The Architects of Piff: A History of Smugglers and Selectors

 

In the world of cannabis genetics, we usually credit a single breeder—a brand or a face on a magazine cover. But the story of the Cuban Black Haze (also known as Piff, Uptown, or Frankie) allows for no such simplicity. This strain was not “launched”; it escaped.

The creation of the Cuban Black Haze is a trans-continental saga that blurs the line between the genetic architect and the criminal underground. It is a story of three distinct eras: The Dutch Invention, The Florida Crucible, and The New York Hustle.

1. The Progenitor: Nevil Schoenmakers

 

The biological father of the seed is Nevil Schoenmakers, the founder of The Seed Bank of Holland. In the late 1980s, Schoenmakers sought to “tame” the unruly Original Haze (cultivated by the Haze Brothers and Sam the Skunkman). He crossed the wild, 20-week flowering Haze with the compact Northern Lights #5.

Schoenmakers provided the clay, but he did not sculpt the statue. He released thousands of seeds, but the specific plant that would become the “Black Haze” was just one roll of the genetic dice—a recessive mutant hiding in a catalog.

2. The Selectors: The Miami Grey Market

 

The transition from a Dutch seed to a legendary clone happened in the shadows of South Florida. In the early 1990s, anonymous Cuban-American and Dominican crews imported Nevil’s seeds.

Operating in a high-risk environment, these crews (“career criminals who happened to be Cuban,” as legacy growers describe them) needed a plant that could survive the humidity. They found a phenotype that was difficult, finicky, and took nearly four months to flower—but it smoked like nothing else on earth. They called it “The Black.” These unnamed cultivators are the true selectors; without their eye for quality, the plant would have been discarded for taking too long to grow.

3. The Branders: White Boy Kev and the La Marina Boyz

 

If Miami grew it, New York City made it famous.

The lore of “Piff” is inextricably linked to the I-95 Pipeline. During the 1990s, the flower was trucked from Florida to Washington Heights, Manhattan. Here, a figure known in street lore as “White Boy Kev”, associated with the La Marina Boyz, institutionalized the strain.

Kev and the Uptown crews didn’t just sell weed; they created a luxury brand before legalization existed.

• The $500 Ounce: Because the plant took 14 weeks to grow (twice as long as standard strains) and the risk of trafficking was high, the Cuban Black Haze commanded astronomical prices.

• The “Church” Standard: They established the sensory signature. If it didn’t smell like the inside of a Catholic cathedral (Frankincense and Ammonia), it wasn’t Piff.

The Modern Dispute

 

Today, the lineage is preserved by breeders like Top Dawg Seeds (J.J. NYC), Piff Coast Farms, and Doc D, who work to keep the original cut alive. However, the controversy remains. The “breeder” of Cuban Black Haze isn’t one person. It is a collaborative effort between a Dutch master breeder, the Florida underground, and the NYC street hustlers who risked their freedom to bring the “Frankie” to the world.