The hash menu, decoded

A hash menu looks like a foreign language, but it comes down to one question: how was the resin collected? Hash is concentrated resin, the sticky crystals (trichomes) that cover the flower. Each type on the menu is a different way of getting them off the plant and into something you can smoke.

Moroccan, Lebanese, Afghan, Nepalese: the classics, sold under “imported”. Traditionally the dried plant is sifted or rubbed by hand, and the resin is pressed into blocks or slabs. Nepalese hash is the hand-rubbed kind. Quality varies enormously, from crumbly to soft and oily, and colour and smell say a lot. Menus also use “polm” (pollen), the sifted resin, loose or pressed.

Dry sift is the Dutch classic: flower is sieved over fine screens, and the resin that falls through is collected, often pressed afterwards. No water and no solvents. Waterhash and bubble hash do the same job with ice water: the plant is stirred in cold water and the resin is caught in fine mesh bags. You will see “Ice-O-Lator” on menus, named after a well-known brand of those bags, and “full melt”, the top grade, which melts almost completely when heated.

Static hash uses static electricity to pull resin off the plant onto a surface, no water needed; “frozen” or “fresh frozen” means the plant was frozen straight after harvest to keep its aroma. And rosin is made by pressing flower or hash with heat, which squeezes out the resin as a thick, golden paste. Like the other types on this page, it needs no chemicals. A “donut” is rosin pressed into a ring.

Then there are concentrates and extracts, sometimes listed on the same menu. Those are made with solvents or other chemical processes, which is a different thing from classic hash, so look at the label. As a rule of thumb, all of these types are far stronger by weight than flower and tend to feel heavier and more physical, so take a small amount first (see entry 26).