The 2021 High Times Hemp Cup: People’s Choice Edition captured the American hemp industry at one of the most experimental moments in its modern history. Instead of taking place at a convention center or festival grounds, the competition operated nationwide, with hemp-derived products shipped to consumers who became the judges. Flower, pre-rolls, concentrates, vape pens, gummies, tinctures, capsules, topicals and even pet products were evaluated side by side, demonstrating how far the hemp marketplace had expanded beyond traditional CBD oil. The winners were revealed during a virtual awards presentation in May 2021, continuing the digital competition format High Times had adopted during the COVID-19 era.
At the center of the results was Horn Creek Hemp’s Lifter, which won the flagship Flower category. Secret Nature became another major story by placing second in flower, third in pre-rolls and first in Vape Pens with its Delta 8-CBC Vape. YIPS accomplished an even rarer feat, entering two categories and winning both Tinctures and Capsules. Pinnacle’s brands took first in Pre-Rolls and Pet Products while also earning second in Non-Gummy Edibles, and a broad group of companies including Metta Hemp, JustCBD, Serenital and Zilla’s claimed championships of their own. The result was a Hemp Cup that looked less like a traditional cannabis flower contest and more like a snapshot of an entirely new consumer-products industry.
From the First Hemp Cup to a Nationwide Competition
High Times had launched its first Hemp Cup only one year earlier. The inaugural 2020 event was originally intended to be an in-person gathering in Austin, Texas, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced High Times to move the awards online. That first Hemp Cup recognized eight categories ranging from flower and concentrates to edibles, vape products, topicals and pet products. Hawaiian Haze from Gold Standard CBD won flower, Magu’s Nectar took concentrates with Luxury Hemp Live Resin, and CBD Hemp Direct won pre-rolls with Paradise OG Hemp Kief Joint. More important than any single winner, however, was the fact that the event demonstrated High Times could build a meaningful competition around hemp-derived products rather than conventional high-THC cannabis.
For 2021, High Times rebuilt the concept around its rapidly expanding People’s Choice model. Competitors sent products to Los Angeles in early March, judge kits became available beginning March 12, and judging continued into early May before the awards presentation. Unlike a state-specific Cannabis Cup, the Hemp Cup was designed as a national competition. Judge kits were shipped to consumers around the country, with product selections spanning multiple categories and a separate pet-products option. High Times described it as the first Hemp Cup opened to a nationwide public judging pool, turning consumers themselves into the central decision-makers.
The Hemp Boom Behind the 2021 Cup
The competition was possible because the American hemp industry had changed dramatically during the preceding several years. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 created a federal definition of hemp based on a delta-9 THC concentration no greater than 0.3 percent on a dry-weight basis and removed qualifying hemp from the federal definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. USDA subsequently developed a regulatory framework for commercial hemp production, while the FDA retained authority over many finished products intended for food, supplements, drugs, cosmetics and animal use.
By 2021, that new framework had produced a remarkably diverse market. Hemp was no longer represented only by CBD tinctures or industrial fiber. Consumers could purchase aromatic smokable flower, kief-enhanced pre-rolls, rosin, cannabinoid concentrates, gummies, chocolates, honey, coffee, topical products, pet oils and increasingly complex vape formulations. The Hemp Cup reflected that expansion more clearly than almost any single industry event because it placed all of those formats under the same High Times competition banner.
Nationwide Judges Replace the Traditional Cannabis Cup Crowd
The 2021 Hemp Cup differed sharply from the legendary Amsterdam Cannabis Cups or large American festivals held in Denver, California and Michigan. There was no convention hall filled with thousands of visitors and no weekend of concerts surrounding an onstage awards ceremony. Products were sent directly to judges, scoring happened over an extended period, and the champions were announced through a COVID-safe online awards show around May 9. High Times’ archived video of the presentation records the event as airing through Facebook Live at 4:20 p.m. Pacific.
Because of that format, the 2021 Hemp Cup did not have a conventional roster of notable celebrity guests comparable with older Cannabis Cups. The recognizable names instead came largely from competing brands and the wider hemp industry. Tommy Chong’s cannabis brand, for example, appeared on the podium through the Good Vibes Tincture, which finished third in Tinctures, but the competition itself remained fundamentally consumer-driven rather than celebrity-judged. Sponsors included JustCBD, Sweet Sensi CBD, YIPS, Robin Hood Extracts and Rogue Origin, several of which also appeared prominently among the final winners.
