(Live)Rosin in Amsterdam and other places

[Kimble]

 

I'm usually visiting for a few days and can't take things back with me, so like to be able to try more strains.

Yes, this problem is probably familiar to anyone who has ever tried LiveRosin abroad. You can quickly smoke away 1g of weed, but you have to throw away 1g of rosin before departure if you don't want to find out whether a drug dog at the airport can determine that the honey-like substance in the cosmetics tin isn't face cream after all

I also really like the iberico place, I feel you always get really good quality for the price there. Thanks for the tip about the place next door, that chicken looked fantastic. I've just has a look at their menu and looks tasty.

When you're out and about in Amsterdam all day, you get hungry with or without weed. That's why I'll be adding a few food tips near coffee shops to the thread from time to time.

Thanks for your help Kimble, I'll let you know how I get on.

I am very curious about your experiences

There are two more coffee shops that also belong in this thread and are very close to each other, at least geographically.

I had already written a short report on the S.W.E.D.

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It's a really stylish store with a nice lounge

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and very good advice & selection.

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Above all, you get live rosin that is visually great. The smell is also beguiling, which doesn't make the selection on any easier

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We opted for TropicalSuperboof and DiamondsVVS on our last visit.

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Expectations were naturally very high given the bright appearance and smell. The first puff of the DiamondsVVS matched the smell: woody, with a hint of oriental spices - very exciting, albeit very inharmonious. In addition, the smoke was not visually intense, but caused a strong coughing reflex. This is not unusual, as the first puff of LiveRosin is often not perfect, and it is only after a slight delay that the complete enjoyment and the true quality of the product is revealed. Unfortunately, this curve was relatively flat with the DiamondsVVS, even if there was an increase at the end, so that it was still enough for a 7.5/10 in our tasting round. The TropicalSuperboof was also very good in taste, but ultimately just as unharmonious as the Diamods VVS, but with even less improvement, so that it remained at a 7.0.

Even though a 7.5/10 is very good and above the majority of BCDR products, it feels like a disappointment here. You get the feeling that this LiveRosin could be much better if the full potential had been unleashed. Nevertheless, the DiamondsVVS is one of the top 25 rosins in Amsterdam imho.

A few meters further on is 1e Hulp, which I will write about in the next post

[Kimble]

The 1e Hulp diagonally opposite the S.W.E.D. is more of a classic coffee shop, very narrow with a consumption room on the 1st floor.

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As it is frequently the case in Amsterdam, you can't deduce the quality from the outside; on the contrary, the fanciest stores often have the worst advice - the best example is the Sloterdijk coffee shop, which looks like a chocolate store with a high-end barista, but is a tourist trap in every respect.

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In contrast, you get really friendly advice at 1e Hulp and the selection is also quite decent.

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Visually, I have doubts as to whether the varieties they offer are actually LiveRosin, I would rather guess HashRosin
(unfortunately you can only see the leftovers in the picture)

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We tried GreasyBucket, Zazaya and AcapulcoKush there.

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GreasyBucket (on the left in the penultimate picture) was the best of the three. An intense, yet pleasant smoke, with earthy tones that made you feel like you were standing in a forest full of haze when you close your eyes - except that this haze gives you a pleasant high . It also has a slightly fruity aroma with a hint of cherry, although it doesn't last very long. Not only visually but also in terms of taste, I would guess it's a HashRosin, albeit a very good one. Not far from an 8/10, but not balanced enough for that, hence a 7.5+/10. The other two varieties were half a point weaker.

Even if the 1e Hulp is not a real recommendation for LiveRosin, it is a pleasant, traditional coffee shop where you can feel at home

[Ghost]

Excellent information there Buddy The Tropical Superboof from S.W.E.D looks very tasty indeed it has that creamy buttery look to it that is really appealing to me and my taste buds That is on my list for 420 if it is still on the menu. The diamonds though are not my thing personally I always find that they can be hit and miss with quantity of sauce to diamonds with there normally being to much sauce and not enough diamonds but maybe I have just been unlucky in the past on that front.

I am a big lover of the Papaya flavours myself and having had the Lovely Hash Company in the past I know that's a winner I find they are extremely flavoursome and fruity and I love the taste on the exhale, one I will be looking out for over 420 - thanks for the recommend The Honey Banana is also on my list for 420 Have had a quality banana rosin in the past and it was always fruity and tasty on the throat

Love the look of your new up-stems 'Save the Bee's' they look fantastic they remind me of a rig I used to have that was covered in Bee's and Honey, sadly I smashed that while cleaning it one day. I know your pain on the customs delays and normally I ended up having to pay a cutoms charge

Big up on the eateries, I can't say that I have been to either establishment so may have a look when I am next in town the chicken looks very nice

Bagheera's is always a shop to visit and is normally my Wake 'n' Bake establishment when I am over for 420 as its a short stroll from where I stay

[Kimble]

Excellent information there Buddy

Thank you, I'm glad when my "diary" arouses interest.

