Arete

Arete Hemp Review

Ahh Arete… my first love. My first purchase of THCa online.  It’s only appropriate that they are my first review.

How  do you pronounce Arete? Ahh ree tay, Ah rete, Ahh ra tay, Arr etay?  I don’t know and I guess it doesn’t even matter, I just call them the ‘Big A’.

Arete holds a special place in my heart as it was my first purchase of legal hemp online. 

I ordered their sampler pack, and I was hooked. 

I could now virtually visit a “weed shop” and choose the specific type, strain and quantity of flower I desired. I had options, I could pick as much or as little as I wanted from a wide variety of products that were never ever available to me before since I am based in Georgia.

It was kid in a candy shop feelings for me.

I honestly did not believe it at first.

There was no way I was really going to get weed legally shipped to my mailbox. No way…

My First Order Tests Customer Support

My first order of the sampler pack was actually all messed up. It wasn’t Arete’s fault though, it was USPS.

It was sent from North Carolina all the way to Colorado for some reason and was juggled around there for a week before beginning it’s way back east to Georgia.

When I tracked my product and saw it leave North Carolina and head to Oklahoma and then to Colorado I thought in the back of my mind that I knew this was too good to be true. Maybe my package would never show.

I reached out and emailed Arete’s customer support and to my somewhat surprise they were quick and helpful.

Arete offers Route purchase protection when you place your order for $5 or so bucks if you want it.

Hell yeah I wanted insurance because my skeptic radar was going off and I wanted the protection in case it did not show up.

With my order sitting half way across the country in Colorado, Arete’s customer service put me in touch with the Route customer service and they asked me to wait another couple of days to see if my order arrived. Ok cool no problem.

I waited a few days and it was still not here and tracking showed it had moved to Oklahoma. The route insurance kicked in and they paid me back for my order.

Money back, but no weed. Bummer, back to the usual plug my buddy B.

I quit looking at it and went back to life. A few days later a package arrived from the USPS from a sender I didn’t recognize. It was to me and it was the Arete sampler pack.

So I got my money back and I received the product, a few days late.

And the product was pretty good. It smelled good, smoked good and got me nice and high.

It felt like a ‘clean’ high and that is what multiple people told me after trying it.

I placed my second order and the rest is history.

Arete’s Reputation

Arete is legit. You are going to receive your order and you are going to get what you order. I was strictly an Arete customer for around 4 months. I was happy, I had referred friends and they were happy.

As I learned more about THCa and the community and culture built around it I learned more and more legit vendors existed.

And after being an Arete loyalist for the first many months of my THCa journey, I decided to venture out to compare the big “A” against what else is out there.

What really pushed me to try other vendors is that some people in the THCa community have called Arete “the Wal-Mart of the THCa vendors”. Bulk products at lower prices – and I guess to an extent this can be true. When you are the big boy on the block you are moving huge poundage, it can’t all be the best of the best of the best. I wanted to try and see what else is out there.

The truth is, since venturing out I have not returned to Arete. I would and likely will at some point, but right now I am branching out and trying the different vendors you see listed here on THCaVendors.com. And the truth is, I like others better. I still like Arete and will buy there but right now I’m spending my money with other shops.

After much comparing, research and review, I think Arete is much more like Target than Wal-Mart.

You can find some great deals but moreover you can always find a fairly high quality product backed by a reliable and reputable company.  And that is how it is for Arete.

If this is your very first time purchasing THCa online then Arete is hard to beat.

Arete Birds Eye Look

• They only sell organic, USA grown and federally compliant and licensed and regulated products.
• They offer a crypto discount if you utilize crypto and or Coinbase to process your payments
• They offer route shipping protection so if your order is lost by USPS route covers it (my very first order was shipped around the country before getting here for some reason, and route reimbursed me, and my order showed up a few days later).
• The weed is good overall – but if you are looking for the absolute best thca flower online, you should probably keep shopping. Check my THCa Vendors price sheet for the latest offerings across my recommended vendors
• If you are looking for a good deal, the ugly buds deals are likely the best bud you can find for a low price.

Products

They offer 100% federally compliant, organically grown and USA sourced hemp / cannabis that is backed by COA’s and lab reports.  

Arete had expensive, exotic styles of bud, they had budget weed, they had pre-rolls. Let’s go!

This new level of choice was awesome and something I had only experienced when visiting Vegas or Detroit.

They usually have a very wide selection of products. Right now they have about 4 dozen strains of flower to choose from.  They probably have the most variety and quantities available of flower from any of the THCa vendors I recommend along with WNC-CBD.

• Exotic Flower
• Budget Flower
• Pre-rolls
• Ugly Buds Deals
• Live Resin and Rosin Vapes
• Live Rosin, Resin & other concentrates
• Edibles
• Clothing / Merch

Arete’s Flower

High THCa as well as some CBD/CBG flower.

The flower ranges from a selection of ‘luxury’ or high end bud down to budget deals. The exotics usually run $35 per eighth up to $250 or so for an oz. Ugly buds and smalls can be sometimes found as low as $18-$20 an eighth. Prices always subject to change.

