Grow Raspberry Parfait: A Seductive Sativa Scent Bomb From Humboldt Seed Company
Dessert, connoisseur marijuana—what is it? First of all, it has high very THC percentages, rare genetics, higher than average terpenoid content and variety, phenotype reliability, and a special high you love.
But it also has to have the crucial “dessert” trait. This means it’s so luscious and seductive that you’re compelled to grow it over and over again even when you have seeds from other strains to try out.
If you’re still not clear on exactly what dessert marijuana is, it’s because you haven’t yet grown Raspberry Parfait, a Sativa-dominant hybrid from famed Humboldt Seed Company.
In France, parfait is a sweet, luxurious dessert. Made with sugar syrup, egg, cream and liqueur, sometimes with vanilla, fruit or other natural ingredients, parfait is a rich treat, something you eat by the gallons when you’re high. Its smell makes you wildly hungry and its creamy texture is easy to eat too much of.
What makes me very happy and hungry is week four of an average 61-day bloom phase, when my Raspberry Parfait buds smell exactly like French parfait.
Resin glands form as early as week two of bloom phase. Buds glisten with waxes and oils soon thereafter.
Sticky cannabis-goo coats my skin and clothes when I mistakenly brush up against Parfait buds. Its waxy resins are as thick as some budder and dab cannabis concentrates.
And speaking of cannabis concentrates, the thick lacquer of resin on these buds translates into large amounts of killer-potency dry sift, live resin, rosin, bubblehash, and other extracts that often retain the irresistible taste and scent present when the buds are growing.
This strain has more cannabis “glue” on it than Gorilla Glue strains. I have to constantly clean my hands and scissors with 91% isopropyl alcohol while manicuring the buds, or I can’t keep working.
Raspberry Parfait buds are so gooey that after I remove them from a drying rack and put other buds in the same rack, those buds start smelling like Raspberry Parfait, and some end up glued to the drying rack.
I store buds in glass jars and stainless steel containers—Parfait buds are so sticky, I have to pry them out!
Raspberry Parfait scent is addictive, visceral, crave-worthy. Not to get too personal, but its multi-dimensional scent gives me déjà vu of kissing an intimate part of my beautiful, perfect, sweet, heartbreaker girlfriend in high school.
I used to joke with her that she smelled like teen spirit. Raspberry Parfait smells like she did…and she smelled like a pheromone goddess. Given its carnal scent, it’s no surprise Raspberry Parfait is an aphrodisiac.
HSC’s strain description mentions scents of raspberries and vanilla yogurt, but there are many more aromatics in this strain, coming from copious amounts of terpenes, some rarely seen in cannabis.
This strain has an exceptional, lab-verified mix and big amount of terpenoids including terpinolene, myrcene, limonene, phellandrene and guaiol.
Scents attributed to Parfait’s terpenes include balsam fir, lilac, nutmeg, lemons, ylang-ylang, pepper, cloves, mango, cinnamon, and sweet berries.
Substantial amounts of specific terpenes indicates Raspberry Parfait has significant medical healing potential including anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, analgesic, anti-depressant, and mild sedation.
At various times of lights-on starting in mid-bloom, we detect mango, vanilla, molasses, honey, gardenia, roses, berries, and other scents that as yet don’t have names. As buds are drying and curing, they retain these scents, but also sometimes smell like a hot buttered croissant.
Raspberry Parfait buds implant terpenes in my brain. Under high intensity SANlight LED grow lights showering 600 PPFD of perfect light spectrum onto the canopy, and with ideal vapor pressure deficit, temperature and nutrition, these buds pump out scent you can smell a hundred feet away.
This seductive scent is accompanied by a very strong, creamy, glowing high. No paranoia, racing thoughts, mental mazes, or other edgy effects like some Sativas create. Instead, a euphoric, goofy-smile, spiritual experience.
The high is unlike any other I’ve experienced. Relaxing but stimulating, ideal for exercise, dancing, making music, sensual pleasures of all kinds, but not in any way Indica or Kush.
If you combined Durban Poison and Girl Scout Cookies buds and vaped them together, you’d get close to the tone of Parfait’s effects.
It is very strong—makes my balance go awry for the first hour, but that feels funny and fun to me. I still function fine because I’m used to overdosing on cannabis.
However, I really do recommend you go easy the first time you try Raspberry Parfait. Be in a nice, quiet, safe place. Don’t operate machines or vehicles. It is that strong.
