The Austin Chronic: The Taste of Texas Hemp Cup Wants You to Get Them High
“It’s incredible to watch these farmers and the genetics get better every year”
By Kevin Curtin, Fri., July 26, 2024
At a boutique hemp farm in deep East Austin, I’m sitting around a conference table with Liz Grow (real name) and Geremy Greens (not real name) hitting a glass bong loaded with some freshly cured Lava Cake (real name), which is a hemp strain high in THCA.
Grow, a cannabis media specialist, is drumming up interest in an annual event she co-founded: the Taste of Texas Hemp Cup, where the Lone Star State’s legal, licensed cultivars compete in categories like Best Hemp Flower, Best Hemp Concentrate, and Most Pungent. Liz is a potent ambassador for such a competition because she’s so passionate about the growing community that she’s bringing together for the Cup’s fourth iteration in October. The same thrill one might get from meeting a cherished musician or athlete, she gets from meeting the breeder of her favorite strain. That fandom manifests at the Hemp Cup, which effectively puts a face to the local cannabis industry.
So, for someone who geeks out over weed, I can see why she brought me to Geremy Greens Farm. His high-grade hemp bud, sold directly to customers online and also in various stores like the Glassmith and Smoking Burnouts, is as beautiful as anything you’d expect to find in a recreational state’s dispensaries. Three bong rips has me impressed with its taste and psychoactive effects, too.
Greens, an ex-stockbroker and oil industry entrepreneur who became disenchanted with cutthroat capitalism and found a more inspiring existence as a craft cannabis cultivator, has a dialed-in hybrid setup in the farmland out toward Webberville. His team grows plants throughout their vegetative stage outdoors (with some supplemental lighting to maintain the desired photoperiods) then flowers them in a large indoor grow facility. Unsurprisingly, the buds produced here took home top honors at the last Taste of Texas Hemp Cup.
“I didn’t really go into it as a competition, but more of an exposition,” Greens says of his motivation for entering the Cup. “I wanted more people to see our product and I also wanted to see what the talent pool was with other licensed growers in Texas. The difference in quality between 2021 and 2022 was amazing. And I expect the difference to be even bigger this year. It’s incredible to watch these farmers and the genetics get better every year because we know more about the plant and more about the consumer.”
But Greens is not competing in October, instead taking a more involved approach and as an expert judge at TTHC’s main event, which will be held Oct. 19 at the Far Out Lounge. He sees the Cup as a way for cultivators to connect with each other and exchange notes and experiences that will continue to raise the quality of Texas-grown smokable hemp.
So what will he be looking for as a judge?
“I want to see fresh bud that’s been treated with care, but – I’m just gonna say it – it’s all about the cure,” he says, referring to the crucial aging process that cannabis flower undergoes after being harvested from the plant. “You can make mediocre bud taste great by curing it well and you can make good bud taste amazing – that’s the secret-sauce stuff.”
Liz Grow says that the list of entrants in TTHC are balanced between hobbyists with a license and commercial growers – among all of them, she says, there’s invariably a great character devoted to growing the best bud possible.
“One thing we rediscover every year about the growers who participate in the Cup is that, whether it’s a multi-state operator or a small team, there’s always that one cultivator at the top, one leader, and it’s not growing-by-committee,” she offers. “And when you meet the head cultivator, they’re going to be the coolest, most inspirational, most loving person.”
Grow believes it’s a common misconception that hemp is easier to cultivate than marijuana.
“I would argue that it’s much more difficult to grow hemp in the way these cultivators are growing it than it is to find a really great cannabis genetic that’s been floating around in legal markets for a long time,” she contends. “With hemp we don’t have that. Every year we meet a new hemp strain because breeders have been working on it season after season.”
Speaking of new hemp strains, Texas A&M has invested their resources into a hemp breeding team aiming to suss out the genetics needed to cultivate a strain that’s heat-resistant enough to emerge as a profitable industrial crop in Texas. Those researchers are an official judging partner at the Hemp Cup. Along with expert judges like Greens, local superstoners are invited to become judges as well. For $100 you get a box shipped to you that has samples of every kind of hemp flower entered in the competition for you to evaluate. Meanwhile, quantitative categories, like Highest CBG, are judged through scientific analysis done by SC Labs.
The Hemp Cup has also sweetened its scope with the addition of the Lone Star Baked Off, which aims to identify the best infused chocolates, gummies, baked goods, and candies in the state. Like the cultivation categories, the new confectionery competition largely spotlights small businesses in Texas’ cannabis economy.
Sarah Trimmier has been providing Central Texans with cannabis-infused delicacies since 2019. Her edible enterprise, Wickedly Lovely Candy and Treats, offers artisanal baked goods and gummies, which come in a vast array of flavors including prickly pear and passion fruit. She also operates a sister business, TaDa Party Fairies, that hosts frequent infused dinner parties where 30 or so people eat through courses of savory and sweet stoney dishes while listening to live music by Austin artists.
Trimmier, a registered nurse with additional medical cannabis certifications, says she wants to “bring professionalism to an underground market” with a focus on healthy, organic ingredients and foods that have been tested and labeled for potency – so diners don’t overmedicate themselves.
“My goal is to provide healing cannabis medicine to the people who need it,” she says. “Not just to have fun, but for their health.”
In addition to signing on to cater the VIP sections at October’s Taste of Texas Hemp Cup, Trimmier’s also entered the Lone Star Baked Off with a signature item: Biscoff Brownies.
“The whole thing about the competition is getting out there and having people try our products and letting us know what they think,” she says. “It’s not about being the best, but bringing the best-quality products to the people of Texas.”
Hemp cultivators, infused bakers, and concentrate makers still have time to become champions. Competition samples for the Taste of Texas Hemp Cup are due Sept. 20.
