Education
Terp Sauce – Everything You Need to Know
As the current reigning champion of cannabis concentrates — Terp Sauce is arguably the most popular extract on the market today. This balanced and therapeutic product provides a full-spectrum of cannabinoids that entices smokers with its rich flavor profile and potent high that slowly transforms you into a couch-locked munchie monster.
While it doesn’t seem that long ago that smoking flower used to be all the rage, today, powerful concentrates like Terp Sauce are flying off the shelves as fast as they’re hitting them. If truth be told, there are now so many ways to consume weed, it would be a part-time job just to keep up.
Taking this into consideration, we wanted to make sure you weren’t left behind in the proverbial dust (or in this case a plume of smoke), so we created this terp sauce guide to give you the facts about what this wacky weed product is, how it’s made, and of course — how to smoke it.
What is Terp Sauce?
If you want to get technical, Terp Sauces’ original name given at birth was High Terpene Full-Spectrum Extract (htfse) — but it prefers to be called Terp Sauce, or Terp Juice by its close friends and family.
This extract is more than a fancy name; it’s also highly regarded for its high terpene and cannabinoid content, making it one of the most appetizing and physically inducing experiences you can have with cannabis.
It’s also important to know that Terp Sauces can differ in consistency and appearance, but a pure terp extract should contain about 60% terpenes and 40% cannabinoids. If you’re wanting a more powerful THC punch, you can always purchase a Terp Sauce that contains THC Diamonds for a little extra zip — but we only recommend this for our seasoned smokers.
What are Terpenes?
Terpenes are aromatic compounds that produce the scent or “aroma” of a plant, and in cannabis’s case, these special smells can range from skunky to sweet, depending on each plant’s unique terpene profile.
Much like other strong-smelling plants including pine trees, eucalyptus, and menthol — terpenes in cannabis are formed to lure pollinators and to repel predators. Many factors including weather, climate, maturation, age, soil type, fertilizers, and even time of day can influence a plant’s terpene development.
There are more than 100 different types of terpene found in cannabis, with each strain varying in terpene type and amount. In actuality, most weed strain monikers are given based on the plant’s smell, appearance, or lineage. Cheese strains and their descendants, for example, will more than likely have the discernible cheese-like aroma, and all Blueberry strains would inherit their ancestral blueberry odor.
Nevertheless, aside from smelling good, terpenes have other benefits — but most importantly — they’re needed to trigger the entourage effect.
The Entourage Effect
No, this isn’t a side effect of watching too many Entourage reruns on HBO — it’s the term that refers to the additional advantages that are present when consuming the full terpene and cannabinoid profile naturally found in marijuana.
While THC and CBD are the primary cannabinoids that fuel the entourage effect, they are heavily influenced by terpenes.
Word on the street is that terpenes increase the therapeutic and psychedelic effects that are synergistic with cannabinoids.
In a nutshell, this means that adding or removing terpenes from cannabis alters not only the smell, but it modifies the impact CBD or THC has over your mind and well-being.
Although the entourage effect is widely recognized and supported in the cannabis culture, we felt the need to point out that some experts contend it’s nothing more than a hypothesis, and more research is needed — so use at your discretion.
What Makes Terp Sauce So Unique?
Several factors come into play when determining all the reasons that make Terp Sauce such a unique and unrivaled product. The smell and flavor alone make it a more pleasant and immersive experience than other cannabis products — but it’s also a full-spectrum product that contains a “full-spectrum” of cannabinoids and terpenes like we mentioned earlier.
While the focus of Terp Sauce is the terpenes, don’t let that fool you into thinking this is weak, or not potent. It’s still a concentrated product. Other extracts like wax, shatter, or isolates have the terpenes removed or distilled down, whereas Terp Sauce keeps them intact. It’s Terp Sauces’ ability to be highly concentrated in THC, CBD, and terpenes that make it such a unique product in the world of weed — it just isn’t seen.
How is Terp Sauce Made?
Like a fine wine, live resin needs to be aged (cured) before it can be made into Terp Sauce. If you don’t know what live resin is, it requires using fresh flower that has been flash-frozen, instead of dried bud as the base extract.
The other main difference between live resin Terp Sauce and other marijuana extracts is the preservation of terpenes.
Since terpenes are extremely volatile, freezing the fresh plant material prevents them from degrading or getting ruined, whereas other methods don’t really consider preserving terpenes. It then uses a butane hash oil (BHO) extraction before aging. If you think you can do this yourself at home — think again. You need to be a trained expert to pull the extraction process off successfully and to ensure there is no butane left behind in the final product.
Once this step is complete, Terp Sauce is processed and packaged alone or with THC Diamonds so you can combine them and create some Diamond Sauce. The process of making THC Diamonds and Terp Sauce at the same time is referred to as “Diamond Mining” in the cannabis industry, and each batch will present different ratios of sauce to diamonds.
Before we move forward, we need to circle back for a moment. We told you that Terp Sauce needs to be aged, but we didn’t exactly tell you why. Curing or aging cannabis allows a process called nucleation to happen — which is a fancy way of describing the separation process that occurs between cannabinoids and terpenes. This causes the Terp Sauce and THCA compounds to separate, and these extracted THCA compounds can then be used to make THC Diamonds, which can then be used to make Diamond Sauce.
How Do You Smoke Terp Sauce?
Now that we got the logistics out of the way, let’s cover the fun part: how to smoke it! Smoking Terp Sauce is a very easy and straightforward process that can be enjoyed using a vaporizer, dab rig, or with any other glass pipes, bowls, or bongs. Simply add a little Terp Sauce on top of your bowl to improve the potency, aroma, and flavor.
If you have a Liquid Terp Sauce, you can make Snoop Dogg proud and drizzle it over your weed before rolling a joint, or you could always go high-tech and use a dab rig or vaporizer that is wet concentrate compatible.
Will you get high from Terp Sauce?
Absolutely. Don’t let its good looks and smell distract you from the fact that Terp Sauce is loaded with THC — the primary cannabinoid responsible for making you feel high. This is why Terp Sauce is considered and categorized as a cannabis concentrate; it’s a concentrated form of cannabis that is much more potent than smoking a bowl of flower.
This is also why it’s important to be aware of how much you can tolerate and to be mindful of how much you’re consuming. Begin with a small dose and gradually increase it from there; waiting a good 10 minutes between each toke to allow the high to hit you before taking more.
Concluding Thoughts on Terp Sauce
Packed with terpenes, terp sauce is a full-flavour, full-spectrum extract that gets to the essence of what makes cannabis, well, cannabis! While smoking regular flower and concentrates such as shatter are great in their own regard at providing you with their own blend of flavours, they don’t hold a candle to the flavours that terp sauce is able to provide.
All in all, Terp Sauce is a flavorful yet potent way to get really high, really fast — just remember to use with caution and common sense!