Butter Mintz is a heavy indica from Blue Chip, the exclusive house flower brand of Purple Lotus in San Jose. It crosses Animal Mints with Bubba Kush and grows inside Purple Lotus’s own cultivation facility.
Purple Lotus names Butter Mintz as one of Blue Chip’s three cornerstone strains, alongside FortyOne and Face On Fire.
Blue Chip’s roots in Santa Rosa
Blue Chip started in 2008 in Santa Rosa with two UC Davis biochemistry graduates set on building better cannabis genetics. The founders ran a year-long hunt across the globe for rare and exotic seeds, driven by a love of standout phenotypes.
That work turned up an exceptional plant in 2012, and it took the Blue Chip name in 2013. The brand has local roots in both Santa Rosa and Oakland.
The flagship picked up an endorsement from Tommy Chong. Blue Chip’s Durban Poison also won a High Times Cannabis Cup.
Purple Lotus and the San Jose grow
Purple Lotus acquired exclusive rights to the Blue Chip strain and brand in 2013. From 2013 through 2018, Blue Chip turned the San Jose dispensary into a genuine destination.
The company then invested more than a million dollars in a cultivation facility at the dispensary itself. It brought in geneticists to reproduce the original Blue Chip and develop new varieties, and spent two years building the current lineup.
Their method is classic pheno-hunting. The team grows out large numbers of plants and keeps only the rare standouts that express the strongest version of each strain for potency and flavor.
Butter Mintz is one of the three cornerstone strains that came out of that development work. It is grown, selected and sold under one roof in San Jose, alongside FortyOne and Face On Fire, the other two strains built during that two-year push.
Animal Mints meets Bubba Kush
Purple Lotus describes Butter Mintz as a cross of Animal Mints with Bubba Kush. Its Blue Chip strain guide features Butter Mintz among the brand’s headline releases.
The result is a heavy indica. Purple Lotus says it is famed for a flavor that melds mint and cookies, and the name follows straight from that pairing.
The effects lean warm and easygoing. Purple Lotus describes uplifting euphoria, pleasure and peace. Its strain guide adds that after sampling Butter Mintz, other options become hard to enjoy.
The rest of the Blue Chip lineup
Butter Mintz sits in a deep bench of house strains. Blue Chip also grows Georgia Pie, Cream Puffz, Garlic Butter and The Glove, plus Blue Chip GSC and the original Blue Chip flower.
Some of the lineup leans on heavy genetics. Carbon Fiber is billed as a rare cross of three of the heaviest indicas, while Gangsta Bird pairs Gelato 33 with Extreme Cream and Zaburst crosses Zkittlez with Sunset Sherbet.
A rotating shelf fills in the rest. Purple Lotus lists Runtz, GG4, Apricot Jelly, Purple Zushi, Mango Runtz, Guava Gelato and Zkittlez among the Blue Chip releases that cycle through San Jose.