Why Colorado Tokers Love Super Sour Lemon

This cauliflower mania is starting to freak me out. As if bastardizing mashed potatoes weren’t enough, now they’re trying to take down pizza crusts. We’re not saving animals by sacrificing taste, people.

And after going down an Internet rabbit hole of cauliflower creations (there are a lot), I found out that cauliflower’s not even natural. It was made by selectively breeding wild cabbage. But then, most of our current fruits and vegetables were made that way. Also dogs and cats...and cannabis. Seeing what citrus fruits looked like before selective breeding painted a grim picture of our ancestors, who were stuck with a bunch of thick rinds and large seeds — much like ancient tokers, who smoked buds that looked more like industrial hemp than what we have today.

To celebrate how far horticulture has come in both areas of vegetation — and enjoy our long-awaited stretches of sunny weather — go buy an energetic citrus strain at your local dispensary.

You’re likely to find a few options to choose from, as strains with lemon, lime and orange flavors are popular among active and newer consumers. Tangie and Super Lemon Haze are common choices, but you can catch a rising star with Super Sour Lemon. Also known as Sour Lemon or Sour Lemon OG in other regions, Super Sour Lemon is a cross between California Sour and Lemon OG, providing mouth-sucking sour flavor without lacking sweetness, like a bag of SweeTarts.

As the invigorating smell suggests, Super Sour Lemon is a prime strain for active lifestyles, and those uplifting qualities aren’t compromised by heightened anxiety or chronic dry mouth, unlike with Super Lemon Haze. The strain’s flavor is also friendlier to beginners than Lemon Skunk, and more reminiscent of fruit and candy than rubber and gasoline.

You won’t see Super Sour Lemon in dispensaries on the same clip as Lemon Skunk or Super Lemon Haze, but the strain is still relatively easy to find. Ballpark Holistic Dispensary, Bonfire Cannabis, Fresh Baked, Frosted Leaf, Kaya Cannabis, the Joint, Levels, Rocky Road, Seed & Smith, Silver Stem and Sticky Buds have all carried it; some of these stores are supplied by wholesale growers like Veritas and Seed & Smith.

Looks: Expect oblong and fist-shaped buds that like to foxtail. These light-green buds look like a classic California sativa: They tend to stretch, and they have a chemical color that contrasts sharply with rusted pistils.

Smell: The aroma can fill up a room like Lemon Skunk, but it has more fruity and floral qualities than that of most sour strains. Like hints of lemon, lime and Granny Smith apples in a fruit salad, the strain’s sour notes are more sweet than gassy, with whiffs of bubble gum and soil rounding them out.

Flavor: Simpler than its aroma, Super Sour Lemon’s flavor is an earthy, sour experience, with notes of lemon and lime, and a grainy soil flavor blanketing all of it. Those fruity, sweet notes tend to linger as an aftertaste.

Effects: A “cleaner” high than most citrus-heavy sativas, though that energy can crash after a few hours of focus or physical activity. Anxiety and stress are also non-factors — so much so that I daresay it reduced any I might’ve had before smoking.

Home grower’s take: “Makes you pop up quick, and it’ll stay there for a bit without getting too strong. I don’t think this makes me as paranoid as Lemon Haze, though, and brings me up more than Lemon Skunk. It’s not Lemon Skunk in flavor — but I also love that Skunk flavor so much. You’ll need some experience with sativas to properly grow it, because it gets pretty tall and needs some topping if you want those longer buds to swell more. Let those buds breathe, and don’t be scared that they grow so fast early on. Feed them, and watch them really come into their own after two months or so.”

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