Location: Hillsboro
Signature Strain: Blue Desert Dragon Frost, a high-CBD cultivar born from a single seed gifted to the farm from a medical patient.
For Yerba Buena, "The Good Herb" isn't just a tagline—it's the philosophical principle on which the entire brand is built. "Goodness is central to everything we stand for," says Laura Day, the company's director of operations. As one of the first farms in Oregon to receive a recreational license, the company has been setting the standard for progressivism within the cannabis industry almost from the start. Women compose half its staff, and nearly a quarter are people of color. It's also one of the only grows in the state to meet the requirements for both Certified Clean Green and Certified Kind, the weed equivalent of organic certification. At Yerba Buena's 7,000-square-foot indoor facility in Hillsboro, plants are grown in soil enriched with organic nutrients, and the flowers are hand-trimmed. "We put a lot of care into the plant," Day says. "There's a lot to automation, but nothing will ever replace the human-plant relationship." In terms of the product itself, Yerba Buena has carved a niche within the CBD arena—it recently entered into a breeding program with East Fork Cultivars—but its flagship THC strain, Silver Hawk, shouldn't be ignored: We've called it "vacation weed," an upbeat sativa that pairs well with the outdoors. MATTHEW SINGER.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Amberlight Cannabis House, Attis Trading Company, Bloom, Bridge City Collective, Collective Awakenings, Electric Lettuce, Farma, Foster Buds, Jayne, MindRite, Multnomah Greens, Nectar, Serra, Stoney Only, Sweet Leaf, the New Amsterdam, Urban Farmacy, Zion Cannabis.