2021 High Times Hemp Cup Winners in All Categories
The final 2021 results contained ten competitive categories, each with first-, second- and third-place finishers.
| Category | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flower | Lifter Flower — Horn Creek Hemp | Papaya Nights Flower — Secret Nature CBD | Hawaiian Haze Flower — Rogue Origins |
| Pre-Rolls | Maui Wowie Pre-Roll — Pinnacle Hemp | Honolulu Haze Kief Blunt — CBD Hemp Direct | Secret OG Pre-Roll — Secret Nature |
| Vape Pens | Delta 8-CBC Vape — Secret Nature | Pineapple Cake Vape — 3Chi | Sour Gummy Bears Solventless D8 Vape — Brian’s Craft |
| Concentrates | Runtz Wet Sugar — Metta Hemp | King Richard’s Reserve Raw Rosin — Robin Hood Extracts | Gas Terpsolate — Alliance Hemp |
| Edibles – Gummies | Exotic Fruit Vegan Gummies — JustCBD | Blueberry Gummies — Hometown Hero | Delta Bears — DeltaVera |
| Edibles – Non-Gummies | Blueberry Honey — Zilla’s | CBD Coffee Beans — Pinnacle Hemp | Sea Salt Caramels — Horn Creek Hemp |
| Topicals | Massage Oil — Serenital | Athletic Rub — Sweet Sensi CBD | Releaf Balm — Papa & Barkley |
| Tinctures | Night CBD Tincture — YIPS | Berry Tincture — Hometown Hero | Good Vibes Tincture — Tommy Chong’s |
| Capsules | CBD Capsules — YIPS | CBD Capsules — Alliance Hemp | Full Spectrum Capsules — Horn Creek Hemp |
| Pet Products | Bacon & Cheese Dog Treats — Pinnacle Pets | Pet Oil — Unruffled | Water Booster — CBD Living Pet |
Lifter Gives Horn Creek Hemp the Flower Championship
The flagship Flower category went to Horn Creek Hemp’s Lifter, ahead of Secret Nature CBD’s Papaya Nights and Rogue Origins’ Hawaiian Haze. Horn Creek later identified the winning Lifter batch at approximately 16.9 percent CBD and continued promoting the cultivar as one of its most important award-winning flowers. The company had also entered several non-flower products, eventually earning third place with Sea Salt Caramels and third with its Full Spectrum Capsules.
Lifter’s victory represented an important moment in the development of smokable hemp. Early legal hemp markets had often been associated with biomass destined for extraction, but carefully cultivated CBD flower increasingly borrowed the presentation standards of premium marijuana: dense hand-trimmed buds, terpene-focused genetics, curing practices and named cultivars. Papaya Nights and Hawaiian Haze reaching the other two podium positions reinforced that transformation. Hemp flower was increasingly being treated as a finished connoisseur product rather than merely raw material for CBD extraction.
Secret Nature Wins Vapes and Medals Across Three Categories
Secret Nature produced one of the broadest performances of the competition. Papaya Nights finished second in Flower, Secret OG placed third in Pre-Rolls, and the company’s Delta 8-CBC Vape won the Vape Pens category. That range allowed Secret Nature to medal in three very different formats: raw flower, a ready-to-smoke product and a manufactured cannabinoid vape.
The vape championship is especially revealing when the Cup is viewed historically. Delta-8 THC had emerged rapidly in the hemp marketplace after the 2018 Farm Bill, with manufacturers exploring cannabinoids and derivatives beyond conventional CBD. The 2021 podium reflected that moment directly: Secret Nature’s Delta 8-CBC Vape won, 3Chi’s Pineapple Cake took second, and Brian’s Craft finished third with a product explicitly marketed as a solventless D8 vape. What had begun as a CBD-dominated industry was already becoming a much broader cannabinoid market.
Pinnacle Wins Pre-Rolls and Pet Products
Pinnacle-affiliated products produced another unusually wide competitive showing. Pinnacle Hemp won Pre-Rolls with its Maui Wowie Pre-Roll and finished second in Non-Gummy Edibles with CBD Coffee Beans. Pinnacle Pets then captured the Pet Products category with Bacon & Cheese Dog Treats, giving the broader brand family victories on both the human and pet sides of the Hemp Cup.
The Pre-Roll podium itself demonstrated how smokable hemp had evolved. CBD Hemp Direct finished second with a Honolulu Haze Kief Blunt, a format designed to add concentrated trichome material to flower, while Secret Nature’s Secret OG pre-roll placed third. These products borrowed directly from premium cannabis pre-roll culture, showing that hemp companies were not merely imitating the visual appearance of marijuana flower but adopting the same product-development strategies.
Metta Hemp Leads a Diverse Concentrate Field
The Concentrates championship went to Metta Hemp’s Runtz Wet Sugar, with Robin Hood Extracts taking second for King Richard’s Reserve Raw Rosin and Alliance Hemp finishing third with Gas Terpsolate. The three names alone illustrate how technically diverse hemp extraction had become by 2021. Wet sugar, raw rosin and terpene-rich isolate formulations represented substantially different approaches to concentrating cannabinoids and aromatic compounds.
Raw rosin reaching second place was particularly significant because solventless processing had become one of the prestige categories in high-THC cannabis. Seeing the same technique applied successfully to hemp demonstrated the degree to which the two industries were exchanging production methods. Hemp processors were no longer confined to bulk CBD distillate or isolate; they were experimenting with resin preservation, textures and terpene expression in ways familiar to serious concentrate consumers.