I start incremental harvesting at day 47 of what averages as a 61-62 day bloom phase. I put Parfait buds in my desktop vaporizer wet and heat them up until vapor flows, then turn the temperature down to 395°F.
The vapor’s taste is complex, like a layer cake. I find myself sipping vapor for a half hour or longer from a gram bud—thick with endless, heavy, delicious vapor because these buds are so waxy with resins.
The high comes on like a freight train—a Sativa head rush equivalent to the whoosh of a mind on a roller coaster, but also a hybrid body rush that makes yoga or swimming a very flexible experience.
It’s a sensual high perfect for use as an aphrodisiac enhancer. This trait comes from Purple Panty Dropper genetics embedded in the strain’s genetic lineage.
Purple Panty Dropper is a Humboldt Seed Company strain that stimulates sexual desire quite nicely.
As we’ve explained in previous articles, Humboldt Seed Company is the most impressive breeder of dessert strains. They’re dedicated to increasing the diversity and amounts of terpenoids in their strains and Parfait is one of their most elite achievements.
It was bred on Rising Leaf Farms in Oregon, with the assistance of Humboldt Seed Company founder Nat Pennington—a cross of elite strains most growers have never heard of: Truffula Tree and Shiskaberry.
Truffula Tree includes a powerhouse array of genetics, including Girl Scout Cookies, Purple Panty Dropper, Durban Poison, Kandy Kush and OG Kush.
Shishkaberry has been around for decades. Its actual genetics are a mystery, but some cannabis insiders claim it’s old-school, hardcore, near-opium Afghani crossed with original DJ Short Blueberry.
The weird thing is that the majority of Parfait’s origin genetics are usually described as Indica dominant. How anyone could orchestrate allegedly Indica and Kush breeding genetics to create the uplifting, Sativa-dominant Parfait dessert strain is beyond me, but they did it!
Raspberry Parfait only comes in feminized seeds. Humboldt Seed Company is one of few seed breeders making 100% reliable feminized seeds guaranteed in writing to grow out true and not have hermie problems. The strain is very phenotype-consistent.
It takes at least moderate skill to grow it—I don’t recommend this strain for beginner indoor growers because it needs careful topping and shaping for full yield potential, and to counteract excessive stretch during early bloom phase.
You must limit long internodes and be very alert to light-to-plant space. Because of its stretch potential, I recommend starting flowering when grow phase plants reach 14-17 inches high, and topping not just the main apical but side branch tips as well.
According to professional growers who’ve grown Raspberry Parfait outdoors, it’s resistant to molds and mildews, but insects like to suck its savory juices.
Fortunately, its stickiness tends to trap insect pests, and the buds are resin-armored, so pests have a hard time overwhelming the plant.
Raspberry Parfait does well with intense sun, moderate temperatures, and dark, fertile soil, and will grow into a tree unless you top, train, and net it. Properly managed outdoors, you get heavy yields from Raspberry Parfait.
As with many Sativa-dominant strains, use superior hydroponic nutrients or have a nutrients-rich organic root zone. It doesn’t tolerate inferior nutrients, pH imbalances, overwatering, or overfeeding.
Beware of using too much nitrogen, especially nitrogen in cal-mag boosters that some growers use during bloom phase.
Raspberry Parfait has a very strong scent, but doesn’t smell like standard marijuana, so it isn’t a smelly security risk like if you’re growing a skunk or diesel strain.
In fact, when a delivery person caught me with my front window open and my grow room full of Parfait was pouring the strain’s seductive scent into my neighborhood, the delivery person pointed to flowers growing in my yard and said how nice they smelled.
The strain isn’t going to give you the heaviest yields indoors. I average 119 grams per plant indoors for a season that takes about 13 weeks from start to finish, but Parfait’s taste, scent, high and concentrates potential are so unique and fire that I find myself including it in every growing season, because I consume so much of it, and what I can’t inhale myself, people are willing to pay $400 an ounce for.
Raspberry Parfait is yet another wonderful dessert strain from Humboldt Seed Company, a pinnacle of achievement in the world of connoisseur cannabis breeding and seedmaking.
There’s true artistry at Humboldt Seed Company—they choose terpenoids and cannabinoids from rare genetics after investigating thousands of plants and phenos, then work with genetics and traits until they’ve created superb strains that no other breeders, or even Nature herself, could ever have made.
You never know how long they’ll keep making Raspberry Parfait, so stock up on seeds now, and get ready for plants that will make you and your nose very happy.