I know your pain on the customs delays and normally I ended up having to pay a cutoms charge

Since 10 Days the package is already in customs inspection . Obviously, customs officers don't like packages that say “cannabis hardware” on them

Big up on the eateries, I can't say that I have been to either establishment so may have a look when I am next in town the chicken looks very nice

Great, then one more near the coffeeshops. Another culinary recommendation, below the Michelin stars, in Amsterdam is the Bistro Brasserie Blue, the little brother of the steak restaurant Black & Blue.

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It has a Josper rotisserie grill with charcoal that not only grills great chicken, but also great BlackAngus .

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All for less than €30 - definitely worth a stop along with a Belgian beer, especially as it's halfway between GreenPlace and GreyArea.

As I only want to report on the subject of (live)rosin in this thread, many stores are naturally not included in the list. I would estimate that of the more than 200 coffeeshops in Amsterdam, a maximum of 20% offer live rosin at all. Among these, there are of course not only the highlights listed so far, but also stores that I was less impressed by.

For me, this includes TerpsArmy in Nieuwstraat, which has often been recommended to me. For a vaper, the store takes some getting used to, because I don't know of any other coffeeshop where the smoke in the room is to such an extreme extent - you get high just standing in line

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Terps Army usually has 2-4 varieties of LiveRosin on offer, although the top products there are already in the top league in terms of price at €120/g, but unfortunately not in qualtiy.

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We have already tried a few varieties there and to be honest, none of them really convinced us. Mostly only a 6/10, the best was a 7/10.

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There are much better products for less money in Amsterdam. The Cali-Weed was also rather middle class compared to some other coffeeshops as well as the advice, so there is no reason for us to come to TerpsArmy back again in the near future.

In comparison, we like the BushDoctor much better which I have already written a few lines about. At first glance, this coffee shop doesn't look particularly inviting either, which says nothing about the quality of the products, quite the opposite.

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The only danger there is the entrance: when you enter the store, it's the "Stairway to heaven". However, if you have taken a few puffs there, the exit could easily become the "Stairway to Hell" . What is on offer here belongs to the top class of what you can buy in Amsterdam, both in terms of price and quality:

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The jam jars in which the LiveRosin from Barcelona are stored don't initially inspire much confidence compared to the sealed US jars.

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However, once you have smelled it and seen the consistency, it is not difficult to decide to try this LiveRosin

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(I know it takes off 10 karma points to put Barcelona-Rosin in BarneysFarm-Jars )

The advantage of the jam jars is that you don't have to take 1 gram straight away, but can start with 0.2 g, so that you can try all the good stuff without ruining your finances.

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All the varieties were great and much better than what you get sold as LiveRosin in most stores. Even the "cheap" Tropaya was an 8/10, MelaVerde an 8.5/10 and BluePapaya a 9/10 - you get what your pay for . The absolute highlight was ODV III (9+/10), which for me is currently one of the best that Amsterdam has to offer beside the almost unaffordable TenCo stuff. If the TenCo LiveRosin is like a great Burgundy, perfectly balanced, very harmonious, flawless and beguiling, ODV III is almost the opposite. In comparison TenCo BlackZushi is a symphony orchestra and ODV III is a hard rock band, pure and direct, like a punch in the face. Intense smoke, a flavor with rough edges, you already have a grin on your face when you're not high, it's just great fun.

Due to the quality of the products alone, the BushDoctor is on the agenda for almost every one of our coffee shop tours, even if it is a little out of the way. The advice has always been friendly and competent and in combination with the opportunity to try small quantities of LiveRosin, this is a clear recommendation.

[jollylittlehun]

Interesting reading mate. I've not tried rosin yet and looking to change that this 420. Looking forward to more of your reviews.

Thanks

[BatRadia]

Sorry for the delay in posting, I had to catch up on real life stuff after my trip.

@Kimble, you were right about the stairs in Bushdoctor, trying to go down them to the toilet after a few dabs was terrifying, the lights went off as I was halfway down

Luckily I just about survived and got to try a bunch of nice things -

Bushdoctor rosin
ODV III
Mela verde
Blue papaya
Z-punch (I think, memory’s a bit fuzzy)

Bubble hash
Fruit joy, Reefer
Honey banana, Reefer
Tropicana cherry, 137

And a 0.1g of the zkittles runtz from Family First.

