California, the tastemaker of the U.S. cannabis landscape, has once again given us a robust top-10 list of best-selling flower cultivars.
According to Headset data, the largest cannabis market in the world leaned heavily on sweet flavor profiles and recognizable genetics. Wedding Cake, Blue Dream, Gelato, Runtz, Durban Poison, GG4 found comfortable spots among the top 10 best-selling strains this year. One could argue as 2022 ticks into 2023, that these cultivars have become household names.
At the top of the list, based on sales from January through November, was Wedding Cake. California consumers purchased more than $35 million of this strain.
In the final 90 days of the year, Pacific Stone's Wedding Cake (at $18.85 an eighth) was among the best-selling by brand.
Wedding Cake’s genetic lineage remains a matter of debate, but the most cited cross is one between Cherry Pie and GSC (with GSC itself being a cross between OG Kush and Durban Poison).
best selling strains in california in 2022Not for nothing, Wedding Cake earned Leafly’s prized Strain of the Year award in 2019.
“Chemically, Wedding Cake is a THC-dominant cannabis cultivar,” according to Leafly. “On average, [THC] levels hit around 21%, sometimes even higher. Terpene-wise she’s usually dominant in limonene, caryophyllene, and myrcene, showing how influential GSC genetics can be.”
In the three years since, the cultivar has become just about ubiquitous on dispensary menus from the West Coast to the East Coast and in every U.S. market in between.
As more consumers age into the legal cannabis market, there's little doubt that cultivars like Wedding Cake and Blue Dream will remain as popular as ever in the year to come. Where California consumers go, U.S. cannabis consumers elsewhere tend to follow.
Headset points out, however, in its annual report that year-over-year sales have declined by 8% in California (through November). Furthermore, flower sales nationwide declined by 8% as well.
Nonetheless, Wedding Cake remains a safe bet across the board.
