The 2019 High Times Cannabis Cup Bay Area brought one of cannabis culture’s best-known competitions back to the San Francisco region for a two-day celebration of cultivation, concentrates, infused products, glass and music. Held June 22–23, 2019, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, the event arrived during a transformative period for California cannabis. The state’s regulated market was expanding rapidly, legacy cultivators were adapting to a new commercial environment, and Northern California remained one of the most influential cannabis-producing regions in the world.
The competition reflected that diversity. C.R.A.F.T. won Indica Flower with Dimepiece, Sovereign captured Sativa with Mother’s Milk, and Caliva won Hybrid Flower with Z Cube. Grandpas T.I.T.S. took Sungrown Flower, Eve Farms led CBD Flower, LoadedCo won Pre-Rolls, and Raw Garden delivered one of the weekend’s strongest performances by sweeping first and second in Vape Pens and doing the same in Sativa Concentrates. The event ultimately awarded podium finishes in 16 separate categories, demonstrating just how far the Cannabis Cup had expanded beyond the flower-and-hash competitions that defined its earliest decades.
The Cannabis Cup Returns to the San Francisco Bay Area
The Bay Area occupied a special place in the history of American cannabis long before the 2019 Cup. San Francisco and surrounding Northern California communities played central roles in medical cannabis, cultivation culture and cannabis activism, while the nearby Emerald Triangle became internationally associated with high-quality outdoor marijuana.
High Times had already held numerous Northern California competitions by 2019, but the Bay Area Cannabis Cup was distinct from the separate 2019 NorCal Cannabis Cup, which had taken place earlier that month in Santa Rosa. This distinction matters because the winner lists are sometimes confused. The Bay Area event at the Cow Palace had its own entries, judges and championships.
The Cow Palace was also an appropriate venue for a large California Cannabis Cup. Located just south of San Francisco in Daly City, the historic arena had hosted concerts, sporting events, conventions and countercultural gatherings for decades. For High Times, the venue provided enough room to combine cannabis competition with exhibitors, consumption areas, product demonstrations and live entertainment.
A Fully Developed Cannabis Festival
By 2019, a High Times Cannabis Cup was much more than a strain contest. The Bay Area edition operated as a cannabis festival and industry gathering where attendees could meet cultivators, explore brands, compare products and learn about rapidly developing parts of the market.
Flower remained central, but the categories showed how diversified California cannabis had become. Separate awards existed for indoor-style Indica, Sativa and Hybrid flower, sun-grown flower and CBD-rich flower. Consumers could also evaluate pre-rolls, edibles, vape cartridges, infused products, several classes of concentrates and topicals.
The Cup even maintained its traditional lifestyle categories for glass, commercial products and exhibitor booths. That range made the 2019 Bay Area results a useful snapshot of California cannabis immediately before the People’s Choice system and pandemic-era changes transformed the Cannabis Cup format.
Notable Performers and Guests
Music was again a major part of the festival. The advertised headline lineup featured Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Stick Figure and Twiddle, giving the weekend a mixture of alternative rock, reggae and jam-band culture.
That musical combination suited the Bay Area Cup particularly well. High Times had always treated cannabis as part of a larger counterculture encompassing music, art and social gatherings. The Amsterdam Cups had paired cannabis competitions with reggae, hip-hop, psychedelic rock and punk, while American Cups expanded that approach into full-scale music festivals.
The Cow Palace also brought together growers, extractors, edible makers, glass companies and cannabis entrepreneurs from across California. Rather than centering the event around a handful of celebrity judges, the real personalities of the weekend were many of the cultivators and product makers whose names appeared repeatedly throughout the final results.
2019 High Times Bay Area Cannabis Cup Winners in All Categories
The 2019 Bay Area Cup awarded podium finishes in 16 official categories.
