#186 Concentrates Made Simple: A Guide to Every Major Type
#186 Concentrates Made Simple: A Guide to Every Major Type
Of all the categories on a cannabis menu, concentrates come with the most vocabulary. Live resin, cured resin, distillate, diamonds, sauce, shatter, kief, hash, rosin, and the list goes on. Some of these names describe the starting material, others describe the final texture, and some refer to the extraction process itself. But one thing is for sure: the terms rarely explain themselves.
To help clear things up, we're breaking down the most common types of concentrates and what makes them different.
From flower to extract
Cannabis flower is mostly plant material. The active compounds, the cannabinoids such as THC and CBD and the terpenes that carry aroma and flavour, are produced in tiny resin glands called trichomes on the surface of the bud.
A concentrate is the product of separating those trichomes from the plant and collecting them. Once the leaf and stem are removed, the result moves from flower in the range of 20 to 30 percent THC to an extract that can run from the 50s into the 90s.
How and when that separation happens is what distinguishes one concentrate from another. The differences mostly come down to two variables: whether the process starts with fresh or dried flower, and whether the extraction uses a solvent or just physical force.
Live resin
Live resin begins with flower frozen the moment it comes off the plant, before any drying or curing. That’s because drying and curing degrades many of the plant's most delicate and volatile terpenes. Freezing the flower right after harvest preserves these compounds, which is the defining feature of live resin. The result tastes and smells remarkably close to the living plant.
Potency: roughly 70s to mid-80s percent THC
Texture: runny sauce to soft budder
Best for: consumers who prioritize flavour and aroma
Cured resin
Cured resin uses the same solvent extraction, but the starting flower is dried and cured first, as most cannabis is processed. Some of the more fragile terpenes are lost during curing, so the flavour profile is slightly less pronounced than live resin. In return, the product is often more stable and consistent and sits at a more accessible price.
Potency: comparable to live resin, with 70s to 80s percent THC
Texture: budder, badder, or sauce, depending on the producer
Best for: an everyday concentrate at a fair price
Distillate
Distillate is the outlier of the category, by design. It is produced by running a crude extract through repeated distillation to remove nearly everything except a single cannabinoid, almost always THC, leaving a clear, nearly odourless and flavourless oil.
Potency: among the highest in the category, often into the 90s percent THC
Texture: thin, clear oil
Best for: vape cartridges, edibles, and infusions where taste is unwanted
Diamonds
THCA diamonds are crystalline structures, ranging from very fine to the size of a coarse sugar grain, that form when a concentrate is held under specific conditions and the cannabinoids crystallize out of solution.
Potency: very high, frequently 80 to 95 percent THC once heated
Texture: solid crystals
Best for: experienced consumers who want both purity and full flavour
Shatter
Shatter is the brittle, amber-coloured, glass-like concentrate most people associate with dabbing. It’s a solvent extract that has been processed and cooled to form a hard, translucent sheet that snaps when broken. As the showpiece of the early dabbing era, it remains popular because it’s stable, easy to handle, and approachable for newcomers.
Potency: typically 60s to 80s percent THC
Texture: hard, brittle, glass-like sheet
Best for: newcomers to dabbing who want a stable, easy-to-handle extract
Rosin
Rosin uses no solvents at all. Heat and pressure are applied to flower, kief, or hash, and the resin is pressed out directly. Because no chemicals are involved, rosin appeals to consumers who prefer a solventless product. When the starting material is fresh-frozen, the result is "live rosin," the solventless counterpart to live resin, which generally sits at the premium end of a menu.
Potency: roughly 60s to 80s percent THC, higher for live rosin
Texture: sappy to budder-like, depending on the press and finish
Best for: consumers who want a solventless extract without sacrificing flavour
Hash and kief
Long before modern lab extractions, there was hash. Its origins trace back centuries, starting with the simplest concentrate of all: kief.
Kief is the dusty, trichome-rich powder that gathers in the bottom of your grinder. When pressed with a little heat, it becomes traditional hash. Modern techniques like bubble hash (or ice water hash) refine this same concept. By agitating frozen cannabis flower in ice water, the brittle trichomes snap off. This mixture is then filtered through a series of fine mesh screens to isolate the concentrate.
Potency: lower than lab extracts, commonly 20s to 60s percent THC depending on grade
Texture: loose powder (kief) or pressed cake (hash)
Best for: consumers who want a solventless, traditional option, including a low-cost entry point
Choosing wisely
A few practical guidelines apply. Consumers focused on flavour and aroma are best served by live resin, live rosin, or quality bubble hash. For vape cartridges or maximum potency without taste, distillate is the intended choice. Diamonds offer the crystalline, high-potency option, shatter is a stable entry point for newcomers to dabbing, and rosin and hash cover the solventless preference. One point bears emphasis: a higher THC figure does not equate to a better experience. Terpene content, format, and method of consumption shape a session far more than a few percentage points on a label.
The choice is yours
Once you cut through the jargon, you'll find that every concentrate represents a trade-off. Live resin and rosin prioritize flavour, distillate aims for neutrality, diamonds focus on purity, and hash represents the traditional foundation of the entire category.
No single type is definitively "best." Find the concentrate that suits your needs and preferences. Experiment with different types and consumption methods to discover what works best for you.
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