The High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam is usually the highlight of the year for us here at Sativa Towers.  It’s always great to fly out to such a beautiful city to meet friends and colleagues from the industry to share ideas and discuss future plans.

For 27 years Amsterdam has proudly hosted this flagship event; each year improving on the last in terms of numbers of exhibitors and connoisseur fans who make the pilgrimage to the Dutch capital.

This year, however, the event was beset with problems from the very outset.  Attendees arriving at the Melkweg centre for the first day of seminars were greeted by organizers who explained that although the Mayor of Amsterdam had not said the event could not go ahead, he had set out some fairly draconian conditions:

Anyone going inside the expo was limited to just 5 grams of cannabis or hash for personal use
Security staff would search attendees and exhibitors upon entry and would confiscate amounts over the aforementioned 5 gram limit.
No solvent-based extracts.  Torches were also banned.
Exhibitors were to be banned from distributing or sharing cannabis or even cannabis-related products with attendees.

The above rules were to be enforced strictly and revellers were left in no doubt that they faced arrest for any breaches of the new laws.  These new rules, particularly the last one, crippled the very foundations of the event.  The Cannabis Cup is traditionally a celebration of all things cannabis, culminating in an award ceremony where cups are awarded in several categories with winners voted for by attendees.  Without the opportunity to sample cup entries at the Melkweg, the Mayor had effectively stymied the whole concept of the event.

Rather than risk the wrath of Dutch authorities, organisers High Times announced that seminars and the exhibition would be cancelled for the first two days of the 4-day event.  This, of course, left hundreds of delegates hugely out of pocket in terms of money spent on travel arrangements, not to mention the substantial losses incurred by many would-be exhibitors who had flown out with stock and teams of staff – many from the US and even further afield.  So now, there were hundreds of cannabis fanatics who were already in Amsterdam - essentially all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Except there are places to go in Amsterdam.  Lots of them.  Famously, the city is home to around 200 coffeeshops, and that is where the vast majority of Cannabis Cup attendees now headed.  The coffeeshops are unsurprisingly hugely supportive of the annual event, and coped magnificently with the huge increase in customers.  Many coffeeshops, notably The Grey Area and Barney’s, were giving away promotional packs and merchandise to customers with Cannabis Cup judges passes – some even offered great value deals on purchasing cannabis and hash that was entered in the cup – this allowed people to sample cup entries and in turn, continue with the process of voting for their favourite strains.

A makeshift HQ was set up in the Melkweg café-bar with iPad-style devices for judges to cast their votes on.  High Times also hastily arranged replacement activities in lieu of the exhibition and seminars at the Melkweg.  These included a “Coffeeshop Tour”, with High Times laying on buses to ferry people from one venue to the next.  In short, everyone seemed determined to make the most of a pretty grim situation.

Thurday’s seminars went ahead almost as scheduled.  Team Pure Sativa dropped into the Melkweg to hear Don and Aaron from DNA Genetics give a talk entitled “Creating Champions” which was extremely informative.  It was also great to hear two guys who carry so much influence in the industry call for patience and understanding of High Times’ predicament.  Amid widespread frustration from delegates, the two Americans (who now live and work in Amsterdam) called for people to not turn their backs on Amsterdam and to remember that this beautiful city was here welcoming us all long before recent legalization in the US had even been conceived, let alone legislated.

Thursday evening saw a huge crowd converge on the Melkweg centre for the award ceremony.  The place was jumping to live music, live DJs and there was a palpable sense of indignation in the air.  The compere, guests and category winners were given a raucous reception as they took to the stage.  Miraculously, given the earlier difficulties, it seemed as though the judges will had been done – if crowd response is anything to go by, the results of the main categories clearly reflected popular opinion.  It was a fantastic night, topped off by High Times editor, Danny Danko’s enthusiastic insistence that the event will return for a 28th year in 2015.

The award winners is basically a who’s who of top seed companies and Dutch coffeeshops: Best coffeeshop strain went to Cookies Kush by Barney’s who also clinched best coffeeshop Nederhash with Cookies Ice Cream.  The awards for Best Indica and Best Hybrid went to The Vault Genetics for Colorado Bubba and Larry OG respectively.

However, the night, and indeed the whole event, belonged not to a seed company or coffeeshop, but to one very special strain of marijuana.  In an unprecedented announcement, the award for Best Sativa went to Tangie (Crockett Cut) by Crockett Family Farms.  Second place in the same category went to Tangie by DNA Genetics.  We can’t remember the same strain finishing first and second in the same category ever before.  This then, was a genuinely astonishing result, and one that accurately reflects exactly how popular Tangie was in the coffeeshops around Amsterdam throughout the duration of the event.  Nothing else came anywhere close to Tangie in terms of popularity.

Crockett, a long-time friend of the DNA guys, was the one who presented them with Tangie in the first place, and to see his all-conquering strain win twice was clearly an emotional moment for the usually publicity-shy breeder.  Unbelievably, Tangie has won every single competition it has ever been entered in.  This incredible variety is now rightfully taking it’s place among the true all-time legendary strains.

Of course, collectable souvenir Tangie seeds are available from Pure Sativa alongside DNA Genetics other creations, and those of the rest of the world’s top seedbanks.  Also, watch out for new strains in 2015 featuring Tangie in the breeding – as usual we’ll be first with the souvenir seeds as official UK wholesale and retail distributors.