At West Coast Cure, we love cannabis. We love terps and we love products that truly capture the essence of the plant. There’s a lot of stuff out there to get you high, but products that truly remove all barriers between you and the pure, molecular goodness of cannabis are few and far between.
For us, being a legacy brand means touching every part of the cannabis plant that matters and doing so with the utmost care, respect, and love. That’s the legacy we want to continue, and we’re doing so through the ancient tradition of hash-making.
What we love about rosin, hash, and other solventless concentrates is that they tie the consumer’s experience directly back to the farmer’s work. The legacy farmers we work with have perfected their craft — harnessing the most effective natural stressors, including temperature, sunlight, and humidity swings, to produce the ultimate expression of cannabis flower with the most incredible terpene profiles. Our job at West Coast Cure is to bring these plants to life, as unadulterated as possible, in a vibrant, accessible form.
That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce our Live Rosin Diamonds, a solventless concentrate that truly captures the heady, terpy essence of the dankest sun-grown buds. Here’s a complete guide to live rosin diamonds — how they’re made, what makes them special, and how to get the most out of every diamond sesh.
Why Live Rosin Diamonds?
Whether you’re a seasoned aficionado or enthusiastic newcomer to concentrates, you’ve probably come across your fair share of live resin diamonds while perusing online or hitting up your local dispensary. Live resin is the most popular form today because the solvent-based extraction process allows for robust, timely production and a broad spectrum of cannabinoids and terpenes in the final product. Live rosin diamonds, made through mechanical separation rather than chemical extraction, are much rarer in the current market given the amount of time and attention they require.
Live resin diamonds have gained popularity with consumers in the last few years for the abundance of THCa, in addition to the product’s mesmerizing crystalline structures and rich dandelion color. After all, nobody wants to splurge on a cannabis product that doesn’t get you high enough. But when potency is the sole focus, it will inevitably leave something to be desired. At West Coast Cure, we want to facilitate a proper cannabis experience, which is why we focus on concentrates that actually deliver the full spectrum of the plant’s compounds, straight from the source and as free from chemical intervention as possible.
Full spectrum is a simple yet profound concept in cannabis. It means that whatever molecular structure the original plant had, the extraction will have the same ratio of cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids. When we make live rosin diamonds, we set out to get the plant exactly as it was at harvest on a molecular level, not simply isolating THCa for its own sake. A full-spectrum, solventless rosin locks in the full smell and flavor of the plant better than virtually any other concentrate out there, and our Live Rosin Diamonds offer peak potency without sacrificing the unique sensory experience that cannabis terpenes provide.
How Are Live Rosin Diamonds Made?
When it comes to concentrates at West Coast Cure, we follow the words of the late hash master Frenchy Cannoli: “Everything starts with the land, the farmer, and the genetics. I’m like a winemaker; the quality of what I do is defined by my farmer. I’m nobody without my farmer.” To make fire rosin, you need fire input material. That’s why we work with full-term, whole plants from award-winning Emerald Triangle Farms. Located in microclimates with warm, sunny days and sufficiently cool nights, our farm partners harness the moisture of coastal morning air that draws closer to the ocean as the day goes on — making for a pitch-perfect temperature swing that maximizes trichome size and terpene production. When you grow indoors using LED or halogen light, you’re deviating from the natural spectrum of light a plant would get outdoors, which in turn affects trichome expression. Trichomes, which contain all the plant’s cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids are grown as a defense mechanism for the plant. So it stands to reason that a plant grown under a natural spectrum of UV rays, in a natural terroir — the combination of soil, topography, nutrients, climate, etc. — will be shaken into defending itself, producing more trichomes and a richer terpene profile.
We at West Coast Cure feel the same spiritual connection to the Harvest Moon that growers and cultivators have felt for ages. It’s one of the reasons why we harvest buds under her gaze, typically around three or four o’clock in the morning. Our other reasons for harvesting at night are more scientific. Trichomes can be more volatile when it’s warm outside, so it’s easier for us to preserve them when we harvest at night. We don’t want more than 20 or 30 minutes to pass from the time the plant is cut in the field to when it makes it into the freezer, so we trim the plants and harvest the buds as close to the field while it’s still cool outside. Also, warm fingers can destroy trichomes and make terpenes bleed, so we do our best to avoid touching the plant with our hands. Again, preserving as much as possible is the name of the game here, so freezing flowers immediately upon harvest is a vital part of the process.
