Homestead Bandwagon Blue Dream
Intro
It’s Squid Pants here with a budget branded Blue Dream from Homestead Supply. For any of you who followed the original TCLEWSI, you may remember that when people didn’t know what to pick when asked to guess the genetics of an entry, they picked Blue Dream. Well if you will forgive the self promotion, the second TCLEWSI is taking place over the next month or so and we decided for this one we would supply a practice entry to grade first to get warmed up. Considering the Blue Dream fetish, what better choice could there be?
Cultivar
Bandwagon Blue Dream, in a daring move for a Canadian producer’s branding/naming strategy, does indeed appear to be a Blue Dream. Blue Dream is a DJ Short’s Blueberry crossed to some sort of Haze and that’s the entirety of the producer’s commentary on the genetics here. There are many discussions of Blue Dream on this site already, so why not check those reviews out?
Though often called overrated or played out, personally I am a fan. As such I like to sample any offerings of Blue Dream when I can. I also grow it on occasion myself and I consider it a barometer for the skills of the producers. It’s a really easy grow so if they can’t get a blue dream right, maybe they aren’t too great a producer. If they really bring out the subtleties of this flower, then maybe they are exceptional.
Producer
Homestead are a large package size budget brand. This offering I believe is available in one ounce packages only as of the time of this writing. But the story doesn’t quite end there.
Homestead is owned by Rubicon Holdings and boasts about their Fraser Valley Organic Producers Association certification. Rubicon also owns Simply Bare Organics who also boast about their FVOPA certification on their Blue Dream. It doesn’t end there; if, as of the time of this writing, one were to look at, for example, the OCS listings for those two offerings one would notice the descriptions, details and even bud photos are identical between Simply Bare’s Blue Dream and this one. A Google image search offers soft proof that the only use of that specific bud photo that both listings use are for listings of only those two products. In other words it seems to be a bud picture created by the producer specifically for this cultivar and not just a stock photo of a bud usable by anyone. So, as far as this cursory investigation goes, the only differences between these products are THC percentages (nominally lower on the Homestead offering), package size and price. My guess is these are mid grade buds and the highest grade buds are reserved for the Simply Bare offerings, but that both in fact come from the exact same harvest. I haven’t tried the Simply Bare version so speculation is all we get here.
Packaging
Packaging is a realistically sized foil lined plastic bag. Not the most wasteful but check in your area if and how you can recycle these. Worst case these types of bags are pretty smell proof so can be reused for holding other cannabis.
Packaging date is August 30, 2021 and I began this review 95 days later on December 3rd, 2021.
Looks
Buds are larger smalls to good sized mids, gram plus sized. Shape is conical with good trichome coverage but a little stem projecting from each bud and some errant leaf chunklets. Tight machine trim gives a groomed look. Personally I find this look a bit too manufactured looking and prefer the natural contours, but this is fine. It’s cheap so one can’t expect hand trimming. Colouring is uniform and lacks expensive purples. Appears dense and solid, more so than most Blue Dreams, but of course morphology varies within a population so a less fluffy structure isn’t outside expected boundaries.
Feel
Feel is quite firm for a haze cross, with great return. Stickiness is muted but that seems to not be a negative as the quality of product isn’t disappointing. Quite good humidity and the buds hold together quite well. Decent cohesion upon grinding.
Scent
Creamy blueberries are the dominant scent to first greet you. A little less candy-like and more citrus peel than the Blue Dream I grow, with a sharp unpleasant vomit note hiding in the back a little. Despite that last note it’s a highly likeable and approachable scent. Amplitude is very good, it’s loud enough to spread to every part of a room after a few minutes, but volume at a distance is a loud whisper, not a scream.
I found literally no change in scent intensity nor composition upon grinding. However, since the initial scent was satisfactory this is at worst a minor disappointment, like finding only a regular sized french fry at the bottom of a take-out bag instead of one of those gigantic ones.
The dominant terpenes and their percentages are listed as beta-myrcene at 1.09%, trans-caryophyllene at 0.70% and ocimene at 0.40%. Respectable amounts for this price point for sure, just remember terpenes do not tell the full story as there are other types of scent and taste compounds in cannabis too, none of which are listed on labels at this time but that are contributing to the sensory experience nonetheless, sometimes very significantly.
Taste
Volcano: Fruits are more muted and no tastes I would consider haze-y. Taste in general is not up to expectation from scent. Tried upping the temperature to see if it was just a matter of needing a bit more heat to boil off more tasty molecules, but the only result was the next few hours were not terribly productive as I was stoned out of my gourd. No contamination tastes though and flavour is a bit more candy like than scent. Not a premium experience in this method, which is honestly a surprise considering the quality to this point, but not bad. Dries down into a green/jasmine tea taste which I liked but isn’t what I would consider typical for the genetics.
Joint: This is where this product shines. A hint of green flavour but berries dominate. Blueberries specifically and convincingly so. This is exactly what blueberries taste like to me. Not similar, exactly. If there are other flavours I am too preoccupied with the blueberry to pay them any heed. Stronger tastes on the joint. Further, this burns very cleanly. Smoking anything isn’t great for you and except for hash I find I am avoiding combustion more and more, but this is worth burning.
Price and Value
This was purchased from Value Buds for $119.75 after tax. This works out to about $4.28 a gram, which is definitely towards the lower ends of price in the legal market. This was a better product than a lot that I have paid much more for. Further, for those who perceive value in it, this is very affordable for an organic product. Qualitatively this is nice cannabis, it looks nice, smells nice, tastes nice (moreso when smoked) and burns very cleanly. I am more forgiving of certain things when it comes to cheaper priced offerings but only if there’s something to offset the compromises. If the buds are really small, a great scent can balance that out in a cheaper offering for me for example. There’s no compromise here, this seems like a great deal for the quality I am getting, with every attribute more than satisfactory at this price point instead of on average. This is not over priced, in fact I would call this an incredible deal. We can only hope everything in this price range converges on this level of quality.
This package lists THC percentage as 17.651% so price per 100mg of THC is around $2.42. If that’s your key metric, it’s pretty attractive.
Conclusions
This offering was recommended to me by several people. I wouldn’t call it a well kept secret, this is a popular product that offers far better value for money than any other value brand I’ve encountered. It’s an easy recommendation for a popular and I think very enjoyable cultivar. The only drawback is there is only one package size so it’s a large up front cost anyway.
