Juicy Jay's Hemp Double Wraps, Red Alert

Two wrap lines, two ways of putting flavour on them

Juicy Jay's sells two hemp wraps and it is easy to assume the only difference is which flavour you fancy. It is not.

The terpene enhanced line, which we stock in Amarillo, is exactly what the name says. Terpenes, the aromatic compounds that give plants their smell, are applied to the leaf. The flavours in that line are named after hop cultivars, which we wrote about on its own page because hops and cannabis turn out to be close botanical relatives.

This line works differently. Sellers describe these as made with the company's Triple Dip Flavour System, a dipping process Juicy Jay's has used across its flavoured papers for years, and the flavours are named the way confectionery is named. Red Alert is a blend of red fruits, generally described as strawberry, cherry and berry.

That distinction is worth having because it changes what you get. An aromatic treatment reads as botanical and sits behind whatever you are smoking. A dipped fruit flavour is sweeter, more forward and more obviously a flavour. Neither is better and people are firmly divided about which they want.

We should be straight about our sourcing on the Triple Dip point. That wording comes from retailers rather than from a brand page we could open, and the longest UK listing for this product runs to about five hundred and fifty words without once saying how the wraps are flavoured. So we are reporting the process as sellers describe it rather than as something the manufacturer has confirmed to us.

Which rather makes the point. Two products, two genuinely different approaches, and the entire market selling them presents the difference as though it were a colour choice.

Double means two of them, not twice as thick

This confuses people and the naming does nothing to help. Hemp Double Wraps sounds like a wrap of double thickness, which would be a meaningful thing to sell.

It is not that. Double refers to there being two wraps in the pack. The leaf is a normal wrap.

One seller makes it worse by describing them as double-packed and adding that this ensures durability, which reads like a claim about the material rather than a count of what is in the packet.

Our own product title is not blameless either. It manages to state the quantity twice in one line, which is the sort of thing that happens when a distributor name and a variant name are glued together by an importer. We have flagged it to be tidied.

The wraps themselves are king size, so they are generously proportioned rather than doubled up.

What is in the packet besides the wraps

Three small things come with these that a packet of rolling papers does not give you, and nobody explains any of them.

There is a glue strip along the edge. That is what lets a wrap be sealed cleanly without licking a raw leaf edge, and it is the main practical reason a modern wrap is easier to handle than a traditional tobacco leaf.

There is a packing tube, which is a small cardboard tube included in the pack. It is used to pack and even out the contents before sealing, so the finished article burns evenly rather than running down one side. If you have never bought a wrap before, this is the item most likely to be thrown away without being recognised.

And the packaging has a zip lock. That matters far more on a wrap than it does on a paper, and it is worth saying why. A hemp wrap has to stay pliable to be rolled at all. Once it dries out it cracks along the fold and the roll is finished before it starts. A rolling paper has no such vulnerability, so a resealable packet on a wrap is doing a real job rather than adding a feature.

For completeness on what is not in the packet: there is no tobacco, no nicotine and no CBD or cannabinoid of any kind. On what tobacco free does and does not describe, we set that out properly on the Amarillo listing rather than repeating the argument here.

Red Alert, and the other red one

Red Alert is a mixed red fruit flavour rather than a single one. Strawberry leads, with cherry and a general berry sweetness behind it, and it is firmly on the sweet side rather than the tart side.

It is a flavour that announces itself. If you want something that sits quietly behind whatever you are rolling, this is not it, and the terpene enhanced line is the direction to look in.

One thing worth knowing before you order. The terpene enhanced range includes a flavour called Red Storm. Red Alert and Red Storm are different products from different lines, flavoured by different methods, and the names are similar enough that they get mixed up. If you have had one and want it again, check which line it came from.

As a wrap to actually roll, hemp is more forgiving than a thin paper. It has body, it holds its shape while you fill it, and it tolerates being handled. The trade is that it is a more substantial thing than a paper, so there is more material in the finished roll.

One small note on our own data. Our product record lists a cannabinoid type for this wrap, which is meaningless on a rolling product and is the sixth time we have caught that field being wrong. It is being reviewed across the whole catalogue rather than page by page, as explained on the 510 battery listing.

Who should skip these

Anyone looking for CBD. There is none in a wrap, and this is a rolling product rather than a CBD one.

Anyone who dislikes sweet flavours. Red Alert is unambiguously sweet and there is no subtle version of it. The plain hemp double wraps exist without a fruit flavour.

Anyone who wants the flavour to stay in the background. A dipped fruit flavour is more forward than an aromatic one, and the terpene enhanced line is the alternative.

Anyone who rolls small. King size wraps are generous, and a paper puts far less material into the finished roll.

And anyone who has previously enjoyed Red Storm and thinks this is the same thing. It is not, and the two come from different lines with different flavouring.