Overall, everything I tried was pretty good, no disappointing purchases, although some of them I wouldn’t get again if there were better options.

Mela verde

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As with all the Bushdoctor rosin, this looked beautiful in the jar. The smell was sweet with, I thought, a bit of gas and the flavour had some nice sour to it along with the sweetness. Really good but not my favourite.

Blue Papaya

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This was fantastic. Like Ghost, papaya is one of my favourite rosin strains and was the first type I tried that really sold me on rosin. The blue papaya is a great example of the strain with lovely tropical sweetness. Definitely one I would try again.

Z-Punch

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The one whose name I’m not sure of. As an overall experience, this might have been my favourite, the smell and taste had loads of tropical fruit, it was very pleasant to dab and I really liked the high. To be clear, I don’t think this was the “best”, but it was the rosin I enjoyed the most.

ODV-III

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And here I agree with Kimble, the ODV was the best. I found the smell very interesting, as well as some lovely fruit I found it had a really funky, almost cheesy, smell (which isn’t something I’m usually super in to). But the flavour is all sweet fruit with the funk coming through as a slightly fermented taste, like kombucha. The smell and the flavour was the most intense out of everything I tried, as a result I found it a bit more tickley on the throat, but I have quite a sensitive throat and tend to cough a fair bit.

Honey Banana bubble hash

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This was very nice. It had a lovely warm sweetness that made a nice change from the more tropical rosins. While it was very enjoyable and I would be happy to have it again, it wouldn’t be my first choice.

Tropicanna cherry

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Outside of my crappy photos, this had a really nice dark purple cherry colour to it.
The flavour of this was much more on the cherry side, although not as strong as the rest of the bubble hash. It had also dried out more than the other bubblehashes. How it’s stored seems to have a much bigger impact on bubblehash than rosin. I’ve found that when it’s stored in individual jars it seems to dry out (loosing a bit of flavour) more than when it’s kept as a bigger block. Not noticed this as much with rosin.

Fruit Joy

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The best of the bubblehash and my favourite to dab. Lots of lovely tropical fruits and very gentle and easy to dab, particularly at lower temps. It also had a much more energetic high, which I really enjoyed. I’m not sure it comes through in the pic but it was noticeably more moist than the other hashes and this made a difference in the flavour.

Zkittles runtz

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This was much better than I thought it would be. Texture wise, it was closer to a thick diamonds with sauce. The flavour was pretty good and I got two small dabs out of it. Which, for €9 isn’t bad. If you’re in or passing Family First it’s well worth a try for the price.

Anyway, I need to get some dinner, I’ll follow up with a bit of a review of the coffee shops and the now traditional food recommendation!
Cheers

[Ghost]

Excellent @Kimble that chicken looks amazing, I have never been there before but have added to my 420 list of places to get to I have only been in the Bush Doctor twice before but after you good review I have also added that to my list, I like the way you can get small amounts so you are able to taste a few varieties for a reasonable price I am building a little shopping list of rosin I want to try

@BatRadia quality pics there buddy, thanks for the information especially leading up to 420 has given me a couple of ones that are on my shopping list 4 sure Blue Papaya that is a given for me guys

[Kimble]

Excellent @Kimble that chicken looks amazing, I have never been there before but have added to my 420 list of places to get to I have only been in the Bush Doctor twice before but after you good review I have also added that to my list,

Then I should slowly stop posting tips, otherwise you'll have to extend your 420 trip by a week

@Kimble, you were right about the stairs in Bushdoctor, trying to go down them to the toilet after a few dabs was terrifying, the lights went off as I was halfway down

The good news - if you break your legs, at least you have good medication to treat the pain.

Overall, everything I tried was pretty good, no disappointing purchases

I'm very pleased that you liked those things, I was a little worried that you might end up disappointed because you have other preferences. But first of all, thank you very much for your detailed report and the great pictures.

This was fantastic. Like Ghost, papaya is one of my favourite rosin strains and was the first type I tried that really sold me on rosin. The blue papaya is a great example of the strain with lovely tropical sweetness. Definitely one I would try again. To be clear, I don’t think this was the “best”, but it was the rosin I enjoyed the most.

You want to get the best for your money, the best papaya, the best banana, etc. and you want to be happy with it. Whether another flavor is half a point better is irrelevant at that moment, it's all about the good feeling.

Apart from that, I'm not such a big fan of ranking lists. At the end of the day, it's not always about better and worse, but also about what you're in the mood for. If I'm craving something fruity tonight, I'll choose the Barca-papaya over any Tenco stuff because it's the right thing at that moment. I

ODV-III And here I agree with Kimble, the ODV was the best.

