Marijuana Strain Review: Grape Krush at Green Heart

Being surrounded by so many pot shops in Denver can encourage procrastination. No longer do I have to sit by the phone and wait for a flaky dealer to call me back; I can go buy weed whenever I want. Whenever I want before 7 p.m., anyway, thanks to Denver’s cutoff on dispensary hours. So when I ran out of weed after eight one recent night, I knew a trip to Aurora was in store. But where, exactly? Some new dispensaries had opened since I’d last visited, so I used westword.com’s dispensary page (shameless plug, I know, but it’s what I did) to find a new dispensary: Green Heart, at 19005 East Quincy Avenue, which opened just six weeks ago.

If it weren’t for the fluorescent green lights outside of Green Heart, I would have driven right by it in the dark. Luckily for me, most people buy their pot long before bedtime, so once I got there, I had the budtender all to myself. Not that he was particularly helpful: The shop’s lineup of at least fifteen strains seemed pretty robust, and my eyes kept gravitating toward the indica side, but he couldn’t answer any of my questions about genetics and effects. The Grape Krush, dotted in spots of midnight purple, had enough visual appeal to pique my interest, though, so I bought a gram for $17.34 after tax and thanked my budtender for nothing.


Like most heavy purple strains, Grape Krush is known for its candy-like flavors and haymaker hits. It was bred by strain savant DJ Short with blueberry genetics and is celebrated for its deep violet or blue colors and heavy body relaxation. My bottle might as well have been full of Grape Crush soda, with the scents of grape and sugar bombarding my nostrils. The smell was so sweet that it was almost intoxicating — like smelling a syrupy Popsicle after having one too many. Just as impressive and in-your-face was the bud quality: The bright-green buds were covered in a blanket of milky and amber trichomes; add in the streaks of purple, and they were dark enough to almost disappear. Presentation is always part of the score, and this Grape Krush was off to a hot start.

A few late-night bowls provided fast relaxation, especially in my abdomen. I had dinner about 45 minutes before smoking, but that didn’t stop a munchie-inducing high from taking over my stomach and mind. The intense grape flavors from the Krush had me in the mood for something sweet, so I caved and stole some of my roommate’s charoset — a delicious Jewish dish of apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, walnuts and grape Manischewitz all mixed together. He wasn’t happy, but I blame the Grape Krush: a delicious indica, perfect for midnight sedation and lowering your respect for others' leftovers.

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