At this point, I feel like the “Haze” label is just a catch-all for anything that’s stretchy, takes a while to finish and makes people feel “up” (read: racy), as long as it contains just the slightest bit of actual Haze genetics. Breeders have, for decades now, been taking real Haze genetics and crossing them with something, anything, that reduces stretch/flower time, without considering (or caring?) that whatever “Indica” they’re breeding into it is probably also significantly altering the high. You can read those old Dutch “Haze” descriptions where they say,”Shorter plants! Quicker finish! But we still retained that classic Haze high!” And then you blaze it and it isn’t anything at all like any Haze-dominant flower that I’ve ever blazed. “Racy,” sure, but that, to me, isn’t at all what any real long-flowering, tall, stretchy NLD has ever smoked like.
Don’t get me wrong, there are really good examples of Hazes and Haze hybrids out there. But lately I get the feeling that slapping “Haze” on anything that has narrow leaves and takes more than like eleven weeks to finish is the new “thing.” Kinda like how anything crossed with GSC was all the rage for the last 8+ years and, before that, how everybody just slapped “OG” on the end of any hybrid, even if it didn’t grow/smoke like an OG at all.