It’s a classic strain. I can remember it from coffee shop menus in Amsterdam, back in the day. 2002, 2008. But until this week I had never smoked any White Widow.
With the help of an eighth I bought at the Beyond Hello just over the river in Sauget, IL, I have now rectified this decades-long oversight. White Widow is a landrace strain. It’s not derived from a single place but it’s the result of crossing two landraces, a Brazilian sativa and a South Indian indica. The resulting cross leans sativa, in my opinion.
I bought the jar early this month. It had been packaged a mere two and a half weeks earlier, so this was a pretty fresh jar of frosty White Widow. The flower weighed out to 3.57g. I wouldn’t call these nugs sticky, not quite. There were plenty of white crystals covering the green buds. I’d call the size of the nugs large popcorn. They were not large buds. It was something like eleven or twelve mid-sized buds. My guess is that this bud came from a larger crop of White Widow that Aeriz was bringing to market. (Aeriz owns the UpNorth brand, as well as Fig Farms and ’93 Boyz.)
These nugs ground up well. I used a Sharpstone grinder, which doesn’t grind as fine as some of my other grinders but it does tear through bud better than any grinder I’ve used, even some of the stickier stuff. If I had torn this White Widow up with my fingers, I would’ve had some sticky fingers but the bud was not so sticky as to gum up my Sharpstone.
Grinding the bud accentuated the aroma, which was pungent and tangy, even a little sour. It’s that sharp bud smell that almost makes you feel the high coming on before you’ve even smoked the flower. An aroma that makes me cringe a little behind the eyes, as if I’ve eaten something sour or bitter.
I tasted something similar when I lit up a joint of the White Widow. If crystals had a flavor, or if the color white had a flavor, it would taste like this White Widow. White-rock opium, if there were such a thing, might smoke like this bud. There was also a cheesy note to the taste, that cheese puff terpene.
I found one small seed while grinding. I don’t mind finding an occasional seed. It wasn’t the greatest-looking bud. You can see from the photo that there is some leaf present on the buds. They don’t have that dense, shaved-down look. They are a little “puffy” instead of dense and chiseled. But upon grinding the bud, neither did I find a lot of what look like seed shells, those thin seed-shaped membranes that aren’t worth anything in a joint. I don’t think this plant was going to seed.
…Then an hour or two passes while I smoke and experience the White Widow’s effects…
It’s been a little while now since I smoked most of a third-of-a-gram joint. The taste was sharp, not unpleasant. Acerbic. The head rush is notable. It’s a pretty strong immediate effect to the head. The White Widow is racy to start out, so beware, fellow smokers.
It makes me wonder if the term “racy” actually does derive somehow from these landrace strains. I can think of other landrace strains that I would also describe as imparting racy effects on the smoker. Durban Poison is often a racy smoke. Although I have never smoked the Burmese sativa landrace as a standalone strain, I believe more and more that it’s the Burmese sativa lineage in Sunset Sherbet/Gelato strains that gives me an unmistakable bite when I smoke Sherb strains.
After the strong inquisitous head rush, the experience transitioned smoothly into a functional, task-oriented high. What did I need to do? Put food out for the birds, seed and suet. Clean the floors. I grabbed a bucket and a mop, ran some hot water, added some wood soap. Mopped. I was still feeling introspective. I was going back in my head to yesteryear. I would describe this effect as memory-racing. I was wandering around in my head.
This was the second time I had smoked on this batch of White Widow. I felt similar effects the first time, although the first time I smoked it was at night and not during the day. The first time I also felt that the White Widow high had a trippy edge to it. I was seeing some strange after-effect images. What are called hypnagogic images. Flashes, or smoldering burns that are in the air, except of course they are not, they are on my eyes, except of course they are not, they are only in the mind.
The White Widow high came and went in waves. It’s good stuff. It makes me wonder what a second joint two or three hours after the first might produce. This bud has quite a grip. I could use it during the day or at night. At least 65/35 leaning sativa. Aromatic and tasty with stronger-than-average effects. It is listed for $40 an eighth in Sauget, IL. I had a discount that took the price down to $32, which was worth it for this smoker.
Weeds of Grass 