| Category | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indica Flower | Dimepiece — C.R.A.F.T. | Whoa-Si-Whoa — Topshelf Cultivation | Grape Jelly Donut — North Country Pharms |
| Sativa Flower | Mother’s Milk — Sovereign | J1 — Team Elite Genetics | Super Lemon Haze — C.R.A.F.T. |
| Hybrid Flower | Z Cube — Caliva | Sasquatch Sap — 3C Farms | Sour Girl — C.R.A.F.T. |
| Sungrown Flower | Grandpas T.I.T.S. — Grandpas | Lava Cake — LitHouse | Venom OG — Honeydew Farms |
| CBD Flower | Forbidden Fruit × EVE — Eve Farms | CBD OG — C.R.A.F.T. | AC/OG 2:1 — 3C Farms |
| Pre-Roll | Golden State Banana Pre-Roll — LoadedCo | XXX OG Pre-Roll — Sovereign | Cannarillo / Cuba Libre × Fig Farms |
| Edible | Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups — IncrediMeds | Spearmint Cannabis Infused Mints — Loudpack | Red Jellie — KEY |
| Vape Pen Cartridge | Orange Cookie Pie — Raw Garden | Extreme Punch — Raw Garden | Alien Rock Candy — Apex Extractions / Pinnacle Vape |
| Infused Product | Mother’s Milk Solventless Geode — Sovereign / Emerald Genetics | XXX OG Solventless Geode — Sovereign / Emerald Genetics | Trance — Lola Lola |
| Indica Concentrate | Pac Girl Live Resin — Noble Farms × Summit Boys | Zkittles Live Resin — URSA Extracts | Banana Punch Refined Live Resin Diamonds — Raw Garden |
| Sativa Concentrate | Italian Soda Live Resin Sauce — Raw Garden | Rose Water Live Sauce — Raw Garden | Cherry AK Live Resin Sugar — Cresco Labs |
| Hybrid Concentrate | Wedding Crasher #18 — Apex Extractions × Poseidon Estates | Pacific Forbidden Banana Live Resin — Pacific Reserve × Summit Boys | Gelato Live Resin — Noble Farms × Summit Boys |
| Topical | Nana’s Cooling — C.A.D. | Transdermal Compound 1:1 — Mary’s Medicinals | Mimosa Roll-On — C.A.D. |
| Glass | Serum & Tonic Substance — Dab Nation | Vertical Vaporizer — Huni Badger | SWITCH — Dr. Dabber |
| Product | Butt Naked — The Hemp Candle | Dark Dosi — LitHouse | Caviar — Summit Boys |
| Best Booth | The Hemp Candle | LitHouse | C.R.A.F.T. |
Dimepiece Gives C.R.A.F.T. the Indica Championship
The headline Indica award went to Dimepiece from C.R.A.F.T., giving the established Northern California cultivation operation one of the biggest flower trophies of the weekend. C.R.A.F.T. was far from a one-category performer. The company also placed third in Sativa with Super Lemon Haze, third in Hybrid with Sour Girl, second in CBD Flower with CBD OG and third in Best Booth. Five podium appearances made C.R.A.F.T. one of the most broadly decorated competitors at the Bay Area event.
That range is especially significant because the entries spanned very different cannabis profiles. Dimepiece represented high-end Indica competition, Super Lemon Haze came from one of the most famous Haze families in Cannabis Cup history, and CBD OG competed in a cannabinoid-focused category. Success across all three areas showed considerable cultivation depth.
Whoa-Si-Whoa Continues Its 2019 Winning Streak
Whoa-Si-Whoa from Topshelf Cultivation finished second in Indica, continuing an exceptional competition run during 2019. The cultivar had already won major California competitions that year and appeared repeatedly near the top of High Times flower categories. Its Bay Area performance reinforced its reputation as one of the standout California Indicas of the period. North Country Pharms completed the podium with Grape Jelly Donut, another name reflecting the sweet, dessert-heavy genetic trends dominating California dispensary shelves during the late 2010s.
Mother’s Milk Wins Sativa for Sovereign
Sovereign won Sativa Flower with Mother’s Milk, ahead of Team Elite Genetics’ J1 and C.R.A.F.T.’s Super Lemon Haze. Mother’s Milk was one of the most important cultivars of the entire event because Sovereign successfully translated it into another product category. A Mother’s Milk Solventless Geode produced with Emerald Genetics also won the Infused Product category. That double victory demonstrated a rapidly developing principle of elite cannabis competition: exceptional genetics were increasingly expected to perform across multiple formats. Flower could provide the raw material for concentrates, infused products and solventless preparations while retaining the recognizable qualities that made the original cultivar desirable.
J1 and Super Lemon Haze Keep Classic Sativa Names Alive
Second-place J1 from Team Elite Genetics and third-place Super Lemon Haze from C.R.A.F.T. gave the Sativa podium a strong connection to earlier cannabis eras. Super Lemon Haze had one of the most celebrated histories in High Times competition, having won the overall Amsterdam Cannabis Cup in both 2008 and 2009. A decade later, the name was still appearing on an American Cannabis Cup podium. J1 similarly belonged to an older California strain tradition compared with many of the dessert and Cookies-derived names emerging during 2019. Their placements demonstrated that fashionable new genetics had not completely displaced proven classics.