Pre-rolls

Available in packs of 6 with each cone holding .6g of flower. They have an advanced pre-roll making machine that boasts a perfectly hand rolled joint with the consistency of a machine. There are around 25 different strains available in preroll format right now.

Vapes

Vapes come in two varieties, a THCa Live Resin and now THCa Hash Rosin vapes. I’ve personally had one of their live resin vapes and it was fine but nothing special. It vaped and tasted ok and gave ok effects.

I do like their hardware for their vape cartridges but the actual cart itself was only a ‘meh’ from me. If you are looking for vapes, take a look at my recommended THCa vape vendors.

Concentrates

Concentrates like THCa diamonds, Tintcures and THCa hash are available.  Gummies and edibles on occasion but Arete is not known for it’s gummies. 

Website

If you click shop you are going to see a page where you can scroll down and see the entire range of products.  From concentrates to pre-rolls to flower, it is all there. 

The high THCa varieties (almost all of them) will clearly say “High THCa” in the description. 

They do have an annoying pop-up window that keeps asking for your email while you are shopping,  even after you have already signed up.  I’ve asked them to turn off through their customer support but to no avail. 

It’s easy to navigate. Just click “Shop” and you can look around.  The order process is simple multiple payment options are available including major credit cards.  

Account: Once you order or get an account set up you get rewards for every purchase that add up really quickly, you can see your past orders, find tracking info etc. It’s all nice and tidy.     

Customer Support

Customer support is the defining factor that THCa vendors can control and set themselves above the competition. Having actual support is crucial in this industry, as things happen. Arete is a large vendor that moves thousands of orders on the regular. They have a dedicated customer service team that will get back to you.

I’ve used the customer support at Arete two different times myself and have had my issue resolved both times within 24-48 hours. My very first order from them got lost in the mail for an extra week and they worked with me to work with the Route shipping insurance I purchased when placing the order. Route refunded my $$. Also my order showed up a couple of days later as well so it was a freebie for me.

You can contact Arete via email and an online contact form are available. 

I have used both and have been contacted and had my issue resolved. You will get help and response, I do not remember how long it took but it was always timely and never ignored.  The community has generally reported fairly positive information on Arete over the past year with issues being resolved to a satisfactory outcome.

Order Processing

Orders process and ship out fast, with steady automated email communication.  You get shipping updates, tracking numbers and all that jazz.  Most of my orders processed either the same day or the next day and had shipping labels ready to go for pickup. Orders were in USPS’s hands within 24-48 hours.  

Shipping

• *Free shipping if you spend over $100
• Alaska has a flat $20 charge
• Vape cartridges have a $10 flat shipping charge

Products are shipped out of North Carolina (even though Arete is a Nevada based business). The ‘from’ address had no indication it was hemp or THCa, CBD or anything along those lines. 

Packaging

Every package I have received from the big A has been in a plain white cardboard shipping box with absolutely no smell or no indication of what is inside at all.

Products are sealed in no smell bags, and then packaged into very sturdy cardboard boxes that have all been tightly taped.  

Orders come with a hand written note thanking you for the business and a legal letter to inform law enforcement that the products are legal hemp and not marijuana and are 100% legal to be shipped.

There is a purchase order with checked off marks and a quick handwritten thank you.  Flower comes in smell proof bags and then those and everything else in your order placed inside larger vacuum sealed smell proof bags and put in the box.      

Rewards / Customer Perks

When I first began buying from Arete their rewards program was amazing and too good to be true. I was talking like my friends and I were receiving a zip for the cost of shipping after cashing in our rewards points. Don’t get too excited as Arete finally came their senses and have toned down their rewards program to be more in line with the state of the industry.

Here is what you get at Arete in terms of customer rewards.

• Earn points for each purchase at a rate of 1 point for each $1 spent
• Points can be redeemed for up to 20% off non-budget items.
• Points are worth .10c each

Marketing / Email From Arete

They work so hard at getting you to sign up to their ‘tribe’ you know they are going to email you on the regular, and they pretty much do.

I searched my email for Arete to see how often they are sending and it’s pretty often. Looking back at my emails from them and I have about 18 emails from them in the past 20 days. Most of the emails are announcing one of their strains, new products or asking me to review recent purchases and get points to use on future orders.

I would recommend creating yourself a fresh gmail account and using it to sign up to Arete and most all of the other vendors instead of using your main email account to get the discounts and rewards. The emails come steady and often.

 Is Arete Hemp Legit? (yes)

I fully believe Arete is a legit company that delivers what is advertised. I’m not saying that they have the absolute best of the best of the best possible money can buy products, but you can expect to get what you ordered backed by a large company who wants to maintain a positive reputation in the industry.

Founded in 2018, they are one of the largest THCa vendors online. 

You can shop here in confidence that you are going to get what you purchase and / or have the professional support of a reputable, licensed and legal company based in the USA.  

Arete is legit.