Leafly Buzz: 14 best weed strains of February

Remember your New Year’s resolution to smoke better weed? Leafly remembers. 

This month’s roundup of the hot-hot new-new in the multi-billion dollar West Coast cannabis flower market includes the debut of Cookies brand “Worms”-shaped rosin. TropCookies’ famous Oni Seed Co. flower hits California dispensary shelves. We also serve up new GMOs and Chems, plus a trippy, new Cap Junky cross. The following flavors are popping in shops, events, and on our experts’ dashboards—they’re our favorite buds in the review bin and beyond. Here comes Leafly Buzz for February 2023.

Data grinder

Permanent Marker

⬆ 10.8%

Leafly Strain of the Year 2022 Jealousy hybrids continue to make their mark in 2023. Strain page visits climbed 10.8% month over month for Permanent Marker—(Biscotti x Sherb Bx1) x Jealousy F3—with its sickly sweet Sharpie-like fumes. It’s $80 per bag from Doja Pak in California dispensaries, proving the thesis that if it’s good enough, people will drop $80 an eighth for it. Share your Permanent Marker head stash with a select few on clean glass, or in a big joint. Clones of Permanent Marker are just getting under cultivation and we can’t wait till everyone can sniff ’em.

Agent X

⬆ 6.8%

Look out for Agent X lurking on the top shelf in California—up 6.8% from last month. Alien Labs’ small-batch, AAA-grade indoor cross of Atomic Apple and Xeno #1 keeps abducting all our money. Agent X expresses genes from both the Apple Fritter and Kush Mints line, making for a gassy Zkittlez mint. We continue to see flawless work coming from Zkittlez and Kush Mints projects and the whole world is watching. 

Peanut Butter Breath

⬆ 6.7%

Michigan’s best breeders keep influencing what we’re doing out west with Thug Pug’s Peanut Butter Breath. It chugs along in the western US—up 6.8% in strain page visits from the West Coast thanks to its nutty, potent stank. PB Breath mixes Dosidos (Leafly Strain of the Year 2021) and Mendo Breath F2. The nut strain dates to at least 2016 and has become a commodity crop, but when done right, it’s irresistible. Get acquainted with all the Breath crosses: Gorilla Butter, White Truffle, and Bulletproof Genetics’ smoky line of Deep Breath crosses.

Blue Dream

⬆ 6.6%

Something is happening with Blue Dream, readers. Like a huge blip on the sonar screen, this top 10 whale of strain is again on the move on the West Coast, up 6.6% in strain page visitors month over month. We’ve seen top-shelf brands like Korova do throwback Blue Dream with primo results. Smoakland delivery promises a $99 Blue Dream this month that’s “beloved” and hits 32% THC. Blue Dream’s tide appears to be coming back in, and we’re getting out the big jars.

New in the Leafly strain database

Rainbow Cheddar

‘Where the Cheese strains at?’ they ask me. Best I can do is Rainbow Cheddar. It’s a Z x Cheese project at Compound Genetics. We’ve tasted crosses from it with that charcuterie plate mix of jellied fruit and brie. Hybridization compounds each parent’s loudness—a clever move. Compound’s new drop Perzimmon (Rainbow Cheddar x GastroPop) furthers the project. But who else grows some real Cheese? UK Cheese? Big Buddha Cheese? Who claims that stank? Let’s make a Cheese wave, Leafly Nation.

The Doggy Bagg

You gotta hand it to Snoop Dogg—his strains don’t miss. In the heat of battle, they don’t miss. The Doggy Bagg is a fire Project 4516 x Zkittlez #18 project from Grandiflora of Oakland, CA, marketed, grown, and sold through Cookies. The Doggy Bagg debuted to crazy lines in 2021 and has simmered down to a more sustainable hype level. The Doggy Bagg gives the streets what they need, an improved Runtz analog: Fruity, candy, earthy, fuel that’ll set you back nicely after a frustrating day stuck in traffic.

Mango Fruz

Grab some five-pound weights and crush some freaky deeky aerobic dance moves. Mango Fruz will rocket you to the tropics for a sweaty beach workout. Seed Junky Genetics’ Mango x Pineapple Fruz exudes an enticing, mango smell, and a sweet Zkittlez exhale with bright, electric effects. Mango Fruz smalls went for a bargain from Posh Green Boutique in San Francisco. The term ’smalls’ refers to smaller-sized buds, but small stays mighty with these frosty, tropical fuel nugs, grown in Northridge, CA under the breeder’s Farmacopia license.

