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There’s a reason why the traditional way of making cannabis concentrate has endured over hundreds of years: It works.
While it may take longer and be more labor intensive to make cold-water bubble hash into live rosin, there are no added chemicals required and no stripped-away components that are normally found in the original flower. At äkta, we honor time-tested methods by transforming the resulting clean cannabis concentrate into elevated Live Rosin Vape Cartridges and Live Rosin Gummies.
Here’s the inside story on how cannabis concentrates were made centuries ago, and how these techniques influence our process today:
The art and science of making cannabis concentrates begins in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent around 900 CE, when hashish, the earliest precursor to modern concentrates, is believed to have first been made.
Hashish is formed by sifting away the plant’s resinous, crystalline trichomes, then compressing the trichomes into a brick that could be later broken into smaller pieces and smoked ceremonially with or without cannabis flower as part of ancient religious rites. The simple process preserves the cannabinoids and terpenes—elements of the plant that produce its particular psychedelic and therapeutic entourage effects.
The äkta cannabis extraction process is focused on conservation of the plant’s natural cannabis compounds. It begins by flash-freezing premium cannabis at peak maturity and freshness, so as not to lose any efficacy or potency in storage, which also helps to preserve the terpenes responsible for the complex flavor profile of the strain. When you experience äkta’s Live Rosin Vape Cartridges or Live Rosin Gummies, you’re getting the full spectrum of the plant’s cannabinoids and flavorful terpenes.
In the 1980s, the process for hash making evolved to include some relatively low-tech but highly effective flourishes: One method creates “dry sift” hash and the other makes bubble hash.
A machine called the “master sifter” arrived in the Western world, which uses vibrations to shake the trichomes off of harvested flower and pass them through a sieve, yielding dry sift hash.
At äkta, we follow the purest tradition of letting natural processes do the heavy lifting. We remove the buds from the freezer and they are immediately placed in an ice-water bath and gently agitated so the trichomes can be collected in fine mesh screens and turned into ice-water hash, or bubble hash.
These low-impact methods stand in stark contrast to how many producers operate these days. To quickly extract the plant’s psychotropic THC, they introduce chemical solvents, such as butane or ethanol, and apply high heat to remove the solvent. This process ends up destroying many of the plant’s naturally occurring cannabinoids and terpenes, some of which may be sourced from other non-cannabis plants and reintroduced to the concentrate later on. This also means trace amounts of solvent byproducts could contaminate the final extract.
At no point in äkta’s hash-making process do we introduce a solvent, meaning the hash retains the strain’s special aromas and distinct effects—you’ll experience the full spectrum of the flower’s terpenes and cannabinoids, not THC alone or a manipulated combination of cannabinoids and terpenes.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Live Rosin came into being. Phil “Soilgrown” Salazar, a Colorado cannabis grower, got creative and used a hair straightener to lightly press on his ice-water hash—liquefying the hash to make it easier to dab. One day, he pressed a little too hard and noticed how cannabis oil separated from the hash entirely, leaving behind a seductive, sticky substance that retained the flavor of the full flower, and this opened the door to the creation of Live Rosin on a larger scale.
At äkta, we follow a method that closely follows the one Salazar discovered. Our own ice-water hash is gently heated and pressed into the Live Rosin found in our vape cartridges and gummies. By relying on all-natural, clean methods, we’re able to avoid any harsh chemical solvents and cannabinoid separation processes that can tarnish the final product.
The art of making clean cannabis concentrates shines through in the Live Rosin that’s as authentic to the natural plant as it gets. Check out our store locator for nearby dispensaries that carry äkta products.