Hash Black Nepalese

Nepalese hash, as in Hash Black Nepalese, points to charas: the hand-rubbed hash mainly associated with India and Nepal, made by rubbing resin out of living flowers. Sensi Seeds describes finished charas as dark and sticky yet pliable, with a texture like marzipan or modelling putty and a colour like dark chocolate or coffee.

Rolling a flower between the palms

By Sensi Seeds’ account, the maker pinches the fan leaves off with finger and thumb. Each flower then gets rolled in circles between the palms, and the friction and warmth pull the trichomes off onto the hands, where they collect as dark brown resin. Resin from several buds is gathered into one lump and rolled into dark sticks or balls. These can be used at once, or cured to bring out more aroma and flavour.

Eight hours for a handful of grams

A second Sensi Seeds article, on charas, has makers stripping the large leaves from buds on living plants and rubbing them gently until a thick, dark, glossy coat of trichomes builds up on the palms. The fingers are then scraped across it, forming curls that are rolled into balls or finger shapes. Roughly eight hours of work yields seven to eight grams, it says, and slower rubbing gives better quality. The traditional unit for charas is the tola, which it gives as 11.7 g.

Where the craft is kept alive

Sensi Seeds names the Himalayan villages of Manali in India and Batase in Nepal as places that keep the practice going, with local people, often women, rubbing charas by hand next to bundles of fresh-cut flower tops. Wikipedia’s Hashish article describes the old way as pressing or rubbing the flowering plant between the hands and shaping the sticky resin into a small ball, called charas; it says remote places still work like this.

Older descriptions of the same hand method

Sensi Seeds’ Nepal article relays Colonel Fitzpatrick’s description of rubbing the leaves until resin clings to the fingers, a method it says is still used in places today. Its charas article cites the Victorian reference book Pharmacographia for rubbing the plant tops in the hands once the seeds are ripe and then scraping the sticky resin off the fingers.

Respecting the strength

Health Canada lumps hash in with kief, wax and shatter, calling the whole group high in THC, and it suggests that newcomers and occasional users steer clear of the lot. Our Nepalese hash guide covers the style in more detail.