Kif in the Rif - Morocco 2018

vostok

Well-Known Member

This is a tribute to the moroccan farmers, who have carried along generations this amazing plant, and made it possible for a whole generation in Europe to access the marvelous realm of the getting high. They have an incredible dedication to this plant, which you need when you see the harsh conditions that they must work with

According to the writer Al maqrizi, the cannabis cultivation was introduced in the 13th century in Egypt. At this time, the plant was acclimated to North Africa, but the use as a psychotrope had been long known by the Arabs when the conquered the maghreb.
The cultivation was grown everywhere, not only in the North like now. It was mostly grown for personal use. At the end of the 18th century, the Rif became the larger producing region.
However, the cultivation had never reached the scale it did the last 50 years, due to international trafficking.

The use of cannabis got widespread in the 1800s, and Moulay Hassan "had to" dictate repressive laws to contain it. But it was already too late, and Kif was spreading.
During the protectorate (Spanish & french), and until 1953, Kif selling become official and it was sold by the Régie des Tabacs, which sold mixes of kif/tobacco with 1/3rd and then 1/5th of kif. There was mainly three cultivars : Ktami, zerwali, and gnawi, which needed quite a bit of water to grow.(J. Bellakhdar - Contribution à l'étude de la pharmacopée traditionnelle au maroc - la situation actuelle, les produits, les sources du savoir, 1997.)

In the end of the 1960s - some people that had travelled to traditional hash producing countries (mostly afghanistan, pakistan, lebanon), introduced the sifting techniques, as well as some new cultivars that required much less water to grow than the original Moroccan ones. Many stories you hear about here, some says the first guy was american, some english, who knows !
From the 60s to the 90s, the old morocco strains slowly got cross pollinated with the lebanese and afghan/paki genetics. It slowly got selected for using very little water, and producing resin. Then, in the 90s a new loads of genetics arrive, some places here call it mexicana. I ld tend to think it would be the cheap Sensi seeds genetics.
Later on came the Amnesia, the Critical, the Kush, the Skunk. Around here, it seems that Amnesia got there around 2005, Critical since a couple of years. They are now switching to feminized seeds, which is quite different then their old planting method.

the local cultivar, is in this case the old moroccan genetics mixed with the Leb & Paki. The old cultivars, the true landraces, are probably nowhere to be found anymore, but their genetics are carried on in the Bildya. While the old people do agree that the genetics of their Kif has changed over the years, the cannabinoid/terpens profile still seems to be tuned with their social and recreational use of the plant - CBD is present in ratio around 1:2, and the terroir seems to still express itself through natural selection despite multiple foreign pollen floating around.

Keep in mind that the knowledge that I am getting locally is tied to the place I am. Xaouen is quite different in term of production than the Ketama Region. Here it is more craft work, so you will find a bit different ways of working than most of the products that can be accessed in Europe, which comes from sophisticated & vast operations


it does smell almost nothing like the final hash. The one I had access to had this sweet - bubblegumish


the local people did not remove the males traditionally. That makes little sense to us, because we know that seed production does decrease the resin and terpens content. I thought before that it was mostly because they needed seeds for the next year, but I was surprised by the quantity of seeds that came out of this pollination, way too much then needed.
Well turns out that the traditional preparation of kif, the flowers mixed with some local tobacco, requires pollinated bractas/calyxes to work with. Non pollinated ones are tiny, and have a different "texture". Because of this technique, when you smoke the kif you find some kind of a woody aftertaste, that also translate in the smoke texture. While I am not specially fond of this particularity of the kif, I have to say that overall it is an excellent product for daily use, and it is been well established to cause very little problems to health, lungs, in this form.



Morning ritual


Suspected Mexicana Hybrids

Donkeys carrying the hybrids


Feminized plants 1Km up a mountain

Cleaned amnesia sift @48 microns. Went through 120, 73 microns


Chefchaouen under fog
 

Montuno

Well-Known Member
According to the writer Al maqrizi, the cannabis cultivation was introduced in the 13th century in Egypt. At this time, the plant was acclimated to North Africa, but the use as a psychotrope had been long known by the Arabs when the conquered the maghreb.
Maybe before of 13th century:
My nation and Egypt were part together of the same Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus
durin the first half of 8th century.
When the Abbasides killed the Umayyad dinasty n founded their Abbasid Caliphate of Bagdag, my nation seceded n proclamed itself first as a new Independent Emirate (750), n arround 900 (10th century) like a new Umayyad Califate of Córdoba:then, our new Calipha
ordered extensive cannabis planting to be able to harness the ships of his new fleet to be able to face the Abassida Caliphate threat.
 
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