Blonde Lebanese Hash

Each container of Blonde Lebanese Hash holds 1 g of soft hash. Sensi Seeds counts Lebanese Blonde, along with Lebanese Red, among the Lebanese hash types that are popular with smokers worldwide.

The Bekaa, centre of Lebanese hash-making

Sensi Seeds calls the Bekaa Valley the traditional centre of Lebanese hash-making and says most of the country’s hashish comes from there, and in Wikipedia‘s article it is Lebanon’s best-known cannabis region. A 1925 report by the French authorities, quoted in a footnote on that page, already called hashish growing in the Bekaa especially intense.

By Sensi Seeds’ account, cannabis has been part of Bekaa life for centuries, used as a means of exchange, included in wedding dowries and handed freely to guests. Growers there need no irrigation or fertilizer, the same source says, because the arid soil suits cannabis so well, and one hectare can give 40 to 100 kg of hashish.

Sun, silk screens and the winter press

In Sensi Seeds’ telling, the traditional Lebanese method begins with a harvest that usually falls in late September, though the plants stay in the field until they are nearly dry. They then finish drying in the sun on rooftops and spend two or three weeks curing in a cool, dry room. Once stems and outer leaves are removed, the female flowers are shaken and rubbed over a series of fine silk screens, each with a different mesh.

Only the first shake produces top-grade kief; whatever the second and third shakes bring down is of lower quality. Pressing waits for winter: the stored powder is moved into cotton or linen bags, and industrial presses squeeze it into blocks that stay soft and pliable. Sensi Seeds’ Hash 101 places Lebanese hash in the dry-sift family with Moroccan, Afghan and Pakistani hash; grading and making dry-sift hash are covered in our dry sift hash guide.

Lebanese hash in the wider trade

Reuters, in a 1985 report run by the Christian Science Monitor, found Bekaa growers selling “Lebanese red” and reported the nickname “petroleum of the Bekaa” for hashish, a nod to its economic weight; it put about 40 percent of the northern valley’s population to work. The report noted that cannabis had a long history in Lebanon yet only became an export crop in the 1960s.

According to Wikipedia, the Lebanese cannabis industry expanded through the 15-year civil war of 1975-1990, covered 37,000 acres by 2002, twice the year before, and grew again from 2011, during the Syrian war. Wikipedia’s Hashish article also finds Lebanese hash in pre-hippie Morocco: before the first Hippie Trail travellers came, it says, a few small Lebanese pieces were the only hashish to be found there. Other regional styles appear in our overview of hash types.