Pancake Ice from Houseplant (aka Crescendo from THCDesign) via The Peoples OC on 04/15/2021. THC tested out to 32.21%. Purchased for $70.35 out the door. 

When Seth Rogen announced that his weed brand was coming to California my phone basically blew up. Message after message from the casual smokers in my life started to pour in asking me if I had heard the news. Everyone was stoked, me included, we all wanted to get in on what we thought were special phenos that Seth had helped in hunting himself. However, in drips and drabs, information started to trickle in and paint a different picture. These were not special strains that had been painstakingly massaged to perfection for the purpose of bringing something new and unique to the California marketplace by America’s Favorite Stoner, they were simply the same 3 strains that THC Design had white labeled for Method Man’s TICAL brand months earlier, and that were readily available on the shelves of tons of dispensaries at a lesser ticket in THC Design jars. Furthermore, at the time, there seem to be a concerted effort from Houseplant to obscure the fact they were simply rejarring white labeled weed as they were being hush hush with journalists about who their partners were and even went so far as to change the batch IDs (which originally had “crescendo” in it) to a series of numbers and letters that further distanced themselves from the herbs’ origin. They have since corrected that issue and have just recently been fairly open about their partnerships on their instagram page which was nice to see. This should have been their MO from the start as it establishes trust with the consumer, but now I just see Houseplant for what it is, another white label powered celebrity cash grab. That said, let’s get to the review. 

The surface of this fairly big nug and his smaller counterpart is mostly a mix of mint, sage and tea greens that dip into forest at times, with gangly veins of amber pistils, all of which are awash in a sea of white and egg cream colored bird spike triches. 

The nose out of the jar is a semi-sweet thyme like mustiness, almost like a dimmer version of thyme itself, but has this musty spice cabinet quality with a hint of vague pepper. Breaking open a bud it sweetens up a bit and introduces a bright floral with a touch of fruit and a bit of a “tongue a 9volt battery” electric edge. Busting it down by hand my fingertips get a freshness on them that leans heavy on the pine but the mint is very present as well. The grinds are a mix of sweet floral and freshness with some distant fruit that when combined, come off like some hipster wax lips made with all natural ingredients, while a mustiness kicks around way off in the background.  

A dry pull on the joint hits with a sweet floral and light chalk with an underlying herbaceous tone and a peppery lilt. The inhale is smooth, and has a peppery mint tang on the joint, whereas the bong is more of a vague floral must. The exhale from the bong is a musty peppery cream with a hint of that 9volt action, whereas the joint is much more complex and hard to pin down, but comes through with a semi sweet floral and a musty fresh underpinning with a spicy zing that hits the septum and a cream quality that seemed to phase in and out of existence. Cross checking the flavor on my GhostVapes MV1 at 170c, there’s a light sweet floral and very distant pine with a muted fresh aftertaste where at 185c, that sweet floral remains but it’s still very light and has an even lighter hoppy beer aftertaste. 

The headchange is fantastic and exactly what I look for in a sativa which makes absolutely sense as Crescendo is still one of my all time favorites in that category. So this batch, even though it bears a new moniker, is really no different. The headchange comes on quick with a racy paranoia that causes me near instantly to get up and pace around in search of an outlet for the surge of physical energy. There’s a discomfort that develops from sitting still and before I even realized what I was doing I was up and moving and I didn’t even know why. When out for a joint walk, as I burned through the first part, I felt my stride pick up speed and an added bounce in my step. Mentally I was moving a bit too fast to focus. My mind kept jumping from task to task, and while it did help me get through some planning that I’d been avoiding and happen upon some solutions I hadn’t thought of previously, I was a little too amped to be able to sit down at the computer and actually follow through on them. 

All and all, while maybe not the most eye popping or tastiest herb (which could have degraded faster than normal due to this poorly designed tin), the effects from this batch of Pancake Ice are the real prize here. In a sea of gelato crosses the headchange really stands out, and being a sativa head, I really enjoy the heart pounding get up and go that it provides. The real question is, would I buy it again? The answer? Absolutely not because I can just go get Crescendo in a THC Design jar for less and get the same exact experience. Minus the struggle of opening this tin of course and knowing that the money is going directly to the grower, as opposed to a brand that’s trying to dig extra cash out of my pocket for no added incentive outside of a slightly bigger nug and making me feel “cool” due to the parasocial relationship I have with Seth Rogen because I thought Pineapple Express was funny. Houseplant ditch the jars, get some unique phenos and I’ll be back, but until then deuces!