How Can You Find the Best Weed?

• Sava is changing the way people in the Bay Area try, buy, and enjoy the best weed. Founders Andrea Brooks and Amanda Denz personally curate Sava’s offerings to give you the highest quality. 
• What to look for? The best weed is clean, lab-tested, and consistent.
• Brands like Sava, the only women-, queer-, and Latinx-founded cannabis marketplace in the Bay Area, can help you find the best weed products.
• These 3 Latinx brands, Sava, House of Puff, and Pure Beauty, are thrilled to debut their first collaboration, House of Puff’s Soho Holder in Sava’s signature teal coupled with artist series rolling papers and Pure Beauty’s premium flower. 

10-minute read

First collab by Latinx powerhouses—Sava, PURE BEAUTY, and House of PufF

Sava, House of Puff, and Pure Beauty align on every level. We’re all Latinx and women-founded companies that hold the highest standards for the products we curate for our customers. We all elevate cannabis beyond its stereotypes to reach an ever-widening audience. That’s why we teamed up for our first collab! Like a breath of springtime, our joint rolling kit will take your sesh to the next level with a limited edition Soho Joint Holder in Sava’s signature turquoise and teal, artist series rolling papers, and premium flower by Pure Beauty.  

Why Sava Specializes in curating only the best weed products

Sava’s founder, Andrea Brooks, turned to cannabis following a disabling injury. The plant ended up playing a crucial role in her recovery. The relief she got from cannabis inspired her and Amanda Denz to found Sava. Based in the Bay Area, Andrea and Amanda personally handpick the highest quality cannabis products and conveniently deliver them to your door. They’re also careful to select brands that share the same goals—like House of Puff and Pure Beauty. In this interview, Andrea and Amanda, tell us why Sava is so committed to offering you only the best weed products.

walk us through how you’re elevating the experience of buying, trying, and enjoying cannabis

California has some of the best cannabis products in the world—artisan, small-batch, super high-quality, lovely products of all kinds. We started Sava because we saw a need for a marketplace that collected these things in one place. When we launched in 2015, a lot of dispensaries felt inaccessible to us. They were showcasing things like neon green “dank” lollipops with super high THC. We wanted to create a space that was welcoming to women, people newer to cannabis, and people looking for lower-dose products or products for wellness. We wanted to make it easy to understand what was in the products and how you would use them, and we wanted to make it easy to shop online and get it all delivered to your door.

What criteria do you use for selecting the best weed products?

Most simply described, everything on Sava is handpicked by the two of us. We only choose products we would use ourselves or recommend to a friend. However, over the years those standards have evolved to be much more detailed.

The Best Weed products are clean, lab-tested, and consistent 

Everything we sell is clean, lab-tested for quality, and delivers a consistent experience each time you use it. We believe flower should never be grown with pesticides. Extracts should be clean and potent. You should be able to find edibles, tinctures, and topicals with clean, healthy ingredients that support your wellbeing. The flower we sell is sungrown or sustainably grown indoors. Our vapes and concentrates are always free from fillers and additives. And we have edibles for every single dietary need.

Our partners are quality-obsessed and inclusive

In addition to screening products, we screen the partner brands we choose to work with. All of the brands on Sava are quality-obsessed. They also share our goal of creating a progressive, legal, and inclusive cannabis industry.

Personally, what’s your favorite combo—high THC, high CBD, or 1:1?

For both of us, it depends on the time of day and what we’re looking to accomplish. Cannabis is such a versatile plant, The more you get to know it, the more you realize the many ways you can tailor it to a range of situations.

Amanda loves CBD

I love products with CBD. If I just want to take the edge off a bit during the day, I’ll take a 20:1 CBD:THC tincture. But for relaxing at the end of the day, I usually look for cannabis beverages that have a 2:1 CBD:THC ratio. When I’m ready to sleep, I go THC all the way.

Andrea likes a little more THC 

I like a little more THC. I often use cannabis to manage chronic pain. My inspiration for starting Sava was my use of cannabis for pain management to recover from a disabling injury. If I’m dealing with pain, I often take a 4:1 CBD:THC tincture. When it comes time to unwind, I love to smoke a 1:1 strain. I also love some of the other minor cannabinoids. THCV is a recent favorite for a high that feels energetic and mentally focused.

You’ve recently renewed your commitment to quality and curation—what drove that?

We’ve had really strong curation standards since we started, but we realized that they weren’t clear to our customers. Our solution was to succinctly gather them into a manifesto that we unveiled at the start of this year. We figured that we were already curating this way, why not share it with the world?

You prioritize independently owned brands, artisans, and women-owned shops. What’s your process for finding those brands?

We’re committed to diversity in cannabis

We’re a queer-, women-, Latinx-founded company. So we want to make space for diversity in the industry. To make sure we’re always sticking to that, we committed to having at least 50% of the brands we carry be women-owned and at least 25% BIPOC-owned. In our online shop, you can even sort by women- or BIPOC-owned! We also think it’s critical to ensure the people who built this industry can stay afloat long enough to reap the rewards of their work. That means supporting small artisan makers who have sometimes been around for generations.

