Enter Mandarin Cookies. Mostly popcorn buds but a few are a little larger. Looked good, light green, hairy with trichome glitter. Some aroma, chocolate-y and citrus-y. Nice density to the buds. A little sticky. The grind looked alright, a little shell-y but no seeds. I’ve got no problem finding the occasional stout brown and black dino egg seed but a number of little white ones would raise a flag.
Where was I. This is a strain review of Mandarin Cookies V2, a cannabis flower eighth marketed by &Shine, which is one of several labels used in Illinois and other states by Green Thumb Industries, aka GTI. Since I bought this eighth in the spring of 2024, the shine seems to have worn off the &Shine label because I don’t see it on the menu much anymore. The “budget” label of choice for GTI now appears to be “Good Green.”
This eighth was sold in a plastic jar with a tamper-proof seal but without any additional seal on the jar under the cap. It had a package date of 02.01.2024. I opened it on February 16th of this year, 2025. So it was pretty old. And yet, and yet.
I varied between smoking these Mandarin Cookies out of a glass bowl or in the form of a joint/marijuana cigarette. I wrote many short snippets about my experience across various sessions as I burned through this eighth with relative speed. These Cookies were a great smoke. They provided a gentle up-lift. They were steady fuel. No doubt I would get them again. Especially considering this eighth retails at $25 per, and although I don’t specifically recall I am fairly certain I used one of several discounts Beyond/Hello in Sauget, IL offers their customers. Buy two eighths, get 15% off each. Buy on a Friday or a Saturday, get 20% or even 30% of everything you buy.
Effects
The Mandarin Cookies were tastiest out of the glass bowl. They were puffable and tasty: they had that creamy flavor and texture. Pleasant. The effects were right down Hybrid Lane. Calming. Not stoned, not needing to sit down, offering the pause to refresh. I smoked them at home and I also had some left the last time I was out at this farm I visit in the middle of Missouri. It’s quiet out there. Cattle country. Rural, bucolic, pastoral. I was just smoking Mandarin Cookies and listening to a baseball podcast. Spring Training is underway.
Any time a smoke has me putting pen to paper, the flower has passed my effects test. The high has me feeling peripatetic, willing to wander. It led me to ponder, but not in a heavy way. Aside from strains that just did not do it for me, this was some of the least bitey weed I have had in the last few months. I get high without being dragged down into the deliberative dungeon. I get a buzz without getting paranoid. This seems to be the goal.
When I smoked the Cookies in joint form I could see just how well this flower was burning. Excellent burn. The joint was still burning when I dropped it to the ground, just a bit of flower left in what was a .28g joint rolled in single-wide paper with a crutch/tip at the smoking end.
Mandarin Cookies Lineage
Mandarin Sunset x GSC (Forum Cut)
Girl Scout Cookies is well known and straight forward. It’s one of the most common parents out there. OG Kush crossed with F1 Durban.
The Mandarin Sunset lineage is unusual, with curiosities up and down the line of both parents. Herijuana on one side is composed of Petrolia Headstash and Killer New Haven. Whoa! Say what? Killer New Haven is traced to the American state of Kentucky, not exactly the first state that comes to mind when I think about marijuana cultivation but it goes to show. The Headstash traces back to Afghanistan.
The other parent of Mandarin Sunset is Orange Velvet, hailing from an Unknown Strain and Skunk #1. Skunk #1 appears to result from the admixture of three landraces: Mexiko, Kolumbien, and Afghanistan. I wonder, as an aside, about what seem to be the intentional misspellings of Mexico and Columbia. I see this with other landraces as well (e.g. Californian). Is this because the countries object to having their names associated with cannabis. And Afghanistan has never made the request, or it is simply not a priority, or the government there is too attenuated?
In summary, the Mandarin Cookies was excellent. A long smooth ride. It was common to have that high last four hours.
I get it now. You go to the desert and forget everything. The Cookies helped me see that. If you’re done, you can just hang up.
Weeds of Grass 