Your Nose Knows Terpenes
You may not be able to notice them by taste or smell in a hemp-based CBD sublingual oil, even one made from a high-quality extract, but the terpenes are present and you would be receiving the benefits of them, along with the benefits of the cannabinoids like CBD or THC. Through inhalation of a high-quality hemp flower from a strain like Sour Space Candy, Hawaiian Haze, Special Sauce or Juicy Fruit the flavorful, aromatic terpenes are quite evident. This is due to the most prominent terpenes found in that specific strain. Marijuana strains highlight their aromatic bounties best with names like Lemon Haze, Blueberry Bubba, and Mango Kush.
Terpenes are volatile molecules that evaporate easily and quickly and announce themselves to the nose. This is the basis of the popular alternative-healing practice called aromatherapy. Like their odorless cannabinoid cousins, terpenes are oily compounds secreted from the glands of the cannabis flowers’ trichomes and give the strain its aromatic bouquet.
Unlike cannabinoids that are predominant mostly in cannabis, terpenes are common throughout the plant world. Produced by countless plant species, terpenes are prevalent in fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, and other botanicals. Terpenes are common ingredients in the human diet and have generally been recognized as safe to consume by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Scientists have identified and characterized the molecular structure of some 20,000 terpenes, which compose the largest category of plant chemicals. Terpenes can be further broken down into mono-terpenes, diterpenes and sesquiterpenes, depending on the number of repeating units of a five-carbon molecule called isoprene, the structural hallmark of all terpenoid compounds.
To date, around 200 terpenes have been found in cannabis, but only a handful of these odiferous oily substances appear in amounts substantial enough to be noteworthy (or nose-worthy). The terpenoid profile varies considerably from strain to strain. The range of flavors expressed by the genus Cannabis is extraordinary – no other plant on the planet can equal the cacophony of smells and tastes like those that are available from cannabis.
It is hard to believe that there were times in history when hemp was such a significant economic crop that farmers were punished for NOT cultivating it. Its highly regarded status in England and Europe was a most influencing factor for its arrival into the Americas, along with its continued cultivation throughout Colonial America.
It is nearly impossible to write about the origins of hemp without referencing its psychoactive cousin marijuana, because they originated as one, as Cannabis, and their histories are as intertwined as they are separable. Its origins and evolution are as complex and compelling of a subject as its multifaceted utilization and intricate composition. Initially, distinctions between hemp and marijuana were based on the route it took during its evolution, its adaptation and then later by its narcotic effect. Its history has been laced with the confusion of, is it one in the same or are they different and how? But it was not until the last couple of centuries that a scientific analysis of the percentage of one chemical component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), became the one distinguishing (and demonizing) factor that separated and characterized the two.
