THC Championship (The Hemp Connoisseur)
A Colorado judging contest run by The Hemp Connoisseur, best glimpsed through a snowy Denver awards night and a community judging-kit pickup.
- 42results on record
- 2012–2024years in our data
- 6editions
- 24matched to strains
- Colorado, USAlatest location
01Beginnings
The THC Championship is organised by The Hemp Connoisseur, and the clearest early window onto it in our sources is a recap of the contest's 5th annual awards1. When the competition began, who started it and what they hoped to achieve are questions the source text leaves unanswered, so we will not guess at them. What we can say is where that 5th ceremony took place: Denver, Colorado, at City Hall, a venue the recap describes as partly open to the sky1. That detail turns out to matter for the story that follows.
02The story so far
Awards nights rarely come with their own weather, but the 5th edition did. A major snowstorm hit Denver overnight, and the show went ahead anyway; the recap even notes a little snow landing on the stage through the partly open venue1. The exact date is not given in the text, so we cannot pin the evening to a calendar day.
The Hemp Connoisseur brought in Cannabis Camera to cover event photography and the red carpet, and the recap we draw on comes from Cannabis Camera itself1. On the results side, the evening's top prize, Overall Champion, went to Headband X I95, a collaboration between A Cut Above and Absolute Terps1. Green Man Cannabis also had a big night, taking home six trophies: four first places and two second places1.
03How the contest works
Beyond first to third place, categories in the 5th edition also handed out three special picks: Connoisseur's Choice, People's Choice and Best Tested. These did not always go to the podium finishers. In Shatter, for example, Harmony Extracts' Sour Tangie took first place and Best Tested, while Connoisseur's Choice went to Incredibles and People's Choice to Dabble Extracts1. In Edibles, Craft Concentrates' Canamels won both Connoisseur's Choice and People's Choice, a moment when the judges and the public agreed1.
The range of products goes well beyond flower. The recap's results include categories such as Edibles and Shatter, and the flower classes are also split by market, as in the Adult-Use Sativa Flower category1.
Judging kits are collected in person. In 2021, writer Ben Owens picked his up at the end of June from The Clinic on Colorado Boulevard and said it went very smoothly2. Kits that year went out in at least two pickup rounds, A and B, with Pickup B scheduled for the first half of August 20212. How scores are combined is not documented in our sources.
04Where it stands now
The newest dated item in our sources is a Substack post by Ben Owens from 29 July 2021, about judging for that year's Championship2. It appears only as a paid-post teaser, so we have just a sliver of its content. Beyond that, the current status of the competition is not documented, and no coverage from 2024 to 2026 was found. Until fresher sources turn up, this page can describe how the contest has looked at moments in the past, but not whether it is running today.
05What's next
No announced future plans for the THC Championship were found in our sources. Neither the recap of the 5th annual awards nor the 2021 judging post says anything about upcoming editions, new categories or changes to the format12. Because the contest's current status is also not documented, we are leaving this section deliberately short rather than speculating.
The results, in our data
CannaLib holds 42 results from this cup across 6 years (2012 to 2024), 24 of them matched to a strain in the catalogue.
Recent first-place strains
| Year | Strain | Category | Entrant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Star Killer | Overall Champion | Green Man Cannabis |
| 2015 | Cookie Dough | Adult-Use Sativa | Den-Rec |
| 2015 | Pure Kush | Adult-Use Indica | Den Rec |
| 2015 | Grape Stomper | Adult-Use Indica / People’s Choice | Igadi LTD |
| 2015 | Motor Breath | Adult-Use Hybrid | Green Man Cannabis |
| 2015 | Lemon Skunk | Medical Sativa | The Herbal Cure |
| 2015 | Og Kush | Medical Indica | The Herbal Cure |
| 2015 | Star Killer | Medical Hybrid | Green Man Cannabis |
| 2015 | Critical Cure | CBD Extracts | EndoCanna |
| 2015 | Gelato | Shatter | Dabble |
| 2015 | Lemon G | Wax/Budder | Craft710 |
Editions on record
- 2015 · Colorado, USA
- 2022 · Colorado, USA
- 2023 · Colorado, USA
Sources
- 5th Annual THC Championship Awards Ceremony Goes On During Epic Snowstorm
- THC CHAMPIONSHIP 2021 JUDGING DISCUSSION - PICKUP A
Written from the sources above and checked on 2026-10-29. Spot an error? Tell us on the contact page.