Do you love handling fresh cannabis flower (but secretly yearn for the clean, smooth experience of using a vaporizer)? A new crop of portable, efficient and discreet dry herb vape pens and tabletop herb vaporizers is delivering the best of both worlds. If you’re an aficionado of top-shelf buds, this is one experience you’ve got to try!
Cannabis Basics: What’s a Vaporizer?
Vaporizing is a relatively new science, especially considering that smoking cannabis has a history of at least a couple of thousand years! Whether they’re convenient vape pens or more elaborate tabletop models, all vaporizers work on the same principle: By applying very precise heat to either a cannabis extract or—in the case of a dry herb vape pen or herb vaporizer—to cannabis flower. This allows the cannabis to release its potent oils into an inhalable mist rather than into smoke.
What’s the advantage? Don’t they both deliver the cannabinoids and terpenes we want? The short answer is “yes,” but there are significant differences. For one thing, vaporizing flower is easier on our lungs and airways because it doesn’t actually burn the cannabis, but merely heats it to the point at which its volatile oils release as a fine and gentle mist.
That’s a big deal. While smoking cannabis is objectively safer than smoking, say, tobacco, that’s not to say that it’s completely risk-free. Any time we inhale combusted plant matter, we’re introducing potential irritants into our lungs.
Vaping Dry Herb: Flower, Amplified
What about the sensory experience? That’s a major question for those who love the experience of breaking apart and crumbling fresh, fragrant buds with their fingertips. Here’s our take.
Whether you use a standard vape pen—which vaporizes potent cannabis concentrate—or a dry herb vape pen or vaporizer, the cannabis it actually delivers to our lungs is the same cooling, gentle mist.
For those used to smoking cannabis flower, it’s definitely a change of pace and intensity. Unless you take an unreasonably massive hit from a vaporizer, you generally won’t cough and belch mouthfuls of smoke. For some, that’s a downside; for others it’s what we call “progress.” No shine on either; they’re just two sides of the same coin.
But while some roasters claim the mist from a vaporizer isn’t potent or flavorful enough, we respectfully disagree. In our experience, vaporized cannabis exhibits just as many (or more) of the characteristic, strain-specific flavors and aromas of smoked cannabis, but without the harsh and potentially bitter smoke produced by combusting plant matter. Again, where you fall on this question is largely a matter of taste. They’re all good in our book.
Herb Vaporizers: Play With Your Plants
And if you love playing with your plants, the good news is that—unlike standard vape pens—dry herb vaporizers give you plenty of opportunities to interact with your buds: Breaking those beautiful green nugs into aromatic little chunks, feeling their sweet and sticky resin on your fingertips, and all the other joys of premium cannabis. In fact, dry herb vaporizers work best with finely ground flower, so you’ll have even more of an opportunity to get up close and personal with your cannabis.
If you can’t tell, we’re pretty psyched about vaporizers. But whichever direction your personal taste runs, there’s a great chance we’ve got what you’re looking for. Stop by our Sherman Oaks dispensary sometime and chat us up about vaporizing your flower, dry herb vape pens, or anything else in the world of cannabis!
