Flower is the dried bud you grind and smoke yourself — still the biggest section of most menus, and the one with the most jargon. An eighth. A zip. Top shelf, exotic, smalls, shake. Menus rarely explain much of it, and all of it moves the price.
This guide starts with the vocabulary, then gets to the harder part: choosing flower you can't see or smell until it arrives. If you're starting from zero, the full guide to buying cannabis in Los Angeles covers ID, delivery and payment.
How many grams in an eighth, a quarter and an ounce
Retail cannabis weights are fractions of an ounce with nicknames attached. Once you see the system, the slang stops being slang.
| What you'll hear | Weight | Also called |
|---|---|---|
| Gram | 1 g | a G |
| Eighth | 3.5 g | — |
| Quarter | 7 g | a quarter O |
| Half | 14 g | a half zip |
| Ounce | 28 g | an O, a zip |
An eighth is 3.5 grams, one eighth of an ounce, and the standard small unit: enough to judge a strain, small enough to finish before it loses its aroma. Rolled at half a gram to a gram per joint, that's somewhere between three and seven joints.
Eighths aren't on every tier, though. On our menu they're on top shelf and exotic; mid shelf and fire indoor ("fire" is slang for really good) start at a quarter. Stock rotates, so read the listing rather than assuming.
On a menu, an ounce is 28 grams, rounded down from 28.35. California's possession limit for an adult 21 or older is 28.5 grams of cannabis and 8 grams of concentrate (extracted cannabis resin, such as wax or vape oil). A licensed retailer can't sell one adult-use customer more than that in a single day, with flower and pre-rolls counted together. That makes an ounce of flower the ceiling for a day's orders — anything larger is a wholesale unit, not something an adult-use order includes.
What the size does to the price
Price per gram falls as the unit gets bigger. An ounce costs less per gram than eight separate eighths of the same flower, and that gap is the whole case for sizing up.
Two things make the bigger size less of a sure bet. Flower goes stale once a jar has been opened enough times, so the bigger unit only saves money if you finish it while it's good. And a large amount of something you haven't tried is how people end up with 28 grams of a strain they don't enjoy. Start with the smallest unit a tier offers, and size up once you've found a strain you'd reorder.
The tiers: what "top shelf" and "exotic" mean
"Top shelf" and "exotic" are grade names, not regulated terms, and each seller decides what they mean. Our catalog splits flower across four tiers, and the honest way to read them is as a price ladder: at the same weight, the price per gram generally climbs from mid shelf to fire indoor to top shelf to exotic. Mid shelf is everyday indoor flower and the cheapest per gram of the four; exotic sits at the top, with the rarer strains.
Which tier a flower lands in is the seller's own call on looks, aroma, trim (how neatly the leaves were cut away) and how rare the strain is, which is why the same words describe different flower at two sellers.
And the part nobody puts on a menu: the tiers are a price grade, not a safety grade. Licensed California retailers work under rules that ensure all products are tested, whatever tier the flower is in. The safety line runs between licensed and unlicensed sellers, not between cheap and expensive flower. The higher tiers charge for looks, aroma and scarcity: real differences that some people notice right away and others never do. "Mid" sounds like a warning, and it isn't one.
Exotic vs top shelf
Across the market, the two words usually point at different things: top shelf at execution (how well a batch was grown, dried and finished), exotic at the strain itself (how rare and distinctive it is).
On our menu, exotic sits above top shelf, and our FAQ rates it as the higher grade and the rarer one. The extra you pay for exotic buys a harder-to-find, more distinctive strain.
Indoor vs outdoor vs greenhouse
Indoor costs more and comes out tighter and more uniform, outdoor costs less and looks looser, and greenhouse falls in between.
None of the three is a quality grade. California does define indoor, outdoor and mixed-light (greenhouse) cultivation, but only as license categories based on how the plants get their light, not on how good the flower is. What buyers actually judge is the bud itself: how it looks and how it smells.
Indoor means grown in an enclosed room with controlled light, temperature and humidity. It's expensive to run, and the trade usually prices it highest. Expect tight, frosty, strong-smelling bud.
Outdoor, or sun-grown, means grown in the open under natural sunlight, typically with one harvest a year. It's cheaper per gram, and the bud usually looks looser and less uniform, which is mostly a cosmetic difference.
Greenhouse means sunlight under cover. Some greenhouse growers use light dep (short for light deprivation), pulling tarps over the plants to control the light cycle and bring a crop in earlier.
Our flower is indoor only, as our FAQ says. That's a sourcing decision, not a verdict on sun-grown cannabis, plenty of which is excellent.
How to read a flower listing
When you order by delivery, you choose before you see the flower. Most listings carry the same handful of facts, and some of those facts tell you more than others.
- Strain and type. Indica, sativa or hybrid is a rough family label, not a spec; the indica vs sativa vs hybrid guide explains why. The strain name points to its lineage and often its flavor; you can look any of them up under strains.
- Weight. Match it to how fast you go through flower, not to the best price per gram.
- Tier. A price and presentation grade, as above.
- Brand or grower. When a listing names the grower, regulars often shop by that name. Once you like one grower's flower, their next batch is usually a safer bet than an unfamiliar name at the same tier. Our flower listings carry our own brand name, not the grower's, so here the strain, tier and aroma notes do that job.
