With Fancy Pre-Rolls and Living Room Soirees, HiFi Farms Aims to Demystify Cannabis

HiFi Farms began in the summer of 2014 as a four-person basement operation. It was auspicious timing.

(CJ Monserrat)
By Shannon Gormley

Location: Hillsboro

Signature Strain: Island Sweet Skunk, a high-energy sativa with a smell and taste aptly described by its name.

HiFi Farms began in the summer of 2014 as a four-person basement operation. It was auspicious timing. Shortly after HiFi got up and running as a medical grow, recreational legalization passed. Five years later, the farm grows 12 varieties out of 10 greenhouses on a sprawling, 50-acre former dairy farm in Hillsboro. But HiFi maintains its boutique identity. It has mostly distinguished itself by its long-held Clean Green Certification, the cannabis equivalent of organic, and its music-related branding. The farm publishes end-of-year album lists, sells pre-rolls in packaging that resembles concert tickets, and founder Lee Henderson sometimes holds BYOC concerts at his Southeast Portland mansion. Unlike many other post-prohibition attempts to associate cannabis with the finer things, HiFi's brand is also a suggestion for its products use and a nod to its history. Like many casual smokers, Henderson primarily used weed in prohibition days as a music enhancer while kicking back and listening to Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. HiFi's concern for normalizing weed extends beyond its branding, though. Along with his living-room, salon-style gatherings, Henderson co-hosts the XRAY FM show This Is Cannabis, which interviews prominent figures in the industry. "HiFi continues to have an interest in demystifying cannabis," says Henderson, "for people who don't know how to feel about it." SHANNON GORMLEY.

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