Okay, so you’ve heard the terms: cannabis terpenes, food-grade terpenes, and “fake” terpenes. These terms have been widely misused all over the cannabis industry. My name is Drew, owner of MrExtractor.com, and I own one of the largest terpene companies in the country. I am here to set the record straight on what “fake” terpenes, food-grade terpenes, and cannabis terpenes really are, and what they really aren’t, in this week’s episode of “Fake Terpenes vs. Cannabis Terpenes” on The Terpene Institute.

Alright, now as I’ve said, these terms have been widely misused all over the cannabis industry. So let’s go ahead and start with what people think they mean, okay? And the way that they’re being used on social media. Now, cannabis terpenes are terpenes that have been extracted from the cannabis plant. Usually they’re not individualized. They are a cannabis terpene profile, which is basically a bunch of terpenes mixed together that smells like cannabis.

Now, the industry uses the term “food-grade terpenes” in order to describe anything that is a terpene that is extracted from a plant. Make sense? Now, “fake” terpenes, we don’t even know what that means. That’s a ballpark term that is applied to anything that is not a terpene that is extracted from the cannabis plant.

Now I’m gonna go ahead and break down why this doesn’t make any sense. First off, food-grade terpenes, again like I said, are used to describe any terpenes that are extracted from plants. But guess what? Cannabis, it’s a plant. That means that inherently, terpenes extracted from the cannabis plant are also food-grade terpenes. So basically, you’ve got two sets over here that are both food-grade terpenes.

Now, “fake” terpenes over here, people use those to describe synthetic terpenes and terpenes that are extracted from other plants that are not cannabis. Which means that, over here, you’ve got “fake” terpenes. So you’ve got terpenes that are extracted from plants rolled over into the cannabis plant. You’ve got terpenes extracted from plants rolled over into “fake” terpenes. None of it makes any sense. People call it “food-grade.” You’re not even supposed to eat this stuff, all right?

So, where does it go from here? What we need to do is understand what the differences actually are, and what people are trying to express when they say the wrong thing. All right, so let’s start over here with what “fake” terpenes should be. Now in this group you have organic terpenes. Any terpene that is extracted from a plant is the same chemical terpene. It is the same thing, whether it comes from cannabis or whether it comes from a pine needle.

What you have over here: synthetic terpenes. Now synthetic terpenes are when a chemist, or a chemical company, takes a bunch of base chemicals, mixes them together, and forms one terpene, let’s say alpha-Pinene. Now that same chemical company would mix a bunch of different chemicals together and form a different terpene like beta-Pinene, or Humulene, or Limonene. Then another company would mix those together and create a profile from them, like a cannabis profile.

The problem is that these are synthetic terpenes. They are man-made terpenes. They do not come from any plants. That is what we should be calling “fake” terpenes. If you’re gonna call anything a “fake” terpene, a synthetic man-made terpene would be “fake.”

Now, on this side you have organic terpenes. Organic terpenes are anything that is extracted from nature. Now, let’s say Limonene. Limonene extracted from a lemon, or Limonene extracted from cannabis, it’s still Limonene. It’s the exact same Limonene. It does differ from synthetic Limonene over here. But whether it comes from cannabis, or pine needle, or a lemon, or a blade of grass, or whatever it comes from, that is the same alpha-Pinene in either one of these substances, okay?

So, how do you understand the difference between cannabis-extracted terpenes and food-grade terpenes, terpenes that are extracted from other plants? Well, you need to have a difference in terminology. What people really want to say is, are these cannabis-extracted terpenes or are they non-cannabis-extracted terpenes? The whole food-grade terpenes thing, I don’t even know where they came up with it. That should just be ixnayed from our vocabulary. It’s not safe to use and it’s not correct in describing the product.

So, from now on, I propose that we call everything terpene-related that is extracted from cannabis a cannabis-extracted terpene. And everything that is extracted from a plant, non-cannabis-extracted. Now, we can get into this a little bit deeper about food-grade terpenes. That is not a safe use of that word. Make sure to watch my video on food-grade terpenes. Food-grade implies that it is food, it is edible. Now, I don’t recommend eating terpenes, and I definitely recommend you watch that video, but that’s a whole other story.

So, understand the difference. “Fake” terpenes should apply to synthetic terpenes. Food-grade terpenes shouldn’t exist. We need to call cannabis-extracted terpenes over here; non-cannabis-extracted terpenes over here. And MrExtractor.com, I create terpene profiles. I combine organic terpenes, extracted from inexpensive plants that keep the price down, and combine them into a cannabis profile that is organic in nature, with the exact same terpenes that come from the cannabis plant.

The only difference is mine start out at five bucks a gram. These start out at two hundred dollars a gram. These are obviously better in taste, but ours are really actually pretty good in taste. So, if you want to try them out, head over to MrExtractor.com. Hit me up, I’ll probably send you out some samples.

I hope this answers some of the questions. The Terpene Institute that I am creating here is just a common-sense approach to basics in terpenes. If you need a college education, go to college. But if you want to just make money and make some good products, you found the right place.

Make sure to scroll through some of the other videos on The Terpene Institute. Learn as much as you can about terpenes. Learn how to buy them right, how to store them, how to smell them, how to create your own pens, and do everything you need to do. Thank you for watching. I’ll see you soon.