If my No. 1 there was also your No. 1, that's another proof that taste is not as subjective as many believe.

I also had two positive surprises over the weekend, GreenGoldFarmz BananaJelly from Balou and ROZ OrangeCreamSoda from OldChurch, as well as a disappointment from FamilyFirst, GreenApple, which I will write about later this week.

And if you see little green goblins eating in Amsterdam, it's not necessarily because the weed was bad, but sometimes the food is just brilliant

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[BatRadia]

I'm very pleased that you liked those things, I was a little worried that you might end up disappointed because you have other preferences. But first of all, thank you very much for your detailed report and the great pictures.

Cheers Kimble, it was fun to try everything with the idea of doing a write-up at the back of my mind. It made the experience more interesting. And yeah, your recommendations were spot on. Thanks for the tip on the Green Apple, I was thinking about trying it next time i was over, so you might have saved me there!

@BatRadia quality pics there buddy, thanks for the information especially leading up to 420 has given me a couple of ones that are on my shopping list 4 sure Blue Papaya that is a given for me guys

Thanks Ghost, glad you enjoyed it and don't think you'll be disappointed with the Blue Papaya. I'm going to be in town for 420 this year and was planning to come to some of the meet-ups, so maybe a trip to Bushdoctor could be on the cards?

[BatRadia]

Almost forgot the food recommendation!

Casa Infante in the Pijp, a few doors down from Katsu

I got an ice cream cone with strawberry cheesecake ice cream and strawberry sorbet, both had a bunch of those little freeze dried strawberries in and was delicious on a sunny day

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I also got some very nice cakes and pastries to go.

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They came very nicely wrapped up for takeaway.

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The service was good and friendly. A nice place to get something tasty after a Katsu session

[Ghost]

I'm very pleased that you liked those things, I was a little worried that you might end up disappointed because you have other preferences. But first of all, thank you very much for your detailed report and the great pictures.

Cheers Kimble, it was fun to try everything with the idea of doing a write-up at the back of my mind. It made the experience more interesting. And yeah, your recommendations were spot on. Thanks for the tip on the Green Apple, I was thinking about trying it next time i was over, so you might have saved me there!

@BatRadia quality pics there buddy, thanks for the information especially leading up to 420 has given me a couple of ones that are on my shopping list 4 sure Blue Papaya that is a given for me guys

Thanks Ghost, glad you enjoyed it and don't think you'll be disappointed with the Blue Papaya. I'm going to be in town for 420 this year and was planning to come to some of the meet-ups, so maybe a trip to Bushdoctor could be on the cards?

Hey man, good that you are making into town for 420 this year it should be another good one for us all yeah buddy that sounds like a plan to me have a few dabs etc

[BatRadia]

Yeah man, for sure! I'll have my proxy on me for some on the go dabs, might try and bring my water piece for it out with me.

Depending on when you arrive, the afternoon on the 17th might be a good time for Bushdoctors?

[Ghost]

Yeah man, for sure! I'll have my proxy on me for some on the go dabs, might try and bring my water piece for it out with me.

Depending on when you arrive, the afternoon on the 17th might be a good time for Bushdoctors?

What time do you arrive on the 17th buddy? I should be in town by lunch time with a few pics ups to get and check in hotel etc and hit a couple shops then should be good for a meet before the meet at Siberia later in the day

[BatRadia]

Yeah man, for sure! I'll have my proxy on me for some on the go dabs, might try and bring my water piece for it out with me.

Depending on when you arrive, the afternoon on the 17th might be a good time for Bushdoctors?

What time do you arrive on the 17th buddy? I should be in town by lunch time with a few pics ups to get and check in hotel etc and hit a couple shops then should be good for a meet before the meet at Siberia later in the day

Yeah, sounds good man! I get in around 12ish so hitting Bushdoctors before Siberia works for me.

Should be plenty of time to get sorted and have some warm up smokes before hitting the dabs!

[Ghost]

Yeah man, for sure! I'll have my proxy on me for some on the go dabs, might try and bring my water piece for it out with me.

Depending on when you arrive, the afternoon on the 17th might be a good time for Bushdoctors?

What time do you arrive on the 17th buddy? I should be in town by lunch time with a few pics ups to get and check in hotel etc and hit a couple shops then should be good for a meet before the meet at Siberia later in the day

Yeah, sounds good man! I get in around 12ish so hitting Bushdoctors before Siberia works for me.

Should be plenty of time to get sorted and have some warm up smokes before hitting the dabs!

Yeah man hopefully I should be hitting town around the same time depending on passport control so a meet later in the day sounds good