King Palm Hemp Cones, Lil Lemon, 1 1/4

The specifications that keep getting attached to the wrong product

King Palm makes two quite different things, and the more famous of the two keeps lending its details to the other.

The famous one is the leaf line: wraps and cones made from Cordia leaf, picked from the tree, with a bamboo packing stick supplied to tamp the contents down. That stick is a signature of the brand, and so is the leaf.

This is not that product. It is hemp paper, which the retailer listing states plainly, and hemp paper behaves nothing like leaf.

The problem is that summaries of these cones routinely carry the leaf line's details over. In the course of writing this page we were told these cones are natural Cordia palm leaf, that a bamboo packing stick comes in each pack, and that the cone holds a gram. The first of those is contradicted by the listing itself. The other two we could not confirm for the hemp cones anywhere, and both look like they have come across from the leaf products.

So we have not repeated them. We are not telling you a bamboo stick is included, because we cannot confirm it is, and we are not quoting a capacity for the same reason. If a packing stick is what you are after, the leaf line is where it is definitely found.

The wider point is worth carrying to any King Palm listing you read. If a description mentions Cordia leaf, a bamboo stick, or a slow leaf burn on a product sold as a hemp cone, that description has been assembled from the wrong product.

Lil Lemon is lemonade, and that is a meaningful difference

The flavour is described by the brand as a tangy citrus flavour infused with sugar, like a tall glass of lemonade.

That word infused with sugar is doing real work. Lemon and lemonade are not the same flavour target. Lemon is sharp, bitter at the edges, and astringent in a way that makes you wince. Lemonade is lemon with most of the sharpness sanded off and sweetness put in its place.

So if you are choosing this expecting the clean bite of zest or a lemon sherbet, that is not the direction it goes. It is the softer, rounder, sweeter reading of citrus.

That also puts it closer than you might think to the other two flavours in this range. Banana Foster is a dessert and Grape Swish is confectionery, and lemonade is a soft drink. All three sit on the sweet side. This is the sharpest of the three, but sharpest here is a relative term.

One consequence of the capsule design is worth noting for a citrus flavour specifically. Because the terpenes sit in the tip rather than in what burns, the lemon reads on the lips and in the aroma rather than in the smoke, and citrus is the sort of note that shows up strongly there. Our Banana Foster listing covers how the capsule system works.

Which Lil Lemon you are looking at

King Palm sells Lil Lemon in more than one cone, so it is worth checking you are on the right listing.

The brand has a separate king size hemp cone with Lil Lemon flavour tips, alongside this 1 1/4 version. Same flavour, same capsule, quite different cone.

A 1 1/4 is the medium size, closer in length to a standard cigarette. King size is the longer format and takes noticeably more filling. This listing is the 1 1/4.

It is the same kind of trap the grape flavour sets, where the brand sells two grapes that are entirely different products. With Lil Lemon the flavour is genuinely the same and only the cone changes, which is easier, but you can still end up with a size you did not want.

What one hundred per cent hemp does and does not mean

The listing for these says one hundred per cent hemp cones, and that phrase is read wrongly often enough to be worth pinning down.

It is a statement about the paper. The cone is made from hemp fibre rather than wood pulp, flax or rice, which is a material choice affecting how it burns and how it tastes.

It is not a statement about cannabinoid content. There is no CBD in this product, no hemp extract, and nothing else of that kind. Hemp is being used here the way linen uses flax: as a fibre.

That is why these sit in our rolling papers range rather than anywhere near the oils, and it is why the phrase one hundred per cent hemp on a rolling product tells you about the paper mill rather than about anything active. Our guide to UK CBD law covers where the line falls between hemp as a material and hemp as a source of cannabinoids.

Who should skip these

Skip them if you want a sharp lemon. Everything above is about why this is the sweet version of citrus, and no amount of hoping will make a lemonade flavour taste like zest.

Skip them if you came for the leaf. The brand's reputation was built on the Cordia leaf wraps, and if a friend recommended King Palm without specifying, that is probably what they meant.

Skip them if you want the bamboo packing stick, for the reasons set out at the top. It is a leaf-line item and we are not going to tell you it is in this box.

Skip them if you want king size, since this is the 1 1/4 and the brand makes the same flavour in the longer cone.

And skip them if you want an unflavoured everyday cone, because the capsule is the reason this version exists and the Natural cone is the one without it.