Jigglers

Attention, America. We are tracking several radar signatures of the Red Pop strain loitering in the upper levels of the hyposphere. High-tolerance forces have attacked the strain Red Pop with fire and report back that it is indeed, zaza, and part of a sortie of sweet hybrids that includes Falcon 9 x Red Pop, Cherry Cosmo (Red x Baker’s Dozen), and Jigglers (Gelato x Red Pop). Washington breeder Exotix Genetix bred Jigglers along with a slew of phenomenal, high-THC, candy-forward cultivars. The Jigglers strain smells and tastes sour, fruity, funky, tart, and sugary. Its indica hybrid effects relax the body and mellow the mood. If you see Jigglers or any more Red Pop crosses—do your duty and attack them with fire.

Picks of the dispensaries

New

Zeluga from Oni Seed Co., CA

Come out of winter hibernation mode with Oni Seed Co. Zeluga— Kush Mintz x (Zkittlez x Zahiti Lime). This hybrid party and chill strain wants to make friends, offering a sugary, minty, floral soapy smell. Grind it up and notes of lime, pine, grape Smarties powder, and raspberry might pop out. Oni Seed Co. made its name with Tropicana Cookies found in current hits Trop Cherry and Super Boof. Now the Oni brand sells in at least 11 California shops with excellent flower, bred and grown indoors under Binske’s Southern California license. The Zeluga stands on its own, but Oni throws in a 5-pack of Oni Seeds for $1. Oni Seed Co focuses on hash-optimized strains that yield maximum resin and fragrance for extracts. The still-in-development Oni rosin and hash holes we also tasted do justice to the name.

Hot

Z Cap by Floracal, CA

Skip the magic mushrooms: Z Cap offers a heart-pounding, brutally introspective, 90-minute trip. Z Cap combines Zkittlez x Cap Junky, which is pretty wild since the parent Cap Junky is just starting its wave. Floracal brand indoor-grown Z Cap cannot be beaten for twice the price. Expert cannabis smokers will easily get over their skis on this icy, pungent, high-energy beast of a strain. A thin candy shell of bergamot Z jelly aroma cracks open to reveal a noseful of bite from the Alien OG in Alien Cookies. Sweetness precedes a dank fuel that blows out your palate, and max-THC bites on your chest. Half a rip brings a buzzing numbing psychic stone. A full bongload challenges the doors of perception while tasting much better than shrooms. 

Top

Ballin out

Garlic Blossom by A Golden State, CA

A Golden State brings adventurous fine dining to your weed bowl with Garlic Blossom—GMO x Baccio Gelato in a deep, purple, fragrant bud. The mix of savory and sweet genes adds complexity to each other and brings on relaxation and appetite. A Golden State grows indoors in Shasta County, CA, and runs on hydroelectric power from the Sierra snowpack. Just up the freeway from Sacramento—Shasta’s main city Redding, CA offers superb spots for indoor grows, with Ember Valley and others there as well. With the snowpack running 200% of normal, A Golden State should stay gold in 2023.

Ballin’ on a budget

Garlotti by Burr’s Place, CA

It’s time to start the Ugly Weed movement. Sure, this Burr’s PlaceGarlotti might not look dramatic, or spectacular. Stop judging ganja solely by how it blings. Lots of “ugly” weed smells, tastes, and feels straight-up better than Instagram weed. Ask Zkittlez. (And it’s not even ugly by historical standards.) Anyway, Cannarado’s bred Garlotti is Chemdog x Gelatti grown organic-like outdoors and crushing it at a blistering 34.53% THC. Set aside the score. The nose knows: The savory, garlic funk warns of the deep-bodied, disabling indica hybrid stone. A total counterpoint to the Garlic Blossom above. Trust your nose and join the Ugly Weed movement.

High Note

Worms by Cookies

You buy sliced lunch meat and stick it in your sandwiches, right? Now you can buy sliced hash and stick it in your joints and blunts.

Cookies Maywood in Los Angeles facilitates the rosin and hash hole movement with the debut of Worms—a Cereal A La Mode strain hash rosin worm. You buy one, roll it into a joint, and boom—your whole clique goes to flavor town. Then Taco Bell. There will be munchies.

Worms come in 0.3-gram and 0.5-gram sizes for $20 or $30,—a value considering some rosins go for $90 a gram. The hand-shaped and hand-packaged run of Cookies Worms totals several hundred units. More artisanal hash delicacies in 2023, please.

And that’s it for our high-res, real-time snapshot of the exotic pot landscape west of The Rockies. Check-in with Leafly’s high-altitude weed weather station in March. We’ll keep watch.

What are you smoking on, Leafly Nation? Comment below.