120u means two or more of those catches were combined before pressing. A wide range like 45 to 160u is everything the maker kept from that wash, pressed together. Is a smaller number better? No. It is a different size of head. Which catches go in the press is the maker’s call, and most of them will tell you why if you ask. Stars and full melt Hash makers grade dried bubble hash on a star scale, one to six, by how cleanly it melts and how little it leaves behind on a hot surface. Six star is what the trade calls full melt. You will see star counts on rosin too. That is a common mistake. The scale belongs to bubble hash, so we typically avoid star counts when we describe rosin. We also do not sell very much bubble hash at the moment. That is subject to change. The wash The wash number counts how many times the flower went through the ice water before the heads in this jar were collected. Every round brings more leaf and stem along with the heads, so a lower number means a cleaner collection. A label that says nothing about the wash is worth a question. Live Live means the plant was frozen fresh at harvest instead of being dried and aged first. That is a fact about the flower before it ever met the water. The finish After the press the rosin is finished one of a few ways, and the word for it is on the label. Cold cure means it was jarred and left somewhere cool to set, and it is far and away the most common because it keeps on the shelf. Badder and whipped are rosin stirred while it sets, so it comes out soft and opaque. Jam and rosin diamonds are the rarer forms that come from working it further after pressing. Fresh press means it has been left alone since the press. Buy that one locally. It does not travel well in the mail. The weight Last line, smallest print. Net weight: the rosin alone. Skyland generally only sells two gram pucks, so 2g is the figure you will see on our shelf. At the other end is the baller jar, which is what you call a 28 gram jar. Glass is heavy and rosin is not, so even a full puck can look lonely in there. When the label is not enough Bring the jar to the counter at 2 Eagle Street, or call (828) 222-4367 with it in your hand. Most of the makers we buy from are small enough that we know them by name. The rest we are working on. ← All six guides
