Finding premium CBD hemp flowers in the UK can feel like a mission. The UK CBD flower scene has grown over the past 5 years. However, this has been mostly online. The problem with purchasing CBD flowers in the UK is that it can be challenging to know the quality. This problem can be more significant than one might initially think, as most sellers of CBD flowers have no control over what they are selling. Most UK CBD vendors do not grow their own CBD flowers and often don’t know how their product is handled. 

Quality matters a lot when it comes to cannabis in its raw form. Unlike isolated CBD, which is just the CBD molecule, CBD flowers contain almost anything the plant was grown around. This can be good if the hemp is grown in expert conditions. However, significant problems can arise if contaminants find their way near a cannabis farm. 

Cannabis contaminants are a considerable concern for anyone unsure about the quality of their CBD flower. There are many reasons cannabis can present contaminants, and they have immense pharmacologic effects. It’s unlikely that producers of low-quality CBD flowers would sell that poor-quality product directly to their customers because that could damage their brand reputation. They would likely sell their bad-quality CBD flower bulk to other vendors, especially in foreign countries like the UK. Many resellers of CBD flower don’t have the means to check in on the quality of their CBD flower before ordering stock, and often they’re the ones that we find lack quality CBD hemp flower. 

Why you’ll find premium CBD hemp flower at Hemp Elf UK

We’ve been working with CBD flowers for nearly 5 years, and we’ve seen the industry evolve. One of the first things we identified was the importance of having full traceability across our CBD products. In our infancy, we travelled Europe searching for the highest quality CBD flowers and hashes to make them available to Uk customers. This method was the only way to guarantee that we constantly offered the highest quality CBD flowers in the UK. Making visits to most of the hemp farms in Europe, we knew that eventually, we would want to partner with the best in the industry to have total control of our CBD flower lineup. 

Now, we grow all our hemp and have full traceability and understanding of what goes into our production before our CBD flowers are shipped to the UK. Our production process is done by hand, ensuring everything is noticed and all CBD hemp flowers are inspected by at least a few team members before being sent to the UK. 

The first UK CBD flower company to grow in-house.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our goal of taking control of the production of all our CBD flowers by teaming up with hemp experts at The Goods. Their grow facility is exceptionally close to our Italian headquarters, so we are constantly monitoring the plants alongside the team at The Goods to ensure we are happy with the quality of our CBD hemp flowers. Every step in producing CBD flowers is tailored to our needs, from our genetics to the growing mediums the plants thrive in. Having in-house testing capabilities means we can constantly track the cannabinoid contents of all our CBD flowers and identify any issues, be THC levels creeping up too high or a lack of cannabinoids that could demonstrate a nutrient deficiency. 

Drying & curing CBD hemp flowers

We’ve taken complete control of the growing process, making our CBD flower the highest quality it can be, and we take extreme care during the drying, curing and trimming of all our CBD flowers by hand. Often, the drying process is where growers will slip up and see a deterioration in the quality of their CBD flowers. The problems usually arise when time limits are creeping up, and the process needs to be slowed. 

Drying CBD flowers can not be rushed without risking a fall in their overall quality. If CBD flowers are not dried to the correct humidity, the risk of mould infestation will increase. Some types of mould are highly toxic, and while an entire batch of CBD flower should be incinerated if mould is detected, many resellers wouldn’t do this at risk of losing their money. This is when bad foreign producers might take advantage of willing UK CBD vendors who can’t inspect CBD flowers before purchasing. They will often entice UK CBD vendors with reasonable prices without informing the UK vendor of a risk outbreak. Some new vendors haven’t benefited from years of cannabis experience and might not even know what mould looks like on cannabis. 

All our CBD flowers are grown in environments that have air purification and filtration systems that remove spores and other potential contaminants from the air. The humidity in all our rooms is precisely controlled; even our packing area has humidity control so that every packet of CBD flowers contains the correct moisture for storage. 

The best UK CBD flowers are hand-trimmed

We take great pride in ensuring that every flower offered to our customers passes approval by our team members. This is done by trimming and cleaning our CBD flowers by hand in a humidity-controlled environment. This means that before our CBD flowers reach UK customers, they’ve been quality checked and contain mostly high-quality CBD material. 

Larger producers often try to minimise labour costs and trim time by passing all their CBD flowers through a machine trimmer. Whilst machine trimmers can be very effective in saving companies money, they don’t have the same level of precision as our expert trimmers at Hemp Elf. Machines homogenise CBD flowers so that each nug looks pretty much the same. There are often bushy parts to machine-trimmed CBD flowers that contain very few cannabinoids and make for an unpleasant consumption. For that reason, we believe that hand trimming should be a minimum requirement to get premium CBD flowers in the UK. 

UK team with knowledge of CBD hemp flower genetics

Since CBD flowers became legal across Europe and the UK, the CBD-dominant hemp genetics that we’ve seen have exploded. Industrial hemp strains have quickly been transformed into top-shelf CBD-leaning cannabis strains. This has been achieved through cross-breeding hemp strains with cup-winning cannabis strains and the selective breeding of high-performing hemp phenotypes. Our knowledge of CBD genetics naturally grew with the industry as we moved away from strain hunting and built our own selection of strains and grow facilities. 

Having the ability to offer CBD flowers to the UK with this level of experience puts us in a position to provide high-quality CBD flowers year after year consistently. We’re not reliant on buying CBD flowers from inexperienced growers who may not understand which hemp strains work best at a particular grow facility. Instead, we can develop the specific strains we desire while also knowing what flavours, smells, effects and cannabinoid percentages we will achieve before harvesting. 

Final thoughts on buying premium CBD hemp flowers in the UK

It’s alarming to see how it can sometimes be harder to find a premium CBD flower vendor in the UK than a high-quality underground THC vendor. Perhaps part of the reason for this is the nature of unregulated industries. The UK CBD hemp flower industry is very much unregulated compared with other countries. Therefore, more people passionate about cannabis must get involved in the legal sector. Those with passion are more likely to self-regulate and prevent bad practices from entering the industry. 

We’ve seen the effects that come from employing the best practices in our hemp operation through the high-quality CBD hemp flower that we harvest. There are no shortcuts to achieving this; hemp growing needs to be in-house to offer the highest quality CBD hemp flower in the UK. 

We are now on a mission to maintain and improve the high quality of our CBD hemp flowers while keeping our processes very manageable. We’ll never produce more than we can handle; that is where we’ve seen other producers fall short on quality. For us, quality needs to increase at the same pace as quantity.