Ice water hash sometimes known as “cold water hash” is a simple solution to an age-old problem. When the ancient farmers of present-day India and Pakistan began growing cannabis many centuries ago, they found that the plant didn’t stand up well to the long journeys needed to bring their crops to far-off trading centers.
And yet centuries before the invention of the microscope, they suspected that the secret of the cannabis plant’s potency lay in its trichomes, the tiny glands that appear as a layer of silvery dust on high-quality cannabis flower. Once they’d learned to separate and concentrate those tiny glands, they created hashish, the world’s very first cannabis concentrate.
When this process was discovered, roughly 1,000 years ago, those trichomes were hand-rubbed into spheres called charas, which are the inspiration behind our signature “temple balls.” Later, around the 15th century, the introduction of dry-sifting changed hashmaking forever. For the first time those trichomes could be collected, sieved, and stored for later use. Soon the production of hashish had spread throughout the Far and Middle East and beyond, becoming an important commodity in the process.
Still, it took a very modern-day insight—that using cold water could improve the extraction, purity, and flavor of traditional hash—to bring this timeless product into the modern age.
How Is Ice Water Hash Made? A Close-Up Look
If you’re curious about cannabis concentrates, you may have learned about the two primary means for making them: “solvent-based” and “solventless” extraction. And we humbly believe that the proprietary cold-water method we’ve developed here at Nasha is the best way yet to produce the purest and most flavorful of hash without the use of any chemical solvents whatsoever. Here’s how it works.
While cold water hash is functionally similar to traditional pressed hash, there’s an important distinction. Using cold water to separate the trichomes from cannabis flower preserves an unusually high proportion of terpenes, the aromatic compounds that contribute the majority of a given cannabis strain’s characteristic flavors and aromas.
It’s an elegantly simple process: When it’s sufficiently chilled by ice water, the trichome head—where the cannabis plant produces the majority of its potent cannabinoids and terpenes—separates more easily from the stalk than it normally would. From there, a series of very fine filters removes the bulk of the lipids, plant matter and other unwanted compounds. The result is a hash of incomparable flavor and purity.
IS ICE WATER HASH THE SAME AS BUBBLE HASH?
The terms ice water hash and bubble hash are often used interchangeably, but where does the name “bubble hash” come from? When it’s heated and melts, bubble hash releases tiny bubbles—a visual clue that it’s an especially potent and purified product.