Our Community keeps us in the Know 

For us, these people aren’t hard to find. We’ve been around since 2015. In cannabis, that’s a long time. We’ve always been very involved in the community here in California. We hosted community-building events even before the pandemic. We know a lot of people who are very tapped in. So we always ask them to let us know when a new brand or product pops up that’s truly special. That way, we can make sure our marketplace has space for the smaller folks in addition to the bigger brands.

Speaking of the best weed products, tell us about your new collab with House of Puff and Pure Beauty!

Speaking of women and Latinx-owned brands, this is a collab between several! We’re thrilled to team up with House of Puff to make a Sava-themed joint holder in our favorite teal and turquoise. We also put together a special joint rolling set that includes this joint holder, rolling papers with artwork by Latinx artist Paula Flores, and a jar of flower from Pure Beauty. They’re a women-and-Latinx-owned flower brand. Plus, they sustainably grow indoor flower that’s of mind-blowing quality. It’s fun to work with like-minded women who offer super high quality products to the world! And if you’re not in the Bay Area, you can still get your own limited edition Sava teal and turquoise joint holder and rolling papers at House of Puff no matter which state you live in.

As leaders in cannabis, what do you wish you could tell your younger selves?

Everything will change, many times over. But don’t worry—you’ll figure it out. We got into the cannabis industry in California during the days prior to recreational legalization. That’s when you could only sell to medical patients. Going through the regulatory changes that came with legalization was a rollercoaster. We had to completely change our business model. After the initial switch to recreational legalization, regulations rolled out continuously. So we had to be nimble and adjust quickly. However, going through that made us quick on our feet. We figured it all out. It’s not easy to run a cannabis business. You have normal business challenges. Then, on top of that, there are specific cannabis-business challenges. Luckily, we’ve built a strong team and we’ve created a supportive community of fellow cannabis brands. We all work together to keep leading the way!

Fave consumption rituals?

Amanda loves cannabis at bathtime 

At the end of a long day, I love to make a cannabis mocktail and get in the bathtub. I fill my tub with cannabis epsom salts and bring a good book. Afterwards, I rub my shoulders and neck with a cannabis topical oil. That ritual can make the stress of any day melt off so I’m ready for a relaxed evening with my family and a good night’s sleep.

The best weed for Andrea is an end-of-day smoke and a dog walk 

I love smoking flower, and I love mini-prerolls. At the end of a long day, I grab a nice CBD/THC blended preroll, my dog, and I head out for a walk around SF. It’s a great way to wind down. After a few puffs, I’m more present and less in my head. That means I’m more able to look around and appreciate all of the small wonders that make San Francisco so magical—the unexpected creativity you see everywhere.

How does your support for other women-owned brands and social equity dovetail with your commitment to curating the best weed products?

Many of the women- and BIPOC-owned brands are smaller artisan brands. Those brands care immensely about quality. Many of our truly special and unique offerings come from these founders.

What are the qualities that distinguish the best cannabis flower?

How the cannabis plant is grown, cured, stored, and cared for greatly impacts its quality. The terpenes in the flower are so important. They really affect your experience. But they’re volatile and can be easily destroyed with a lack of care. We look for flower with several qualities. It has to smell delicious. The buds have to look well cared for and intact. It has to be dry enough that it’s been cured. But it can’t be over dried to the point that it’s crumbling. There can’t be any sticks, stems, seeds, or anything brown or squished. Your flower should look happy. And looking at it and smelling it should make you happy. 

What about the best weed edibles?

Your weed edibles should clearly state which cannabinoids are in them and in which quantities. In this day and age, they should be delicious as well! Look at the food ingredients in addition to the cannabis ingredients. Are they things you want to eat?

What should we look for in the best cannabis concentrates?

The ingredients should be pure cannabis oil—no fillers or additives. We advocate for buying all your cannabis through legal sources. But that’s particularly important with cannabis concentrates. When you buy cannabis via legal sources, it’s been tested for harmful elements. That includes heavy metals, pesticides, and molds, etc. If you concentrate tainted cannabis, guess what happens? You get a concentration of those harmful elements. So you especially want your concentrates clean.

For those of us who aren’t in Sava’s neighborhood, what’s your advice for finding the best weed wherever we are?

Look for the legal channels in your area. If you don’t have any, vocalize that you need them to your local representatives! We know that options in some states are limited. But they are increasing. We suggest finding a retailer that’s very transparent about sourcing and ingredients. They should also provide you with education about how to use the products and what to expect. If you decide to buy CBD online or from a non-dispensary, it’s important to know that they have no regulations on quality. Look for a brand you can trust—one that tests their products via a third-party and makes those tests available to you.

How can we keep up with Sava’s most current curation of the best weed products?

Sign up for our email list at www.getsava.com/email or follow us on IG @getsava!