This is a description of a four-year research project to study the cannabis plant.
We arrive in Hoek Van Holland at 5am, in January 2019 on an overnight ferry from the UK with a Rottweiler puppy called Happy.
It was a bright sunrise but freezing cold following days of snow as we stood outside the ferry terminal eagerly awaiting the hire car I had booked, paid for and double checked was arriving at the perfect time...... so a couple of hours and a few phone calls later, it turned out it wasn’t happening.
So that was the start of a day filled with bus rides, train journeys and long walks but luckily public transport in the Netherlands is clean, efficient, reliable, and safe so we made it to our destination later that afternoon, a small rural city near the German border called Wageningen.
This was to be my base for four years while I carried out some cannabis research by personally collecting and testing hundreds of cultivars from dozens of coffeshops, local farmers and home growers across the Netherlands to learn as much about the subject as possible.
July 2019 saw us spending more time in one of our favourite places, Utrecht, where we had a hot tip to get some more haze, this time MangoHaze and AMGHaze from a local grower. There are few things better than relaxing with friends in a wholesome atmosphere consuming some tasty flowers on a summers’ day. These days are making us fall in love with this place.
August 2019 takes us right up to the Siberia of the Netherlands, that is Groningen far in the North of the country, for a selection of CaliforniaOrange and LemonCookies. CaliforniaOrange is one of the most important cultivars in my life. It really sparked my interest in the subject many years earlier so any opportunity to have some is one we jump at.
September 2019 was the chance to try TangerineDream and GrandDaddyPurple in a city near where I lived called Ede. I’ve always enjoyed cultivars with orange dominant terpene profiles and the TangerineDream was some of the strongest smelling and tasting orange flowers I have ever found; it was seriously delicious.
October 2019 and as the days get a bit shorter and the cooler weather moves in, it was time for GirlScoutCookies and GorillaGlue to go under the microscope. Both culitivars have been hugely successful imports from the USA over recent years.
November 2019 was a chance for a couple of classics, PureHaze and DurbanPoison delivered to my door by friends in the cannabis community. Both cultivars are personal favourites and seeds of DurbanPoison have become a part of our breeding stock by making several crosses with them.
December 2019 is all about celebrating with friends and family in the Netherlands with all the beautiful festive lights and bustling markets, so it was nice to find more classics with WhiteWidow and Skunk#1 warming us up on a frosty winters day.
January 2020 was the start of a crazy year that affected people worldwide but before we really understood the full impact of the impending pandemic, we found some Gelato and StrawberryBanana at a cosy coffeshop in Veenendaal.
February 2020 turned out to be the very cold and snowy calm before the Covid storm and we found ArjansHaze and KandyKush in Rotterdam. ArjansHaze really stood out as a favourite cultivar during this year.
March 2020 was the arrival of lockdown in the Netherlands and initially that included closure of the coffeshops but the nationwide queues that stretched around town centres convinced the government to change their mind and allow takeaway cannabis collections instead, so we found some AK47 and NevillesHaze locally without any issue.
April 2020 and some coffeshops are seeing record sales increases with more people staying at home and some people also preferring the takeaway style so despite the lockdown it was easy to find Haze#1 and LavenderHaze near to home.
May 2020 and the weather is starting to warm up as we are offered both StrawberryCough and GhostTrainHaze in S’Hertegenbosch by a friend we met while travelling around the country. Both cultivars were grown beautifully and the dried flowers were full of flavour.
June 2020 was the turn of IslandSweetSkunk and Tangie in Delft. Both flowers were really enjoyable and highly thought of locally as well as internationally. Delft is a city we instantly felt at home in. Hopefully, we’ll get to spend more time here in the future, it’s compact, lively, beautiful, and full of interesting places.
July 2020 was a chance to experience the city of Zwolle for one of my all-time favourite cultivars, the fresh and uplifting SuperLemonHaze followed by a local recommendation DutchTreat.
August 2020 was a blast from the past with UKCheese also known as ExodusCheese which played a significant role in my early experiences of the cannabis community in the UK years earlier and ACDC which is well known to produce higher than usual levels of CBD for recreational varieties, this cultivar was a real pleasure and we can see why it’s so well regarded as important breeding stock.
September 2020 was a chance to visit Eindhoven in the South of the Netherlands to try the mysterious G13 which has a history drenched in confusion but is highly thought of throughout the Netherlands and beyond and we also found another infamous cultivar BubbaKush which has paved the way for lots of modern varieties because of its success in many breeding programs.
