Flying High Above The Jungle With Fruit Loops

I like fruity weed. As such, “what’s fresh” is one of my go-to dispensary questions to give budtenders an idea of what I’m after, which is and will always be flavor.

This trip to Cannabis Nation netted two strains: their house special, Violets Delight (an incredible strain, by the way), and Fruit Loops.

If this flower’s name was anything remotely reflective of one of my favorite childhood cereals, then it would easily become a new favorite, so I copped a few grams and scuttled home, excited to light up.

Fruit Loops is the result of crossing of Blue Dream and White Widow. I’m not familiar with Blue Dream, but I have a quarter of Black Widow, which some say is the original White Widow) and it’s a hitter, so we have some interesting genetics here courtesy of the locally loved, family-owned-and-operated High Places farm out of Oregon City.

Appearance: Pretty Pedestrian Loops Actually

This is one of those unassuming buds who could easily be recruited into the CIA as a field operator because of its perfectly adequate yet unassuming nature.

This is pretty much the kind of bud you look right over in the display case because it doesn’t have any bling-like visual features to capture your childlike fascination with new and metaphorically shiny things.

Nope, this fruit loops flower is the cannabis version of Mark Scout in Severance, dutifully going about its job of getting me high with almost no pre-warning as to what I’m about to get. In essence, it is unassuming as fuck.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion. Why can’t things just be everyday once and a while? What’s wrong with just existing as we are?

At what point did it become necessary for everything to be a “limited edition exclusive double platinum carbon fiber triple dank candy counter novelty”? What’s wrong with being direct, transparent, honest, and calm? What’s wrong with the reassuring comfort found in indifferent neutrality?

“Yeah, but you review hype strains all the time!” Yes, this is true, I do love the above, but one can both simultaneously enjoy the cut-and-dry light refreshment of an ice-cold Miller High Life just as much as he can the hip-hoppity notes of your nephew’s favorite double IPA.

This Fruit Loops flower has a healthy green color, youthful and spring-like. Darker shades are mixed in with the lighter, breaking up the tone profile of the bud like a cannabis-themed camouflage pattern.

Little stigma hairs are sporadically scattered around the body of the nug. They are dark, medium-long, and clumped together like sweaty auburn armpit hairs.

This strain is a bit hairier and also lacks any deep purple colors that I noticed, which seem to be quite common in indica-dominant fruity strains.

Smell: Unfortunately, Your Sibling Left The Box Open

The smell is immediate yet muted in its impact with a very obviously intermediate intensity. There is a very, very faint spunkiness and more fresh citrus, probably from the Blue Dream parent’s parent of OG Haze.

Fruit Loops isn’t a full-blown lemon haze Pledge spray levels of lemon citrus, but more subtle mango and pink guava notes.

Honestly, I was hoping for a little more. Maybe it’s because I absolutely fucking loved Fruit Loops cereal as a kid.. All those artificial flavors and mix of soggy and crispy loops, the sweetness increasing each time you kept your leftover milk in the bowl and added a fresh pile of loops from the box.

Shit, opening that brand new box of fruit loops and getting to the bag, and getting that first whiff of artificial fruit and refined sugar powder in your face was such a blast.

Obviously, I was probably setting myself up for disaster by assuming, for no real logical reason, that this would be some fake-fruit tropical bomb on the nose, just like how Tropicana Cookies just blows you away with a pixy stick-like tropical Kool-Aid bouquet on the nose.

It’s not that at all. I really only get citrus on the nose. Maybe a little mellow funk à la, the tiny sweet hint of watermelon, or perhaps even fresh-cut papaya. But those smells are not very obvious; they’re merely blowing by on the wind from the juice shop a block down the road.

Smell is big to me, even if it is just a vanity metric to others. Some may argue that the scent isn’t the flavor and doesn’t get you high alone, so why care so much?

For me, the smell of flower is like the appetizer at a nice meal. It is not necessary per se, but it makes the whole experience special and ties together two different flavors and texture elements, which can complement or contrast one another depending on the chef’s goals.

Also, if the appetizer is good, then there are good odds the main course will be, and I can’t remember the last time I smoked something that smelled great and didn’t have a quality high to back it up.

This cut of Fruit Loops strain is a little disappointing appetizer. It’s not horrible, or even “bad,” but just meh. It’s a salad whose primary green element is romaine lettuce and which is topped with 3 carrot shavings and 1 cherry tomato, kind of meh.

Sensation: Coming In Clutch To Save The Day

If you were thinking things were starting to feel a little bleak with the slow start on appearance and the very limp-dicked (or limp-nosed) reaction to the smell, well, don’t worry, things are about to turn into sunshine!

The best quality of this weed is the high itself, by far, and you know, at the end of the day (or sesh), isn’t that all we really need?

Nobody will “oooh” or “aww” at your sack of Fruit Loops at your friend’s crusty B.Y.O.W. bongfest session. It’s not going to make your nose giggle when you pop the top on your stash jar, and its terpenes of temptation waft your way.

But, if you just give this unassuming little fellow a chance, delicately grind him up, pack him in a bowl, and welcome him into your lungs, you’ll find a positive, upbeat, chatty vibe wrap around you like a mother’s knit throw blanket.

It’s a groovy, fun, thought-provoking high conducive to tunes and conversation.

A Spotify playlist of music inspired by Ghibli Studios plays in the background, with a flickering candle with a vanilla scent burns. It is drizzling outside. It’s 6:08 p.m.

Time is sliding by. All is good and calm.

Yes, this weed is a time traveler variety. It sedates the clock part of your brain so that you can focus all of your energies on the more important task of experiencing euphoria and laughing, of feeling like you’ve escaped to some kind of fantasy, if not just in the physical sensation (with your mind keeping one foot firmly in reality).

It’s a cool height. It makes me happy, and I’m not sleepy. My mind is clear, and words flow through my fingers onto the keyboard of my MacBook to document this sensation in a Google Doc so that I can publish it, well, now.

I don’t do star ratings because I find them too dumbed-down to be of any real detailed use, but if I did, this strain would fall somewhere right above average, I’d say.

The appearance and smell are pretty mashed potatoes; not terribly exciting, but not bad. They’re just there.

I’m not sure how much time passed between when this was harvested and when I consumed it, either, so perhaps I enjoyed it a bit fresher; then, this would be a different tale.

But the important thing is that the high itself is great, which must be fueled in some way by the unassuming 24.13% THC content, measurable CBD content, and, more importantly, the unique combination of terpenes.

Blue Dream seems to be big around here, and as I’ve recently learned, White Widow (and Black Widow) don’t fuck around when it comes to the intensity of the high.

I’m wondering if I had perhaps overly high expectations from this strain because the other strain we bought from that trip was called Violets Delight. It was absolutely insane in terms of scent and flavor.

I’m going to come back to Fruit Loops, ideally picking something up as fresh as possible to see if there’s more to discover on the nose and palate.

The quality of the high that Fruit Loops imparts is reassuring and underwrites my prospective future re-investment in this fruity strain. FRUITY STRAINS FOR LIFE!