Chocolate Orange is an indica-dominant hybrid flower from Fresh Baked, the Long Beach, California brand whose cultivation is led by KRD. The name also crossed into extracts: a Blue River × Fresh Baked Chocolate Orange jelly sauce cartridge took 1st place in its category at the 2021 Emerald Cup.
On the flower side, Chocolate Orange earned the first perfect 10 in one reviewer's history on The Highest Critic in January 2021.
A first perfect score on The Highest Critic
The review ran on January 11, 2021, from contributor can_u_smoke_test, who picked up the jar at the dispensary From the Earth. It was the reviewer's first full flower purchase from Fresh Baked after sampling only pre-rolls and smaller amounts.
The flower drew perfect marks for bag appeal, trim job, humidity and burn, which came out as white ash. Potency also landed at 10 out of 10.
The tasting notes ran to orange, gas, funk, hints of chocolate and skunk. Asked whether they would buy it again, the reviewer answered with a flat "definitely."
Blue River's solventless jelly sauce
The 2021 Emerald Cup was held in Santa Rosa, California, with results announced during a 90-minute livestream. Leafly called it the world's largest commercial outdoor cannabis contest, and that year it expanded to 37 categories.
The official results list the Blue River Chocolate Orange Jelly Sauce Cartridge, credited to Fresh Baked × Blue River, in 1st place in the distillate cartridge category. Beezle Brands' Banana Cream took 2nd, and LEGION of Bloom's The Monarch Golden Tangie placed 3rd.
Leafly's coverage by Amelia Williams described Blue River as extract artisans that dominated the category. What made the win unusual was the oil itself: Blue River's jelly sauce is a premium-grade solventless oil, not a distillate at all, and the contest had no category for it.
The 2021 contest also reorganized its flower entries by dominant terpene profile and added awards for highest terpene content, THCV content and unique cannabinoid profiles. Within that expanded field, the Fresh Baked collaboration was the only Chocolate Orange entry on the results list.
Fresh Baked's Long Beach grow
Fresh Baked started in the early 2000s, during California's medical era, and has since moved into the adult-use market. The brand packages only flower grown on its own farms by its own farmers.
Every plant is selected, hand watered and stacked in licensed Long Beach facilities. Fresh Baked sums up its approach as sophistication in simplicity, keeping the focus on the flower rather than packaging and marketing.
KRD's catalog of dessert and fruit crosses
KRD is Fresh Baked's Chief Cultivating Officer. The brand says he has spent more than 20 years hunting, trading and breeding the strains in its collection.
KRD's own site describes a small-batch, hand-grown operation in Long Beach that avoids pesticides and chemicals, and says it has been growing for more than 30 years. It names Cherry Fritter, Apple Fritter, Orange Cookie Dough and Versace among its strains.
Within a single year, Chocolate Orange went from a perfect-scoring flower review in January 2021 to a 1st-place solventless cartridge later in 2021.