Welcome back to the red bench!

Like most herb smokers, I’m on a budget when it comes to buying my smoking materials, so I have to be choosy when I shop. I spend several hours researching various strains and brands online before I go make my purchases, both for Red Bench Reviews and my own personal stash.

A couple of weeks ago something caught my eye on Instagram… this was a package of cannabis from The Smoking Hippie. The packaging had good graphics, in my opinion, and I am a bit of a sucker for that, having been a graphic artist for years. And I love the name! Very clever… so I got curious.

Last week I traveled down to Desert Hot Spring to Desert’s Finest, a first-rate dispensary – 80-90% of all products we review comes from there. While I was there I added a bag of Motor Breath from The Smoking Hippie to the order – the price was only $35 for a quarter of herb with 25.51% THC!

Before I purchased the Motor Breath, I flipped the bag over and through the clear back of the packaging I could see that it contained all shake.

Okay… I like nugs – but it’s still herb, right?!? And what a bargain… half the price of the other herb I was picking up to review. The package said very clearly on the front that it contained “sugar shake” so it wasn’t like they were pulling a fast one.

On the drive back home I looked forward to smoking the Motor Breath, one of the most “dieselly” of diesel smelling and tasting herbs. Oh, this was going to be good! I’ve only had this strain a few times and all my memories were pleasant ones. The forty mile drive passed quickly with visions of Motor Breath dancing in my head.

Test Run

Once I was back home in the hi-desert I got ready to settle into a nice sesh with this new bag of herb… I wanted to really give it a thorough test run!

Well, hmmm… I thought as I poured some out on the tray, when they said sugar shake, they meant it.

Note: Sugar shake is made from sugar leaves – they are the small leaves that poke out of the buds while they’re growing and are usually packed with trichomes. During the trimming process these sugar leaves are cut off (because these make the smoke a bit harsher, and consumers expect nicely trimmed buds), often saved and used to make concentrates. I’ve had growers give me ounces of sugar leaves for free in the past.

This bag contained lots of small sugar leaves, full of trichomes, but leaf all the same. I just hoped it was cured well so it wouldn’t taste like leaf, but I was disappointed. I mean, it might have been cured, but it still had that strong green taste of chlorophyll. I wanted that diesel taste, but it was barely there. Darn.

I had only taken a few hits from the bowl so far, and I wasn’t going to let it go to waste, so I got into the sesh. This bowl of shake went further than a bowl of buds because it was packed pretty dense, and soon I was about six or seven hits into the Motor Breath. That’s when the high hit me. And kept hitting me. Suddenly I was strapped into a cannabis ride I hadn’t expected.

Heavy. The high quickly turned to stoned. Strong body effects, serious head stone. My eyes got so lidded. But to me, in the state I was in, I thought of the feeling as an All-American kind of liddedness. I texted Tania several things about the All-American feel of this herb and mentioned something about this being serious hippie weed. About thirty to forty-five minutes were spent trying to navigate the effects. That’s what happens when you don’t follow your own advice to “go slow” on an unfamiliar herb.

The Follow-up

Once I got used to the heavy-stoned feeling I really liked it, I mean, I loved it! I kept wondering what the buds must have been like?!? I want some of those!

Smoking this herb makes me feel so All-American every time I smoke it. Something about the high reminds me of being under the hood of a muscle car, drinking Bud from a can and watching football games on a Sunday afternoon… none of which I’ve ever done – but it’s the vibe of the thing!

But the road getting to the high has been increasingly hard for me to get on. That leafy taste. It seems stronger every time I smoke it and the smell gets trapped in my nose. The smoke is harsh, even in the bong.

I smoked a fatty at 4:20 yesterday. The Motor Breath still tasted of chlorophyll rolled in a joint, but it burned very well, all the way down to the end. Now that I had smoked this herb a few times the high didn’t kick my butt so hard and ended up to be a really nice high – a relaxed, mellow and completely chill All-American high.

Even though this isn’t the flavor I’m looking for, some people really like the leafy taste. I’ve had friends that preferred that flavor. One of those friends grew amazing herb, but only smoked the leaf because the buds were too strong for her and she preferred the mellow leaf high. Of course, a joint of this stuff is going to be stronger than a “mellow high”.

The pouch of herb is actually really nice. Having the herb all ground up and ready to smoke isn’t bad, even though I love the ritual of cutting up the nugs myself. It reminds me of a pouch of tobacco, all ready to pour out into your rolling papers, so you can twist one up on the go.

My final thought – if you go easy on it, this herb is really great for creative activities, like writing. I wrote this article after about three or four hits of The Smoking Hippie’s Motor Breath, so there’s that.

Want to get Today's Sesh With Jon emailed to you everyday?
Now you can!

Sign up and you'll be included on the list 🙂

Let's get this sesh started!

Add your comments below...

We'd love to see a photo of what YOU'RE smoking, and hear your comments -
feel free to ask questions or start a discussion... we'd love to connect with you!

Until later, best of health ??