DID YOU KNOW? 💡

Terpenes are naturally occurring compounds produced by conifers, citrus, flowers, gas, hops, and many other form of plant life and natural living things!

Over millions of years, plants evolved and developed terpenes for various reasons, but the most common are for self-defense or to encourage pollination. For every plant in the world, a diverse variety of terpenes work in tandem to create their unique profile.  

Peppermint, for example, is a natural odor that is a combination of Limonene, Alpha-Pinene, Beta-Pinene, Cineol, and Octanol. These are terpenes!

Over time, humans began extracting and isolating these terpenes for perfumes, cosmetics, cleaning products, pesticides, and more. Many terpenes have been shown to have pharmacological effects and play a role in more traditional medicinal practices such as aromatherapy. Although this research isn't clinically confirmed for humans (due to illegality) there is a good amount of research on terpene interaction in other species (non-specific to terpenes) and the accumulation of this information is the basis on which we believe that terpenes play a vital role in the cannabis experience. 

Terpenes in Cannabis  🌱

Cannabis plants create terpenes for the same defensive and attractive purposes as other plant life, but what cannabis does differently is, it also produces THC (and other cannabinoids such as CBD, and so on). The combination of these Terpenes and cannabinoids contributes massively to the true uniqueness in effects which have been modified by humans through breeding and growing practices over generations. 

A common way to think of how THC and terpenes work together is as if THC were the engine of a car, terpenes would be the steering wheel. The percentage of THC will roughly determine the amount of possible psychoactive properties, while the terpenes guide those effects into a heavier physicality, energetic buzz, or variety of effects based on your response to a specfic terpene profile. Terpenes form the way the plant smells and tastes. Due to the pharmacological effects paired with THC’s psychoactive effects, leading cannabis researchers also believe terpenes play a major part in how you feel! A.K.A. your mood while + after consuming cannabis.  
 
The terms Indica/Sativa/Hybrid are decent indicators for these effects, but sometimes they don’t offer an in-depth look into the profile, as today’s industry can be somewhat misguiding. Click here to read our Sativa + Indica blog where we dive into that.

Click here to view our Terpene Glossary.

Buzzword Warning 🔎

The cannabis market is trending towards providing more terpene information, which should is a good thing! However, it’s clouded with new terms and phrases that may add to a consumer’s confusion.  

Have you ever seen BDT or CDT (Botanically Derived Terpenes or Cannabis Derived Terpenes) on the packaging and wondered what the difference was? These are what lab professionals collect + infuse into product to induce a somewhat artificial terpene profile after all to most original terpenes have been removed (sad face😕).

These are mostly found in cartridges and pens filled with distillate to recreate or mimic a known cannabis profile or used at the brand discretion.  

Keep a Record 🗒

Here at Spark'd, we independently ask for lab results from all our providers to analyze in-house, and display the most dominant terpenes. We provide the palate and effect range for each cultivar on our website, too. In a perfect world, all terpene information would be constantly supplied by the producers to both us and consumers, however as the Illinois cannabis industry expands, practices like these are less and less frequent. We deeply believe in understanding the makeup of the products we consume, and try to always provide as much easy to consume information as we receive without underlying bias.  

It’s important to know what terpenes you love, and what ones you might not enjoy that much. For example, if you start to feel more anxious while consuming, check to see what terpenes are involved in the strain that’s being consumed. If you notice a pattern of which terpene(s) reappear in strains that were disappointing, it’s much easier to avoid similar profiles in the future. When you find a strain that makes you feel just right, see what terpenes are in that specific strain. From there you can drive the ship. 

It becomes easier to choose new strains or shop the menu without feeling like you may be taking a risk when you know what terpenes you love.  

We hope you learned a thing or two about terpenes today. If you have any questions, our budtenders in-store can help you out, too.

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