JustCBD and Zilla’s Divide the Edible Championships
JustCBD won the Gummies category with Exotic Fruit Vegan Gummies, followed by Hometown Hero’s Blueberry Gummies and DeltaVera’s Delta Bears. Gummies had already emerged as one of the dominant forms of cannabinoid consumption, and giving them their own category prevented the format from overwhelming other kinds of edibles. JustCBD’s victory was especially visible because the company also served as the presenting sponsor of the 2021 Hemp Cup.
The Non-Gummy division went to Zilla’s Blueberry Honey. Pinnacle Hemp’s CBD Coffee Beans finished second, while Horn Creek Hemp’s Sea Salt Caramels took third. Those products demonstrated a very different side of the industry from flower and concentrates: cannabinoids incorporated into familiar foods and ingredients rather than products closely resembling marijuana. Honey, coffee beans and caramels showed how hemp-derived cannabinoids were being incorporated into everyday consumer formats.
YIPS Sweeps Tinctures and Capsules
One of the clearest individual company victories belonged to YIPS. Its Night CBD Tincture won Tinctures, while its CBD Capsules won Capsules. More remarkably, those were the only two categories YIPS entered, giving the company first place in every division it contested. Company reporting after the event said roughly 400 judges had evaluated the products, highlighting the scale possible under the nationwide People’s Choice system.
Hometown Hero’s Berry Tincture took second and Tommy Chong’s Good Vibes Tincture finished third. In Capsules, Alliance Hemp placed second and Horn Creek Hemp took third. These results showed that even as hemp companies moved into newer products such as delta-8 vapes and rosin, the foundational CBD formats remained highly competitive. Tinctures and capsules offered controlled, discreet dosing and continued to represent a major part of the wellness-focused hemp marketplace.
Serenital Leads Topicals
Serenital captured first place in Topicals with its Massage Oil, ahead of Sweet Sensi CBD’s Athletic Rub and Papa & Barkley’s Releaf Balm. Serenital continues to identify its massage oil as a first-place 2021 High Times Hemp Cup product, making the victory one of the brand’s central awards.
The topical category represented another major departure from traditional Cannabis Cup judging. None of the products were intended to be smoked, vaporized or eaten. Instead, the field focused on external application through oils, rubs and balms. The presence of a dedicated topical competition demonstrated that High Times was treating hemp as a broad consumer-wellness category rather than simply a low-THC version of recreational cannabis.
Pet Products Become a Cannabis Cup Category
Pinnacle Pets won Pet Products with Bacon & Cheese Dog Treats, followed by Unruffled Pet Oil and CBD Living Pet’s Water Booster. High Times distributed the pet category separately from its standard judging kits, reflecting the obvious need for animal-specific evaluation rather than asking human judges to directly sample the products themselves.
The existence of the category is itself historically notable. A competition that originated in Amsterdam as a contest between marijuana breeders was, three decades later, awarding trophies for hemp-derived dog treats and pet oils. That expansion illustrates the extraordinary commercial breadth created around hemp after federal legalization of production. It also foreshadowed later Hemp Cups, which would continue treating pet products as a distinct field alongside flower, concentrates and human-consumption products.
The 2021 Cup Shows Hemp Moving Beyond CBD
CBD remained central to the Hemp Cup, but the 2021 results made clear that the market was already moving beyond CBD alone. Delta-8 products appeared prominently in Vape Pens and gummies, CBC was incorporated into Secret Nature’s winning vape, and concentrates used techniques and textures increasingly similar to products found in adult-use marijuana markets. High Times itself would expand later Hemp Cups further as the hemp-derived cannabinoid category continued to develop.
At the same time, familiar CBD products remained highly competitive. Lifter flower, tinctures, capsules, massage oil and pet products all reached first place. Rather than one type of hemp product replacing another, the Cup documented a rapidly fragmenting market in which smokable hemp, wellness formulations, extracts, edibles and alternative cannabinoids were all developing simultaneously.
Legacy of the 2021 High Times Hemp Cup
The 2021 High Times Hemp Cup marked the moment the competition became truly national and consumer-driven. The inaugural 2020 Hemp Cup had proved that High Times could stage a serious hemp competition, but the 2021 People’s Choice Edition went further by shipping judging kits across the country and opening participation to a much larger public pool. The awards presentation remained digital, yet the judging itself was more geographically distributed than the festival-based Cannabis Cups of the past.
Its winners also captured the hemp industry at a revealing crossroads. Horn Creek Hemp’s Lifter demonstrated the rise of high-quality smokable CBD flower; Secret Nature showed the growing importance of alternative-cannabinoid vapes; Metta Hemp and Robin Hood Extracts represented increasingly sophisticated concentrates; JustCBD and Zilla’s led two different edible markets; YIPS swept both categories it entered; Serenital brought topicals to the podium; and Pinnacle products succeeded across pre-rolls, edibles and pet products. The 2021 Hemp Cup was therefore much more than a CBD contest. It documented the point when federally defined hemp was becoming an entire cannabis-derived consumer ecosystem of its own.
