MJtheIndicator
Member
To be fair Frenchy did also mention Afghanistan. Concerning Old-collection carpet style techniques, the use of silks, Milk of Mazar/resieved etc. If the Sufis had been hanging onto techniques when the hippies showed up its a safe bet the practices had been going on for too long, taking into account cultures isolated from occidental influence.I have definitely checked out traditional screening methods from those countries Frenchy, but believe it or not they surely have not been doing it for 1000's of years. If you read Rob Clarke's Book HASHISH, you will learn that Morroco only produced Kief, a tobacco and herb mixture pre 1960's. Not until the Nigerian " mustafa" showed up with Lebanese screening technique's did Morocco start producing half of the worlds hashish.
I would also add, that with as many years as they have been doing this world wide, it wasnt until recently that we started showing people how to isolate these gland heads from the rest of the plant matter on the same level as Water Hash. Which makes it easy for anyone to isolate the glands from the plant matter. Dry sifting is a whole other level, and really the amount of people that can regularly produce the 99% pure gland head sift, is a very small number of people.. but slowly gaining popularity, as people learn the techniques we have been sharing.!!!
In 1453, the Grocers’ Company of London was entrusted with the King’s Beam, officially weighing all goods sold by the Aver-de-Poys weight or the peso grosso. It was also charged with the duty of garbling, or preventing the adulteration of spices and drugs. Garbling is sifting, sorting, cleaning, separating, and culling to remove physically unwanted soil, dirt, etc., or separate particles by size and/or quality.Seems the west was late to the party, as the spice trade which defined medieval Europe was categorically Eastern in nature. They must have produced powders somehow and I doubt it was from grinding solely. I never discount the creativity of others nor any vast civilization.
If the entire Middle East is experiencing a hash-craze in the 12th century its reasonable to state 50% is not rubbed. As regards Lebanon, who is to say their technique did not come from Syria considering trade routes of the era? Its not so difficult to follow the ethno trails hashish follows from there.
"Chinese silk regularly traded along the Silk Road connecting Persia and Arabia with China as early as 300 B.C. In Afghanistan, silk cloth from Khotan (in Chinese Turkestan, home of the last wave of immigrant Turkestani hashish makers, was considered to be the best for hashish sieving."
- Hashish!, Robert Connell Clarke
In reference to isolating gland heads on the same level as water methods:
"knowledgeable hashish makers placed a small bit at a time in a handkerchief-size piece of silk having exceptionally thin threads and a very fine, tiny-pored weave. Then they gathered the cloth into a pouch, tying the top to hold the resin powder inside. The cloth pouch was tapped on the thigh or on the back of a chair to force the small particles of dust through the cloth. The largest (and highest potency) resin glands remained inside the cloth, while the smaller (less potent) immature glands and dust particles passed through. Sometimes, a very small amount of resin powder (only a handful or two) was put inside a sack about the size of a pillowcase. This technique allowed the resin greater freedom of movement and provided a greater sieve surface for tiny debris to pass through. Resieving resin powder to increase purity and potency is a tradition dating from prior to the arrival of the hippies, and does not seem to be of Western origin. Some researchers feel that in Afghanistan, resieving is ancient and was among the techniques taught by the original Baba Ku.”
- Hashish!, Robert Connell Clarke