- Aroma notes. Citrus, gas (a fuel-like smell), pine, earth, sweet cream. Aroma is the main thing flower is judged on, and it's the closest the page gets to telling you whether a batch suits your taste.
- Photo. Representative, not literal. The same strain grown twice doesn't come out identical, and our FAQ notes that batches can look different.
There's no way to compare two listings on numbers alone. The THC percentage is the most prominent number on our listings. It's written into the product name, so you see it first. It's a lab figure, but it comes from the producer, and our terms say we publish what the producer reports and can't verify it independently.
Even taken at face value, it isn't a grade. It says nothing about how the bud was grown, dried or trimmed, or how it smells, and two batches at the same percentage can be nothing alike. The THC vs CBD guide explains what the number actually measures. Read the percentage alongside the aroma notes and the strain, not instead of them. And none of this is a promise about a particular jar: batches vary, and so do people's tastes.
Smalls, shake and infused flower
Two labels that mean cheaper, and one that means stronger. Smalls are ordinary flower in an unflattering size; shake is broken pieces of it.
Smalls are whole buds that grew small — popcorn-sized flowers from the lower and inner branches, which get less light than the top of the plant. They grind and roll exactly like larger bud, but they're priced below the big top buds from the same plants, mostly because of their size. Cheaper than the big buds they grew with isn't the same as cheapest on the menu, though, so compare the price per gram with mid shelf.
Shake is the loose material that breaks off buds during handling and packaging — fragments rather than whole buds. It grinds and rolls fine and is usually the cheapest flower per gram on a menu, but it's uneven by nature and dries out faster, since broken material has more surface exposed to air.
Both have their own section on our menu, smalls and shake, sold in the larger weights. If you mostly smoke pre-rolls, rolling your own from smalls or shake is usually cheaper per gram.
Infused flower is something else again: bud coated or blended with concentrate. It's sold loose, not rolled, so it isn't the same thing as the infused pre-rolls covered in pre-rolls vs flower, even though our menu lists it under pre-rolls rather than on the flower shelves. The added concentrate makes it stronger than the same flower on its own, so it's not where a beginner should start.
What to check when it arrives
Check the order in front of the driver. Under our terms of sale, cannabis can't be returned once a delivery is complete. A damaged, defective, wrong or missing item is the exception, and the guide to how delivery works explains how to report one.
At the car, it's a short list: the order is complete, the items are the ones you picked, and the packaging is sealed and undamaged. If it rides in a car later, keep it sealed. California law allows cannabis in a vehicle only in a sealed package or in the trunk, and the guide to cannabis laws in Los Angeles has the details for driving.
Once you're inside, four checks tell you most of what you got.
- Look. Well-formed bud with visible trichomes — the frosty crystal coating. Deep greens with orange or purple hairs are normal; very pale, brown or seedy flower is not.
- Smell. It should smell strong the moment you open it. Almost no aroma usually means it was over-dried or has been sitting too long.
- Feel. Slightly springy, breaking apart with a bit of effort. Dust-dry is over-dried; damp or spongy is under-dried, and that's the condition mold likes.
- Mold. White powdery patches or gray fuzz. If you see either, don't use any of it; keep it in its packaging and get in touch with us.
How to store flower
Store flower airtight, dark and cool, in a child-resistant container out of reach of children and pets.
Kept dry, flower doesn't spoil the way food does; it loses the aroma and flavor you paid for. Sealed, dark and cool, it generally holds its character for months, not weeks. Smell and flavor go first, and over longer storage the THC itself slowly breaks down, mostly into CBN (cannabinol). Light, air, heat and the wrong humidity all speed that up.
One thing comes before freshness, and it's state guidance: keep cannabis in a sealed, child-resistant package when you're not using it, and store it where children and pets can't see it or get to it. If a child gets into it, call California Poison Control at (800) 222-1222; for a pet, call your veterinarian or the Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435. Everything below builds on that rule.
- Airtight glass with a child-resistant lid. A jar with a real seal holds aroma better than the pouch it came in, and glass beats plastic. The lid matters: flower can ship in packaging that's child-resistant only until it's first opened, so once you open the pouch, the jar's lid is what keeps kids out.
- Dark and cool. A cabinet, not a windowsill. Cold slows THC breakdown, but frozen bud turns brittle and sheds resin when handled, and a jar that goes in and out of the fridge can pick up condensation. For flower you'll finish in a few months, a cool cabinet is simpler.
- Humidity pack. A two-way humidity pack is a small packet that releases or absorbs moisture to keep the jar's humidity steady. It's an inexpensive add-on for a large purchase.
- Grind as you go. Ground flower goes stale far faster than whole bud.
The short version
Learn five numbers and you can read any menu in California: 1, 3.5, 7, 14, 28. Take the smallest unit a tier offers until you know what you like. Read the tier as a price grade rather than a safety grade, pick by aroma notes and strain rather than by the biggest number on the page, and keep it sealed in a child-resistant glass jar somewhere dark.
Our flower menu has four tiers: mid shelf, fire indoor, top shelf and exotic. Smalls and shake have their own section. Delivery is free; the zone and the order minimum are on the delivery page.
State rules described here were verified on September 25, 2026, against California statutes and the Department of Cannabis Control's regulations and consumer guidance. Rules change; check cannabis.ca.gov for the current text. This guide is general information, not legal or medical advice.