As soon as the buds are harvested, they are frozen to lock in all the volatile terpenes and flavonoids that can evaporate when the plant is dried and cured. Then we make an ice water hash – soaking the plant material in ice water and agitating the mixture to separate all those cannabinoid and terpene-rich trichome glands. Once we’ve thoroughly sifted the mixture through mesh bags of varying micron screen sizes, we let it dry and collect the hash. Next, we press our ice water hash into rosin, where we squeeze all the oil under specified conditions to make sure we get every available terpene. Finally, we cold cure our rosin into a badder, which serves as the starting material for making both the THCa diamonds and the sauce to go with them. The THCa byproduct is 91-92% pure, which we then put through a series of proprietary processes to get the diamond form you see in our jars.
Once we’ve got our diamonds, we focus on flavor. We take our Cold Cure Badder through a saucing process, which involves careful application of low heat to preserve volatile terpenes and flavonoids while achieving the desired viscosity. Under these conditions, the badder will first bubble up into a dough-like texture, then settle over time into a full-spectrum rosin sauce with all the potentially therapeutic biomolecules inside.
In addition to locking in the full plant’s flavor in the sauce, we also subject it to the decarboxylation process to turn whatever THCa is left into THC, which means it’s activated right when you vaporize it. The final step is to bring the full flavored sauce together with the THCa diamonds in a ratio we determined to be the most optimal for your senses. The result is an exceptionally flavorful and high potency product.
The main barrier to making live rosin diamonds is that the process is extremely time and labor intensive, and the yield is limited compared to other types of concentrate. When we do a regular rosin press, we can produce around 3,000 grams over 10 hours. We can only make 40-50 grams of live rosin diamonds in the same amount of time. In other words, live rosin diamonds cannot be mass-produced, and are only available on a limited-run basis. But any hardcore hash lover who samples the product will see, smell, taste, and feel the difference all our extra time and effort makes.
How to Consume Live Rosin Diamonds
The best way to get the full connoisseur’s experience of West Coast Cure’s Live Rosin Diamonds is to drop them in your dab or e-rig. You’ll immediately feel the difference in potency right behind your eyes and taste the full force of all those flavors and terpenes we worked so hard to preserve in your jar.
The first step to getting the optimal dab is to let it reach the proper consistency. Take your jar of diamonds out of the freezer or fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. Once you’ve given your diamonds ample time to soften, you can open your jar and crush up the THCa diamonds. Crushing the diamonds and mixing them with the sauce helps you get an even hit of potency and flavor with every dab.
The ideal temperature for a live rosin dab is between 450 and 550 degrees Fahrenheit (232-287 degrees Celsius). Heating on the high end of that spectrum will increase potency slightly while hitting the low end will give you more flavor. Everything has a different boiling point, and the most volatile terpenes (the ones that tend to hit you first with their scent) are at the highest risk of escaping when you hit your dab at a higher temp. A lower temperature range will preserve more terpenes and ultimately result in the full flavor we want you to experience in our Live Rosin Diamonds.
How Should I Store My Live Rosin Diamonds?
Solventless concentrates should always be kept cold until it’s time to use them. Our Live Rosin Diamonds come with an extra foam insert surrounding the glass jar, providing insulation and helping your product to stay cold as it makes the trip from the dispensary to your home. If you’re going to use your diamonds right away and regularly, storing them in the fridge is sufficient. But if you’re buying a few grams or storing longer term, we highly recommend leaving our Live Rosin Diamonds in the freezer until you’re ready to pop the jar and drop a dab in your rig.
Now that you know what Live Rosin Diamonds are all about, be sure to snag a jar from WCC next time you see one at your local dispensary. You won’t want to miss out on the full, rare experience of cannabis at its absolute best.