Caliva Wins Hybrid With Z Cube
The Hybrid Flower championship went to Z Cube from Caliva, defeating 3C Farms’ Sasquatch Sap and C.R.A.F.T.’s Sour Girl. Z-family genetics were rapidly gaining prominence during this era because of their candy-like fruit aromas and distinctive terpene profiles. Z Cube fit naturally into the same market movement that was making cultivars with intensely sweet, dessert and candy identities increasingly desirable. Caliva’s victory was also significant within the evolving California market. Large licensed operators were increasingly competing alongside smaller craft growers, creating Cannabis Cup podiums that mixed companies with very different production scales and business models.
Grandpas T.I.T.S. Wins Sungrown Flower
Northern California’s outdoor cultivation heritage received its own spotlight in the Sungrown Flower category, won by Grandpas T.I.T.S. LitHouse’s Lava Cake finished second, while Honeydew Farms’ Venom OG placed third. The separate Sungrown division was particularly appropriate for a Bay Area Cannabis Cup.
Northern California cannabis history cannot be understood without the outdoor farms of Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and surrounding regions. Creating a dedicated category allowed naturally cultivated cannabis to compete on its own terms rather than against indoor flower produced under completely different environmental conditions. Grandpas T.I.T.S. would also perform strongly in other Northern California competitions during this period, showing that its Bay Area victory was not an isolated result.
Forbidden Fruit × EVE Wins CBD Flower
Eve Farms captured CBD Flower with Forbidden Fruit × EVE, followed by C.R.A.F.T.’s CBD OG and 3C Farms’ AC/OG 2:1. A dedicated CBD flower category demonstrated how much cannabis competition had changed since the early High Times Cups. For decades, championship cannabis was largely judged around potency, flavor and psychoactive effect. By the late 2010s, cannabinoid ratios themselves had become meaningful breeding targets. The AC/OG 2:1 entry made that transition particularly clear. Cannabis consumers were increasingly looking for specific balances of THC and CBD rather than simply maximum THC percentages.
LoadedCo Takes the Pre-Roll Trophy
LoadedCo won Best Pre-Roll with Golden State Banana, while Sovereign’s XXX OG Pre-Roll finished second and the Cannarillo Cuba Libre × Fig Farms entry took third. Pre-roll competition had grown substantially during the legal-market era. What had once been a convenience product was evolving into a premium category with carefully selected flower, specialty papers and increasingly sophisticated branding. Sovereign’s second-place XXX OG would become even more important because the cultivar also appeared in the Infused Product category.
Sovereign Sweeps the Top Two Infused Product Positions
One of the most impressive category performances belonged to Sovereign and Emerald Genetics, which took both first and second in Infused Products. The Mother’s Milk Solventless Geode won first place, while the XXX OG Solventless Geode finished second. Lola Lola’s Trance placed third. A one-two finish in a category is difficult enough, but Sovereign accomplished it while also winning Sativa Flower and placing second in Pre-Rolls.
That combination made Sovereign one of the most successful brands of the weekend. The emphasis on solventless material also foreshadowed a larger shift within concentrate culture. Rosin, ice-water hash and other non-solvent processing techniques were moving rapidly from specialist circles into mainstream premium cannabis.
Raw Garden Dominates Vape Pens
Few companies controlled a category as completely as Raw Garden did in Vape Pen Cartridges. Its Orange Cookie Pie cartridge won first, while Extreme Punch took second. Apex Extractions and Pinnacle Vape finished third with Alien Rock Candy.
Raw Garden’s one-two finish demonstrated how important vape cartridges had become in California. Only a few years earlier, vape competition was relatively small compared with flower and concentrates. By 2019, cartridges represented a major retail segment with sophisticated extraction, hardware and terpene formulation. Raw Garden was not finished there.
Raw Garden Sweeps Sativa Concentrates
The company repeated the feat in Sativa Concentrates, taking first with Italian Soda Live Resin Sauce and second with Rose Water Live Sauce. Cresco Labs’ Cherry AK Live Resin Sugar finished third. Combined with its two vape podiums and third-place Indica Concentrate result for Banana Punch Refined Live Resin Diamonds, Raw Garden accumulated five podium positions during the Bay Area competition. That performance made the company one of the event’s defining extraction brands and illustrated how live resin had become one of California’s dominant concentrate formats.
Pac Girl Wins Indica Concentrates
Noble Farms × Summit Boys won Indica Concentrate with Pac Girl Live Resin, followed by URSA Extracts’ Zkittles Live Resin and Raw Garden’s Banana Punch Refined Live Resin Diamonds. The category names themselves tell the story of concentrate evolution. Live resin, refined diamonds and high-terpene extract formats had replaced the simple hash terminology used during early Cannabis Cups. Modern concentrates were increasingly judged not only by potency but by aroma preservation, texture, cannabinoid crystallization and the ability to reproduce the character of freshly harvested cannabis.
