Orient Express
Written by S.T.Oner, Cannabis Sativa vol.1
60% Sativa / 40% Indica
Genetics: Vietnam Black x China Yunnan
Flowering: 8-10 weeks
THC: 14-16%
Spain’s Ace Seeds is a collective of breeders and cannabis lovers who focus on preserving heirloom and landrace strains and breeding the best new varieties from their quality breeding stock. Orient Express is currently one of their most popular strains, and rightly so. Vietnam Black is a pure sativa strain from Southeast Asia, while China Yunnan is a mostly indica hybrid hailing from the home of Confucius and the Tao. By breeding these two stellar strains together, Ace Seeds have shortened the flowering time of Vietnam Black but kept the high production and the beautiful aromatics, and have thus created the best of both worlds in one plant – and isn’t that what makes a killer breeder?
This strain is best suited for subtropical climates if it’s being grown outdoors, but if you’re not in a subtropical area, coastal climates can also harbor good crops of Orient Express – take advantage of the warm fall growing conditions when you can! However, this strain is fairly resistant to cold, but shouldn’t be exposed unnecessarily. This is a variety that’s recommended for sativa lovers with smaller gardens, who may not have success growing larger South Asian plants in their limited space. The landrace Chinese Yunnan influence helps this plant stay small with a compact structure and a good amount of branching without impacting too much on the rate of production.
Due to the potent aroma and delicious taste of the finished bud, it might be a good idea to grow Orient Express entirely organically, as chemical feeding and excessive additives can dull the flavors of more tasty bud, and you want your final harvest to be the best it can possibly be. If growing this plant outdoors, you should be looking to harvest around the start of October. Indoors, the flowering period lasts 9 weeks, which of course is longer than most indicas, but is on the faster end of the sativa flowering spectrum.
You’ll be basking in the aroma of your maturing buds from halfway through the flowering stage, but once you’ve harvested and cured your finished nugs, you’ll be astounded at the smell, which is exactly like a damp rainforest full of flowers. Earthy and floral, the smoke is light and brings on a very clear, very smooth sativa high without any paranoia. This feels like the stuff you smoked on your trip around the world, when you were in Bangkok with that guy who looked like Jack Black, just before you bought that Thai rum and everything went downhill.