In the cannabis industry, we hear it over and over again because it’s true: Edibles have come a long way from the humble pot brownie. You can get just about anything infused with weed these days from chips to popcorn to mints to honey. For better or worse, the market has exploded with cannabis-infused goods. As I’ve come to experience, however, we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of making all these edibles, well, edible.

“My first bite began with enthusiasm and ended with a grimace.”

At first glance, Titan's Kind Coconut Cream Cookies looked appealing. I mean, who doesn’t like a cookie filled with cream? Well, I guess a lot of people don’t, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. The point is that they were not appealing—not at least when it came to taste and texture, two pretty important aspects of food if you ask me. Just picking up the cookies left my fingertips greasy, which isn’t a big deal considering I eat coconut oil by the spoonful (don’t judge me). But the real problem was the texture.

My first bite began with enthusiasm and ended with a grimace. Food snob or not, the dense, pseudo fudge texture was anticlimactic. I want to moan with pleasure when I eat something. When something tastes good, I want to shout it from the rooftops. What’s the point of eating at all if it doesn’t give you that “oh my god” kind of sensory experience? Beyond basic survival, that is. On top of its bizarrely dense, yet crumbly texture, the taste was sickly sweet and lacking in depth and nuance. The main flavors I tasted were coconut and sugar and they lingered in my mouth long after swallowing. Coconut flavor isn’t so bad, but the sugar left my teeth feeling furry—and not in a pleasant furry-skin-body-high kind of way but rather in an I-need-to-go-brush-my-teeth kind of way.

Dosing was also a bit of an issue. One cookie has 25mg of THC in it, but I was aiming for about 5mg for my first serving. I wanted to feel the effects without being completely incapacitated by the full cookie—and believe me, 25mg of THC would have taken me to the moon and back. If you, like me, are not a pro at geometry, eyeballing five perfect sections of a circle is not the easiest task. I decided to cut the whole thing into four pieces, which would leave me with about 6.25mg per piece. And that’s in a perfect world. In reality, that first chop with a butter knife crumbled the cookie to bits. I went ahead and cut the rest of the pieces, then licked up all the crumbs off the counter just to be safe. Each piece looked like it’d gone through a car accident, but they were still edible and I’d like to believe that’s what counts.

Like most plant medicines, cannabis is all about feelings and healings. Anyone can down a shot of something nasty, but if it makes them feel amazing, they don’t care. (Just think about all the people who do shots of Fireball as an example of this phenomenon.) In the case of these cookies, my experience was somewhat mixed. After my first sampling, it took about 90 minutes before I felt the first vestiges of a high. The second time I tried the same dose of the cookie, I felt a high within 30-45 minutes. Of course, there are lots of variables that could have contributed to this change in effect times. It can all depend on what I’ve had to eat that day, how much I slept, or how equal (or unequal) my crumbled cookie pieces were.

“I will say this though: these cookies produced a powerful feeling of relaxation and calm.”

I will say this though: these cookies produced a powerful feeling of relaxation and calm. After eating a quarter of a cookie, I felt an uplifted buzz that counteracted the common side effect of dry eyes. I felt a bit of anxiety on the second sampling because the high was hitting hard and fast. The THC buzz from these cookies would be a good replacement for booze, and honestly, if I could inject the high into a different medium it’d be a perfect product. For a relaxing evening with friends, chilling on the couch watching Sons of Anarchy reruns, or zonking out for a solid night’s sleep, these cookies really do the trick.

As a writer, I’m always testing my highs to see how well they pair with creative pursuits. In the case of these cookies, writing and listening to music felt like a natural combination. As the intensity of the high increased, I caught myself zoning out, the words in front of me losing my interest. From that moment on, I shifted gears and went into relaxation mode that stretched into the evening. If you’re looking for an out-and-about social high, Titan’s Kind Coconut Cream Cookies are probably not the product for you. But if you’re looking for an uplifting, relaxing experience at home with friends or family, well then kick back and let the high take you where it may. Just make sure you have a chaser on hand before you imbibe.