Flava-flavonoids

Wheel O Flava

Salutations~

Winnipeg has been frozen solid this week with temperatures hitting the -50 degree mark with the windchill.  I have been in bed for the last 3 days trying to get over a new cold / flu as I imagine a lot of this city has been.

A bit of reading, some warm blankets, coffee and cats are helping me keep the cabin fever away.
That and a bit of delicious hash-rosin has me thinking about taste memories.

Its fairly amazing how entwined our senses of taste and smell can be, with recalling a particular event, or moment in personal history.   There is a bio-chemical component at work here. Several actually.

Terpenes and Terpenoids make up about 80 of the 200 compounds found within cannabis that have evolved to keep us coming back- like dutiful little bees returning for that dank pollen fix.

Outside of the common cannabinoids like THC, CBD etc. there are unique compounds called Cannaflavins, which along with producing the distinct flavors of cannabis, attract pollinating insects by producing vivid reds, blues and yellows in the petals of the flowering plants.

We often associate a particular flavor with strains that we have grown to enjoy and incorporate into our lives. The reasons we choose these, is often for deeper reasons than strictly taste preferences, These flavanoids are actually psychoactive and contribute to the entourage effect.

The layers are finally starting to get peeled back, and we're realizing that cannabis is far more than just THC / CBD and these flavanoids and terpenes are vital to achieving ones "perfect dose"

The future of cannabis therapy is bright, with extraction specialists isolating these individual nuances and re-introducing them into extracts and tinctures for a broader and healthier range of therapeutic options for consumption.   And for the connoisseurs, the sky is the limit when it comes to new flavors.

I'll be touching on individual terpenes, the strains that have evolved to showcase them, and what scientists can tell us about how these subtle molecules are interacting with our own body chemistry and why we love them the way we do.

Stay warm Canada~