Wedding Crasher #18 Leads Hybrid Concentrates
The Hybrid Concentrate trophy went to Wedding Crasher #18 from Apex Extractions × Poseidon Estates. Pacific Reserve × Summit Boys finished second with Pacific Forbidden Banana Live Resin, while Noble Farms × Summit Boys took third with Gelato Live Resin. Wedding, Gelato and fruit-driven names dominated the category, providing another clear picture of late-2010s California genetics. The era of generic strain family names was giving way to highly branded cultivars with recognizable flavor identities.
IncrediMeds Wins Edibles
IncrediMeds took Best Edible with Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, followed by Loudpack’s Spearmint Cannabis Infused Mints and KEY’s Red Jellie. The third-place KEY product was especially relevant to Bay Area cannabis history because KEY was associated with Harborside, one of Northern California’s best-known cannabis institutions. The placement connected a modern regulated edible brand with an organization deeply rooted in the region’s earlier medical-marijuana era. The category also illustrated how wide the edible marketplace had become: chocolate cups, mints and fruit jellies competed on the same podium.
C.A.D. Wins Topicals
C.A.D. won Best Topical with Nana’s Cooling and also placed third with Mimosa Roll-On. Mary’s Medicinals finished second with its 1:1 Transdermal Compound. A company taking two of three places in the same category was another notable result. Topicals had moved from the margins of cannabis culture into a significant legal-market product class, particularly among consumers interested in localized application rather than smoking or ingesting cannabis. Their inclusion alongside flower and concentrates demonstrated the increasingly broad definition of what a Cannabis Cup could evaluate.
Dab Nation Wins Glass
The Glass category went to Dab Nation with Serum & Tonic Substance, while Huni Badger’s Vertical Vaporizer placed second and the SWITCH from Dr. Dabber finished third. The category reflected how modern glass competition increasingly overlapped with vaporization and concentrate technology. Early Glass Cups largely celebrated elaborate pipes and bongs. By 2019, electronic and concentrate-focused devices were competing directly alongside traditional functional glass.
The Hemp Candle Sweeps Product and Booth
One of the more unusual success stories came from The Hemp Candle, which won Best Product with Butt Naked and also captured Best Booth. LitHouse placed second in both Product and Booth, while Summit Boys took third in Product with Caviar and C.R.A.F.T. finished third in Booth.
The Hemp Candle’s double victory highlighted an often-overlooked side of Cannabis Cup culture. The event was not only a competition between cultivators. Branding, presentation, lifestyle products and the ability to create an engaging festival experience had become part of cannabis commerce.
Why the 2019 Bay Area Cannabis Cup Matters
The 2019 Bay Area Cannabis Cup arrived near the end of a particular period in High Times history. Large physical Cannabis Cup festivals were still central to the brand, with packed vendor floors, live music and on-site judging culture. Less than a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic would force High Times to reinvent the competition around distributed judging kits and the People’s Choice model.
That gives the Cow Palace event an additional historical significance. It represents one of the final major California Cups of the pre-pandemic festival era. The results also captured California cannabis at a moment of extraordinary genetic and commercial diversity. Classic names such as Super Lemon Haze and J1 competed alongside Z Cube, Lava Cake, Gelato, Zkittles and Wedding Crasher. Traditional flower shared the stage with refined live resin diamonds, solventless products, vape cartridges, edibles and topicals.
Legacy of the 2019 High Times Bay Area Cannabis Cup
The 2019 competition produced no single dominant champion, which may be exactly why it provides such a valuable snapshot of the Bay Area market. C.R.A.F.T. won Indica with Dimepiece and accumulated five podium placements. Sovereign took Sativa with Mother’s Milk and dominated the Infused Product category. Caliva won Hybrid with Z Cube, Grandpas T.I.T.S. captured Sungrown, and Eve Farms led CBD Flower.
Raw Garden became one of the weekend’s biggest extraction stories with a one-two finish in both Vape Pens and Sativa Concentrates, while Noble Farms, Summit Boys, Apex Extractions and Poseidon Estates represented the depth of California’s concentrate scene. LoadedCo led Pre-Rolls, IncrediMeds won Edibles, C.A.D. captured Topicals, Dab Nation won Glass, and The Hemp Candle swept Product and Best Booth.
Meanwhile, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Stick Figure and Twiddle helped preserve the music-festival atmosphere that had been inseparable from High Times Cannabis Cups for decades. Held at the Cow Palace during one of the most dynamic periods in California cannabis, the 2019 High Times Bay Area Cannabis Cup stands as a bridge between two eras: the large, festival-driven Cannabis Cups of the 2010s and the decentralized People’s Choice competitions that would define much of the decade to come.
