Fire & Flower is more than just another cannabis store — it's your guide to everything green. In a cannabis market that's filled with scientific breakthroughs and different strains to serve personal preferences, Fire & Flower's knowledgeable budtenders (or Cannistas, as they call them) are here to offer all the information and advice to make sure you get the cannabis product that's best suited for you.
That includes Sarah Mills, who is the Lead of Customer Experience at Fire & Flower's location in Kingston, ON. Her primarily role in the shop is to educate customers — particularly those who are new to cannabis and are looking for help to choose their products.
"I think that the fact that we as Canadians have set a precedent as being the first G20 nation to have not just decriminalized, but legalized Cannabis speaks volumes to the Canadian perception of cannabis," she tells Exclaim! "Cannabis use is becoming more and more openly discussed and stigmas are being broken down every day. It's great to work in a space where people from all walks of life can come in and ask questions in an open environment, and where you sometimes even have the opportunity to change someone's opinion about cannabis altogether."
So what does Sarah do when she's not in the shop? "I spend most of my free time outdoors," the budtender says. "I am a mother of two, and in the summer, you can probably find us at the beach swimming or fishing until the sun goes down."
On those summer fishing trips, you can often find her with some pre-rolls, or perhaps one of Houseplant's very "crushable" grapefruit drinks. As for the evenings, some of her personal favourites include smoking flower, high-THC indica-dominant oils, and 510 vapes. She's currently vaping Good Supply's Blue Dream, and she's smoking Qwest's Mac 1.
A Closer Look at Aphria
Working at Fire & Flower, Sarah frequently deals with products from Aphria, a Canadian cannabis producer founded in 2014 and based in Leamington, ON. Aphria operates a range of Cannabis brands, and Sarah points out that large selection means that the company "has a product for everyone."
Sarah explains that the company's products include the premium brand Broken Coast ("small-batch high grade"), the entertainment-minded RIFF (including, for example, Two-Tone Ban, which was inspired by Michael Jordan's 1984 sneakers), the approachable Solei (which has "familiar names like 'balance' and 'unplug'"), and Good Supply ("good buds at a great price").
With such a range of products, Sarah says that "everyone from university students to seniors" can find something that's a good fit for them. For more insight into Aphria's diverse selection, Stop by Fire & Flower in Kingston to say hi to Sarah and the other budtenders. You can also find stores across the country, and products are also available online.
Sarah works at just one of the 52 Fire & Flower stores across Canada, where the budtenders really know their stuff. Check back in at exclaim.ca for future instalments of our "Know Your Budtender" series, and visit fireandflower.com for more information.