Seed Catalogs

The Fly 'N Hy coffeeshop has three small round tables outside where customers can enjoy a coffee or cola while smoking. It reminded me of my first coffeeshop experience, years ago, when we were wandering around some town (Arnhem, I think) and wanted to find a cafe so we could sit and have a cup of coffee. Not in the habit of discriminating between the terms "coffeeshop" and "cafe," we went into a coffeeshop and I tried to order a decaf. No go. So, being pregnant and wanting to avoid caffeine, I asked if they had any herbal tea. Well, a menu full of herbs they had, but none of it was in tea form.


It was just such an herb menu I was hoping to come away with this time. There was one posted on the board behind the counter, listing varieties, quantities, and prices, but I didn't see a take-out menu. So I asked the kid behind the counter if they had one. Clearly,  management policy at this place dictates that staff should be personally familiar with the shop's products, because if anybody was Fly 'N Hy, it was that kid. Eventually, despite my accent and the kid's blood THC level, I got a sign that there had been comprehension and and answer (no).


Unfortunately, since there was no take-out menu and I didn't hang out long enough to memorize the posted offerings, I can't fully report on what was available. I do remember it was sold in strange amounts, among them 0.8 gram, 1.5 grams, or, in the case of one substance, a joint. Actually, even if I could remember what was on the menu it wouldn't do much good; they were just names like "White Widow," "Purple Tops," and "Bob Marley's Best." I'm not sure I ever even knew that pot came in varieties; at least I never gave it any thought. At Fly 'N Hy you're Fly 'N Solo if you don't already know the difference between hash and marijuana, much less the difference between one species of weed and another. I've met better wine menus; you can sometimes get a description of the wine's characteristics, or at least a grouping by color or dryness. I suppose if you want advice you can ask the staff, but if you want to know why I didn't try that I refer you to the previous paragraph.


Luckily the seed catalogs (and I am not talking tulips!) kindly made available by the smartshop were wondrously educational. Each catalog listed at least twenty different varieties, split into "indoor" and "outdoor" sections and with individual growing advice. Each entry lists plant height, buzz type, THC level, weeks flowering, genetic background, yield, and harvest month. (Also I learned that magic mushrooms are referred to here as "truffles").


"But DoubleDutchDeb!" you exclaim, "All of these categories are objective and quantitative except 'buzz type,' which is subjective and qualitative! What, exactly, are the domains of buzz? What are the criteria? How is all this determined and validated? And what about multicollinearity of the factors involved?"  


Well, I just knew you'd ask those very questions, so here, based on the Royal Queen Seeds and High Quality Seeds catalogs, is what I have learned about the all-important "buzz type" variable, summarized in graphic form. Those of you who participated in our monthly wine tasting group back in Maryland will recognize this graphic as a highly simplified knock-off of the wine aromas wheel painstakingly developed by A.C. Noble et al. at U.C. Davis in the 1980's and published in the esteemed American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, in an article entitled "Modification of a Standardized System of Wine Aroma Terminology" (1987). I am considering submitting my somewhat-less-painstakingly-developed Sativa-Indica Effects Wheel to High Times, a periodical perhaps not so highly esteemed as but undoubtedly more widely read than the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture.