Winding over the mountaintop headed toward Central Oregon is a wild frontier of desert land, lakes, rivers, and valleys as far as the state stretches. After stopping in Bend for a microbrew and a bite to eat, we decided to visit the crew over at Calyx Crafts to get a firsthand look at their new product launching. Touring the shop, it’s easy to tell that every square inch of their facility is being used, as well as every part of the extract – something I have not seen at any of the larger extraction labs.
The direction the company is headed with (both solvent and solventless extraction) seems to be setting the pace for labs everywhere – working directly with the OLCC on new products, as well as the standardization of operational procedures. Many of the team have backgrounds rooted in the medical market of the past. So the brand will be releasing products familiar to those that consumed medical Cannabis prior to recreational legalization, creating a nostalgic buying experience for Oregon’s originals. They have also taken the dive into two-gram packages of extract, something they call Yin Yang Jars.
After seeing the facility and speaking with the husband and wife owners, we set out to try this new product for ourselves. Originally tasting it off of a quartz terp slurper, it’s apparent that there is little to no remediation done to the color of this product. Having tried several cultivars, we noticed that each consistency was a different color and all-around terpene profile. The ability to choose what you want to consume has to be one of the top reasons why consumers will flock to these. They offer a choice between Live resin diamonds or sauce. Each diamond seems faceted to perfection and clarity is spot on, not to mention the flawless breakdown time for the diamond in the banger.
Calyx Crafts became the first licensed extract facility in Deschutes County in 2016, with no investors and backed solely by Green Leaf Garden Center. They tell us it allowed them to increase profits quickly while minimizing overhead (thanks to a thoughtfully designed lab that makes use of every square inch of the facility). Now that they’re integrating several employees from the former Lunchbox Alchemy THC crew, make sure to keep an eye out on the market for several products that have been lost, but not forgotten.
calyxcrafts.com | @calyx.crafts
This article was originally published in the December 22022 issue of Oregon Leaf.
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