Chatting With The Emerald Cup's Tim & Taylor Blake
Founders of the NorCal-based Emerald Cup get ready for their 19th annual award show and talk helping small farmers in a competitive market
Check out Episode 3 of The Plant Lady, my podcast with San Diego Magazine here:
Last year, in April, just before I started my job at San Diego Magazine, I took a quick 24-hour trip up to Mendocino County to crash the judges’ meeting for 2022’s The Emerald Cup. It was a surprisingly arduous journey: an early morning flight from San Diego to SFO, from where I rented a car and drove a couple of hours to a ranch outside Ukiah to bed down for the night and check out the festivities for myself.
It was a peek behind the curtain that not many weedheads get to see, and I was grateful to be there. I was also ready for what was ahead of me: 24 hours of non-stop, intense weed smoking. Not just the volume, but also the quality, seeing as what was being bandied about was, without question, some of the finest buds known to man.
What I found what I got there was largely what I expected. A big table was filled with many familiar faces, both those I had admired in cannabis culture from afar and others who I knew very well as friends or sources. Fragrant smoke was a permanent fixture in the air, whether the high-flying joint or bong haze or the lower-hanging, heavier hash cloud. Around the table, people were shouting out different numbers, indicating specific flower samples, debating the various attributes of each, and stacking them up against others.
Mostly, I was impressed with the physicality of it all: there are dozens of samples. Hundreds in the case of the flower competition. It is an incredible feat to be able to test them all. Truthfully, I doubt I could do it, but these folks are committed.
Eventually, I ended up outside to take a smoke break (lol), where I got to chatting with Nikki and Swami, legendary Mendocino County growers and owners of regenerative cannabis brand Swami Select. They handed me a tightly rolled joint that instantly smelled like lemon and indicated to me that this was the chosen one—the winner of 2022’s flower category. I didn’t know whose it was, but even after a dry pull, it was clear to see why the judges went for it over others. It was delicious flower that I also figured was likely sun-grown. It ended up being Lemon Cake from Farmer & the Felon.
The following month, in LA, I attended the awards ceremony, where the flower winner was crowned alongside other champions in over 50 judged categories ranging from flower, cartridges, pre-rolls, solventless and BHO concentrates, and edibles to alternative cannabinoids, innovative products, photo, and dispensaries. It was a fun night, and a sort-of goodbye for me, since I was newly installed in my magazine job and knew that I would be stepping off the cannabis beat full-time, although not entirely (…obviously).
On this week’s episode of The Plant Lady, I chat with The Emerald Cup founder Tim Blake and his daughter Taylor about the upcoming award show, which will take place in Richmond, CA, on May 13. This is the cup’s 19th year, and, arguably, it’s one of its most difficult years, seeing as how conditions in the legal cannabis industry are more strained than ever. The Blakes and I chat about that, as well as their continued commitment to helping small farmers access the legal market and gain visibility when the chips are stacked against them. We also talk about the quirks of legalization and how it has harmed small farming communities in California, as well as the cultural considerations when holding a pan-California cannabis cup in this day and age.
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy episode 3 of The Plant Lady!
High Desert cannabis shisha: Cannabitch approved
Partner content
Cannabitch *The Newsletter* survives mainly off my own personal interest and the backing of a couple of hundred loyal and fantastically supportive readers. I know I don’t always post on a reliable schedule. The newsletter is very much subject to the whims of life and work, and I appreciate everyone sticking with me for what is now just about three full years since the newsletter transitioned from being a print column at San Diego CityBeat. Thank you!
I’ve flirted with paid ads in the past, and it’s something I’m cautious about for a number of reasons. Firstly, I want to be able to write whatever I want, of course, and I want to be ethical about it. Secondly, I don’t want my erratic publishing schedule to disappoint sponsors OR readers, so I try to be as upfront about what everyone’s getting as I can be. That said, I’m not totally against it, and when a partnership comes around that I can genuinely get behind, I think it’s worth a try.
Enter High Desert, a cannabis shisha company based in LA with strong San Diego roots (the couple that owns it lived in SD for a long time, operating and working in various traditional shisha bars). I was a shisha smoker going way back to high school, particularly because the East Village shisha bars in NYC never carded and also had killer Egyptian or other Middle Eastern food; plus, I liked smoking.
It’s a wonderful way to smoke, particularly because it’s so social. It’s an obvious vessel for weed. So, when the brand combined flavored shisha (the flavor pictured, pistachio ice cream, is also my favorite) with weed, something I’m usually weird about (I like the taste of weed, love it, even!), I was curious to try. Against my better judgment, I actually ended up loving it, flavors and all, as well as the mellow resulting high. You can really just sit there and chief on the pipe, and the high never gets too heavy. It’s the ultimate sesh tool. So, I asked them to help me with my set-up at home, and soon I was regularly smoking it in my own backyard, a replacement for the usual bongs and joints I tend to prefer to use to smoke weed. That abruptly ended once I got pregnant, but it’s a practice I hope to resume once I’m back in the game, so to speak.
So, welcome High Desert to the Cannabitch mix! You can find their products at dispensaries around California, and in San Diego at Torrey Holistics and Goldn Bloom.
