C.R.E.A.M. from Cannatique Farms via Calma West Hollywood on 10/20/2020. THC tested out to 26.49%. I got this for about $70 out the door with the first time discount, otherwise it would have ran around $100. Huge shoutout up top to Abstrax Labs and The Growers Collection for reasons that will become clear later in the review.  When I stopped at Calma West Hollywood to pick up a sample pack, I spotted this C.R.E.A.M. on the shelf and while the ticket was extremely high, it looked absolutely stunning so I decided to throw down and see if its bang matched its beauty. The surface of these fairly small buds are mostly a pear with subtle shifts to lime green coupled with aubergine accents, contrasted against pops of golden bronze pistils, all of which is heavily obscured in a hazy sheen of an eye poppingly thick coat of egg cream colored triches.

It’s seriously some beautiful stuff, but unfortunately, that’s where the positive experience ends. The nose out of the jar is extremely vague, it’s nearly blank, and the best description I can muster is that it comes off like plant and spice with a hint of must but it’s very muddled and muted. Busting open a bud the smell remains weak, it does seem to morph slightly adding some fresh elements as well as a distant echo of cream and floral, but it’s very flat and thin. Breaking it down by hand I get no smell on my fingers which is really out of the ordinary. The grinds themselves have an indistinct minty plant smell, there’s a bit of pine in there too, it sort of smells like walking through a forest but with the volume on your scent receptors turned down to the lowest detectable levels. A dry pull on the j offered a really faint and flat floral sweetness. The inhale on the joint was initially smooth, and had a vague floral sweetness with a muted freshness, but got slightly harsh toward the end. I didn’t notice the same issue on the bong, where I got a slightly more perfume-like floral with a hint of spice and sugar sweetness, but it was all very muffled. The exhale on both the bong and the joint had a suppressed creaminess with an acidic sour quality. Cross checking the flavors on my MV1 from Ghost Vapes at 170c I get a very light sweet floral with a flat finish, and at 185c the floral gets a little stronger to the point where it has that skunky beer taste, but it’s still fairly meek. I’ve always had a hard time doing write ups in regards to taste and smell because they’re inherently subjective, so I’m excited to add a new layer of information in that arena thanks to the awesome folks at Abstrax Labs. Utilizing advanced chemical techniques far beyond my understanding, they’re able to take small samples of bud and run it through a process that reveals every terpene and aroma compound within it and make it into an easy to read data sheet, which I thought would be fun and informative to compare against my subjective experience with any given strain. While it may not align perfectly with my individual take on the strain, it is interesting to go over the data and see how it matches up with my experience, and maybe give me some better and broader understanding of flavors that are difficult to pin down.

This brings us to the headchange which I found to be middle of the road effects wise. Shortly after smoking you feel cool, calm and relaxed even if you had been anxious moments earlier. Given the body buzz it’s surprisingly clear headed, I never found myself lost or confused, I was always present and able to work without losing track of what I was doing even with the occasional short lived spacy distraction. If instead of putting a bit of weight on your body it brought a bit of energy, it would be a pretty good sativa, but it has just a bit too much of a chill vibe to help you get that motivational edge and get shit done. I’d say it’d be best paired with video games or a movie that requires a lot of your attention as it will keep your mind occupied and your body sedentary. That said, for $100 out the door more or less, I simply would not pick it up again. When I saw this herb I had high hopes for it but the reality is that you can get much better on the recreational market at half the rate. My fellow reviewer @rip.215 had a great experience with the same batch, one I wish I had, but as it sits that is a huge miss for me. Sorry Cannatique, I wish I could give it a positive review, but you probably won’t see this since you have me blocked anyway.