October 2020 and it was time to visit one of the newest cities in the country with a very interesting story, built from scratch in the 1970s on what used to be the North Sea. They filled in a part of the water with sand and rocks until an island was created. On that island they built a thriving city full of amazing architecture and infrastructure. It’s a great example of Dutch vision, engineering and industriousness. Every tree and plant you’ll see there was imported but you’d never know. LemonSkunk and Blueberry are two cultivars that every cannabis enthusiast should try if they can, both were full of flavour with impactful effects. We got some seeds of both to use for farming and future breeding projects.
November 2020 took us back to Amsterdam where we cycled around the city looking for flowers we hadn’t tried before. It didn’t take too long until we had some KosherTangie and ChocolateHaze in the basket.
December 2020 and as the cities twinkle with festive lights once more, we met a friend in Amersfoort to collect some homegrown BruceBanner#3 and SkywalkerOG. Both were stand out cultivars and we were so impressed with the BruceBanner#3 it was added to the seed collection for testing.
January 2021 was the beginning of a brutal cold snap but a train ride to Haarlem to pick up SunsetSherbert and SourKush was well worth the journey.
February 2021 was an opportunity to see the Netherlands literally freeze, in fact so much that rivers, lakes and canals that are normally too thin to bear weight were covered with people of all ages from early morning until dark, no wonder they win so many skating medals!! We trekked through the ice and snow for some CriticalMass and PineappleChunk. The CriticalMass became an integral part of our breeding program with so many qualities passed on to the progeny.
March 2021 took us to Tilburg to meet a colleague who had some SilverHaze and HashPlant which were both grown to perfection and had everyone captivated with their impact. Both were rich in profile, completely covered in the stickiest trichomes and left us feeling totally satisfied. We immediately collected some seeds of both for our collection.
April 2021 and around rolls 420 once again, it was time to celebrate with BuddhaHaze and LemonShiningSilverHaze in the city of Den Haag, also known as the Hague, where much of Dutch government business is handled as well as hosting the international court of justice. It is a big city by Dutch standards and is right on the coast with access to popular beaches and overall has a friendly atmosphere. There were lots of public tulip displays to enjoy too.
May 2021 and Spring is in full swing as we had some BananaOG and OGKush delivered to our office in Wageningen for testing. Both are famous cultivars with a rich history within the cannabis community with OGKush being a staple of many growers and consumers alike. We managed to get some seeds to join the ever-growing collection.
June 2021 arrived and on a hot summers day we travelled to Breda and found JuicyFruit and MauieWauie at a private club. They both had mouth-watering aromas and were a treat for the palette. We would encourage experienced consumers to try these if you can.
July 2021 was an opportunity to head back to Amsterdam where a coffeshop was selling both BigBuddhaCheese and LaughingBuddha so we snapped them up for a test run. We headed to Vondelpark and watched the world cycle by while we relaxed long into the light evening with a beautiful sunset finishing off a memorable day.
August 2021 led us to a city near the Belgian border called Breda where we met a farmer who was friends with one of our neighbours, and they had some CaseyJones and Headband which was a great surprise as both had been on our list but were proving tricky to find. We were incredibly grateful and neither cultivar disappointed.
September 2021 brought the start of a warm autumn with loads of long sunny evenings, and one of those evenings we wandered around the city of Leiden, eventually finding WhiteHaze and PurePowerPlant PPP to add to the experience. In summary we loved the city and the flowers.
June 2022 was one of our own creations, MorningFire, which made up part of our testing and breeding program, as the mayor of Amsterdam pushed ahead with plans to ban tourists from coffeshops to reduce anti-social behaviour.
July 2022 was another of our own creations called HappyThunder and we were delighted with how it turned out.
August 2022 was another tester we made, TheProblemSolver while throughout the Netherlands there were major farmers protests, blockading motorways and causing widespread disruption to raise awareness of Government plans to forcibly buy out and close hundreds of farms to meet EU targets on environmental protection.
September 2022 was our pleasure to receive some homegrown GrapeApe which was heavily coated in shiny and sticky trichomes and had an instant knockout effect. It was a big hit and was added to the other seeds ready for farming and breeding with.
October 2022 brought an end to a long, dry summer with an old school classic called Shishkaberry which had a warm, comforting effect that confirmed why it has been such a staple over the years.
November 2022 was Hazeberry and this period was dominated by the ever-growing inflation and cost of living crisis however cannabis stays the same, in fact it's hardly changed in 20 years, I wonder why that is.
December 2022 and we enter the pretty festive period with more twinkling lights, frozen canals and head into the new year with an insane number of fireworks. The Dutch set off more fireworks on this one night than most countries added together, use all year, it’s almost overwhelming for some but lots of fun too.
In summary we had the best time and would highly recommend a trip around the Netherlands to explore everything it has to offer :)