Mazzar - Premium Hash

Weighed out from 1 g to 28 g, Mazzar - Premium Hash carries a name that echoes Mazar. In UNODC’s 2009 survey of Afghan cannabis, the name Mazar is attached to the Mazari plant variety of Balkh and to Sherak-i-Mazar, a hash rolled by hand.

Balkh and its Mazari plants

Mazari was the variety the survey’s farmers named most often, at 58%, and it was the leading variety grown in the north. UNODC traces Balkh province’s former bad reputation to this Mazari, or Balki, cannabis, and says northern and eastern growers process it differently from their other varieties.

Jooshi garda, the north’s first grade

Garda, the sifted powder that carries the resin, comes in first, second and third grades. Jooshi garda, which UNODC also calls Balkhi garda, is the north’s first grade made the traditional way, and it is rated the best: its resin content is higher, and leaf is kept out of it entirely, whereas growers in the centre and east let leaf into their garda. The survey reports that about 25 kg of ordinary first-grade garda goes into roughly 14 kg of Jooshi garda.

A match flame and a greenish-brown mass

UNODC describes the traditional Balkh method as two farmers’ work. A match is lit; one farmer holds a palmful of Jooshi garda while the other scatters more of the powder across the flame. Each repetition softens the powder a little more, until it is tacky and holds together, and the farmers press it, then roll it by hand until it forms a greenish-brown mass. The survey records three names for the result: Balkhi hashish, Jooshi hashish or Sherak-i-Mazar, the last rendered in English as “milk of Mazar”.

Palms, low flames and machines

Other regions finish garda differently, the survey notes. In the south, small amounts are pressed between the palms: the richest first garda grows tacky from rubbing alone, while poorer garda gets a little water so it binds. The lump is then heated over a low flame, with rubbing in between, for several rounds, a process UNODC calls cooking. A more recent method belongs to traders rather than farmers: kneading garda into hashish paste by machine, using equipment that came from Pakistan.

For the basics of hash-making, see our primer on how hash is prepared; our overview of hashish and its types looks at other styles.