Professor Herb Hemp Briquette Hash 3.5g, Forbidden Fruit

What pollen means here, and what it does not

Start with the word that causes the most confusion. Pollen, in the language of hash, has nothing to do with botanical pollen. Actual cannabis pollen is male reproductive material and is of interest to breeders and to nobody else.

In the trade, pollen is one of several names for kief: the resin glands shaken off dried flower through a mesh screen, collected as a fine powder. Dry sift and dust are the other common names for the same thing. The word describes what the collected trichome heads look like, which is a pale dusty powder, and that visual resemblance is the whole reason the name stuck.

So when a product describes itself as pollen, it is claiming to be the sifted resin fraction rather than the plant it came off. That is a meaningful claim, because sifted resin is far more concentrated than the material it is separated from. The mechanism behind that, and why separating trichomes concentrates anything at all, is set out on our Euphoria Moroccan hash page and not repeated here.

You will also meet the word in a completely different place on this site, on three-piece grinders, where the bottom chamber is called a pollen catcher. Same word, same underlying substance, entirely different context.

And what biomass means, which is the opposite thing

Biomass is the other half of the phrase, and in hemp processing it has a settled meaning: the bulk plant material. It is the volume, the harvest, the stuff that goes into a process rather than the concentrated fraction that comes out of one. Biomass is what you sift; pollen is what you get.

Which makes hemp biomass pollen an odd pair of words to put together. One of them names the raw bulk and the other names the refined product of working that bulk. Read strictly, the phrase describes both ends of the same process at once, and a buyer cannot tell from it which one is in the pot.

We have seen this brand do something structurally similar before. Its oil is sold as CBD MCT Tincture Oil, a name that manages to specify an alcohol extract, a carrier oil and an oil in three words, when the product is an infused oil and the brand's own packaging says so. Two products, two descriptors that stack terms which cannot all be true at once. We are describing a habit in how things get named, not suggesting anyone set out to mislead.

The published figure answers it, and the answer is in the same catalogue

There is a way to settle which of the two words is doing the work, and it does not require taking anybody's word for anything. Compare the stated cannabinoid content against grades whose production method is not in question.

This briquette publishes 175mg in 3.5g. We have set out on our Wedding Cake page what that works out at as a percentage, and it is a straightforward division. Now line it up against the rest of the shelf, including this brand's own.

The thing to notice is the second row. Professor Herb makes a product with the word Pollen in its name, and it sits three times higher than the briquette. Whatever pollen is doing in the briquette description, it cannot be doing the same job it does fifteen rows away in the same maker's catalogue.

Our reading, and we are labelling it as a reading rather than a fact about anybody's factory, is that this material sits much closer to pressed plant matter than to sifted resin. We have not seen it made and we are not going to claim we have. What we can do is set the published figures side by side and let you draw the same conclusion we did.

One thing this is emphatically not is a complaint. Five per cent is a perfectly sensible thing to sell, it is milder and more forgiving than a concentrate, and for a flavoured product designed to be broken up and used a little at a time it may be exactly right. Whether a low percentage is a drawback at all is a question we have taken on properly on our Euphoria Amnesia page. The point here is narrower: know which of the two words on the label is telling you the truth about what you are buying.

What Forbidden Fruit tastes like

The manufacturer's description is five words long: exotic mixed fruit with terpenes. That is the house format rather than a shortage of effort on this flavour specifically, and every flavour we have checked gets the same four or five word treatment ending in the same two words.

The profile is the darkest fruit in the range. Where Pineapple Express is sharp and tropical, this leans towards berry and stone fruit, with a jammy depth rather than a bright acidity. There is a slight sourness at the edges that keeps it from being syrupy, and a faintly floral note behind the fruit.

It sits well over the hemp base for the same reason the sharper flavours do: the darker fruit character has enough weight to sit alongside the green, resinous taste of the pressed material rather than fighting it. Of the flavours we stock this is probably the most forgiving one for somebody who has not used a pressed hemp product before, because nothing in it is aggressive in either direction.

The aroma out of the pot is rich and slightly sweet, and like every flavour in this range it is noticeable. Nobody should buy any of these expecting discretion.

The specification, and the two things it does not tell you

A 3.5g heat-pressed briquette of Italian hemp material with terpenes and flavourings added. The published cannabinoid figure is 175mg per pack. Manufactured in the UK and EU, analysed by Adact Medical, with a QR code on the card linking to the certificate. No nicotine, no tobacco.

The first thing that specification does not tell you is the one this page has been about: which fraction of the plant the material actually is. The second is anything about how to use it. This is a solid pressed block and it cannot be used until it has been broken down, and no page selling it anywhere explains how. That, along with what temperature to vaporise it at and why the certificate is worth keeping with the pack, is on our main briquette page.

As a small housekeeping note, the flavour name arrived complete in this listing's title but the separate flavour field came through empty. It is the fourth listing in this range in a row with the flavour recorded incorrectly in some way, all four logged for the catalogue to fix at source. It changes nothing about what you receive.

This range is on our site on an explicit decision by the owner of this business. Smokable hemp sits outside the industrial hemp cultivation licence, which covers stalk and seed, and we would rather say that plainly than leave it out.

Who should choose something else

If you want a concentrate, this is not one, and the table above is the clearest way to see why. The solid extracts and washed grades are several times the stated content and behave completely differently when heated.

If you want a clean fruit flavour with no plant character underneath it, no pressed hemp product will give you that. This one balances the two about as well as anything in the range, but the base is always present.

If you want something usable straight out of the container, a briquette is the wrong format. The brand's loose Premium Hemp Blend is the same material in a form that needs no preparation at all.

If sharp or tart fruit is what you are after, Pineapple Express is the more acidic choice and this one will read as too rounded.

Over-18s only. This is not a food and it is not a medicine, and nothing here should be read as suggesting otherwise.