Origins and Backstory: I received a pack of testers from Bodhi, and germinated the whole thing. I unfortunately only received one female from the package. Bodhi used a Congolese (pine) landrace as a mother for this strain, and a Mother's Milk (Nepali OG x Appalachia) father. I've not heard of many other strains using the Mother's Milk pollen, so this one seems like a rarity.
Appearance: Flowers from this cultivar almost appear whitish-platinum, an almost blueish-white hue. It reminds me of the Lotus Larry x Sunshine Daydream with respect to the color of the flowers. Flowers are highly resinous, but are a bit fluffy. This could be because of the harvest time; many landrace sativas and their progeny often take longer to fully develop, but I chopped this plant at 77 days, possibly early. Overall, this variety still put out pretty flowers that are highly resinous with an unusual color. All other aspects of appearance are normal or unremarkable.
Aroma: Interestingly, the bouquet from this variety has changed drastically over the course of flowering. The finished product is sweet, candied, and skunky, smelling like Pez, candy valentine hearts, tic-tacs, and brand-new tennis balls. It is also very skunky, and a jar from across the room smells classically like sweet-skunky cannabis. It is when one cracks a bud open under the nose that notes of powdered and condensed milk, valentine hearts, and tennis-ball-tube become so prevalent.
Flavor: The flavor strays from the aroma just the slightest bit. It is indeed candied, skunky, and sweet with strong notes of sweet, condensed milk and pez. However, there is also a very noticeable profile that I cannot put my finger on but reminds me of Christmas-time. There is a flavor profile of a Christmas potpourri or some Christmas spice mix that was only present in the aroma for a couple weeks in mid-flower. This profile does come through strongly in the flavor of the smoke though, and instantly brings back memories as a child gathered with the family underneath the Christmas tree. It is bizarre but extremely nostalgic, unique, memorable, and enjoyable.
Effects: Like mother's milk, this variety is welcoming, warming, soft, and sweet. Mildly sedating, the smoke from this variety is euphoric and happy but overindulgence can lead to a dulling of mental function and some tiredness. This is long-lasting hybrid smoke that is uplifting but relaxing, and very dreamy. It puts a sort of simple, dumb smile on the user for a few hours before coming back down into a foggy dream-state. The most value that I personally have found from this variety is its reliable ability to give a satisfying feeling of happiness and euphoria, regardless when or what one has smoked earlier in the day. The sedative properties are rarely too much, and one rarely finds themselves incapacitated from this variety although it certainly doesn't lack potency. This can be strong smoke, but it never lasts long and after a quick climax, the effect significantly mellows out only an hour or two after smoking.
Overall Experience: While a fun smoke, Congolese Mother's Milk was never a particular favorite of mine. The unique candy heart smell made these flowers fun for a novelty smoke every now and then, but the effect was too short-lived to make it any sort of staple. The CMM is a warm, happy, sweet effect, which seems to be everything one might expect from a flower that smells like sweet, happy candy! I'm certainly grateful to have explored these seeds as testers, as they were fairly unique and pushed the horizons of my personal experience with cannabis even further. That being said, there wasn't much reason for me to keep clones or keep the harvests of CMM going, and I prefer something like Long Valley Royal Kush for a staple smoking variety.