Making great hash is an art. Making art from great hash even more so. That’s exactly what Eric Simpson of Simpson Solventless, LLC, does in his lab in Northern California. You may have seen Eric dropping some niche rosin pressing knowledge on YouTube with Pure Pressure, or you may have seen his Instagram @simpsonsolventless, where he has helped to re-popularize hash art with his incredible solventless formulations and artistic molding.
A northern California native, Eric is a self-taught solventless guy that has been working in and around Cannabis since he was 16, helping to pioneer some of the earliest evolutions in the Cannabis industry. If not for the open blasters and tee-shirt pressers of decades past, we would likely not have the cache of extraction knowledge we do today – and Eric is one of those early adopters who got into the industry and developed a passion during a wave of Cannabis innovation.
Like many of us, he started his love affair with Cannabis as a grower in small, intimate set-ups. However, after a little experimentation, Eric quickly jumped into the newly developing world of extracts – which at the time consisted mainly of open blasting BHO and pressing flower with a hair straightener. Passion, practice and study led him down a path that started with the basic hair straightener tech, scaling up to a tee-shirt press, all the way to his current tool of choice – the Long’s Peak Pure Pressure rosin press, where he is now pushing the envelope for quality solventless.
Today, Eric has turned his knowledge into a consulting business where he helps farmers and companies produce the highest quality products possible, using state-of-the-art solventless techniques. This ranges from helping to pick out the best cultivars for production, all the way to producing and formulating novel products for the market. Always generous with his knowledge, he has also earned a reputation as a high quality, dedicated educator in the space.
Passion, practice and study led him down a path that started with the basic hair straightener tech, scaling up to a tee-shirt press, all the way to his current tool of choice – the Long’s Peak Pure Pressure rosin press.
His other benchmark – stamping, sculpting and molding hash – is not a new practice. Indeed, most of the hash producing world has traditionally stamped their hash product with a family seal or brand image, and this practice is still maintained to this day. Eric is helping to bring this tradition into the American solventless space by taking it to a whole new level, not only branding his products with signature shapes, but creating straight up pieces of art to delight Instagram followers and hash connoisseurs alike. He also plays with temperatures and various types of solventless products to create new consistencies and exquisite product pairings that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are robust and flavorful.
Working with everything from full melt hashes to solventless crystalline isolates to cold cured rosins, Eric utilizes all the tools in his arsenal to concoct tantalizing creations like two-toned THC-a crystalline donuts, and mushroom and skull shaped full melt sculptures I can only describe as Willy Wonka chic. Strictly utilizing the finest cultivars from the finest growers, Eric is quick to shout out his cultivators because he deeply adheres to the mantra of “fire in, fire out” for hash/oil production.
The best hash maker in the world cannot produce a quality product from poor flower, and every quality resin worker knows this. When asked if he had a favorite grower, Eric humbly replied, “I can’t even shout out just one because they are all so quality, it’s just too many. I am really grateful for the growers I get to work with.” This excellent relationship with his cultivators and his self-made learning journey, combined with his commitment to education and passion for self expression, make Eric Simpson a name worth knowing anywhere in the Cannabis world – and synonymous with the forefront of the solventless industry.
