Tobacco-Free Wraps: The New Retail Revenue Driver

Not long ago, the blunt wrap was essentially a disguise. Cannabis had a
reputation — skunky, pungent, an acquired taste — and wraps soaked in syrup
and tobacco were how you made it palatable to the uninitiated. Your uncle’s
grape wrap from the 1990s wasn’t about flavor. It was about cover.

That calculus has flipped entirely.
Key insights

- *Accessory friction is a loyalty leak:* When customers have to leave
to buy wraps and papers, you risk losing the rest of the basket—and the
repeat visit.
- *Tobacco licensing rules can block easy add-on revenue:* In many
markets, selling tobacco wraps is a separate compliance headache that keeps
dispensaries out of a high-demand category.
- *Today’s consumer wants terpene-compatible rituals:* Shoppers
increasingly reject tobacco and “candy” flavors that mask flower,
preferring lighter, complementary options.
- *Wraps can be a high-margin, low-lift add-on:* Accessories often
deliver strong margins and predictable attachment when merchandised near
flower and pre-rolls.
- *Merchandising and staff scripting drive conversion:* Pairing cues
(“match the wrap to the strain”) and quick budtender talking points
outperform a passive shelf display.


Today’s cannabis consumer is intentional, educated, and increasingly
particular. Growers now produce plants with remarkable terpene complexity —
citrus, pine, vanilla, earth — and consumers pursue those profiles the way
wine lovers chase appellations. The last thing they want is to light up a
beautifully curated eighth and taste… artificial grape. Or tobacco. Or
nicotine they never asked for.

That gap between what the flower has become and what most wraps still are
is precisely where Kretek International placed its bet. The product they
built to close the gap is High Tea.
From tobacco expertise to tobacco-free innovation

Kretek isn’t a cannabis startup. The California-based company has spent
more than four decades importing premium tobacco products from around the
world, which gave its team an unusually clear view of where consumer
preferences — and regulators — were heading.

“We saw the writing on the wall for years when it came to flavored tobacco
products,” said Brand Manager Benjamin Winokur. Bans on flavored tobacco
have proliferated across the country, and alongside them, a growing
consumer awareness: tobacco and nicotine don’t just carry health concerns.
They actually overpower everything around them.

“[Traditional wraps] really just cover up a lot of what you want to enjoy
with flower and terpenes,” he added.

Rather than defend a legacy product in a shrinking market, Kretek looked
ahead. In 2018, through subsidiary company Phillips & King, the team
launched its first non-tobacco alternative wraps and papers — becoming, by
Winokur’s account, the first mover in that space.

Then something unexpected happened. Or rather, something expected didn’t
happen.
[image: High Tea tobacco-free herbal wraps display with assorted flavors
and sample wraps on trays.]High Tea’s tobacco-free wrap lineup merchandised
as a terpene-forward alternative to traditional blunt wraps. (Photo: Kretek
International)
Combustibles didn’t die. They evolved.

The conventional wisdom has long held that combustibles are a declining
category, ceding ground to vapes, edibles, and tinctures. The long-arc
trend data supports that view: Traditional combustibles have fallen roughly
9.5 to 10 percent across the board over the past decade, according to
Kretek’s industry tracking.

But the category didn’t collapse. It transformed. Rolling papers, wraps,
and blunt alternatives have seen consistent gains even as cigarette-style
consumption dropped. COVID-19 briefly reversed everything — “suddenly
everyone was at home smoking everything they could get their hands on,”
Winokur noted, chuckling — and when the pandemic ended, traditional
combustibles fell sharply again. The alternative segment kept climbing.

Consumers weren’t walking away from the ritual of rolling and smoking. They
were walking away from tobacco.
The regulatory tangle — and the elegant end-run

For dispensaries, capitalizing on this shift has been maddeningly
complicated. In markets like California, operators cannot hold licenses for
both tobacco and cannabis, which means the wraps and papers their customers
want must be sold next door, through a smoke shop with separate staff and
separate inventory, leading to a fractured consumer experience.

“You’ve got the same owners, two doors apart, running everything through
different channels,” Winokur said. “It creates confusion, and it locks
dispensaries out of accessories their customers actually want.”

High Tea sidesteps this entirely. Made from cacao, yerba mate, and tea, the
wraps contain no tobacco, nicotine, or hemp. Regulatorily speaking, they’re
simply rolling papers. Dispensaries can carry them without a tobacco
license, without a separate storefront, and without the compliance headache.

From the consumer’s perspective, they smoke like a wrap, feel like a blunt,
and get out of the flower’s way.
Flavor as enhancement, not disguise
[image: High Tea wrap ingredients shown in bowls—cacao powder, dried yerba
mate, and herbal tea—with rolled wraps.]Made with cacao, yerba mate, and
tea, High Tea wraps are designed to enhance — not mask — flower flavor.
(Photo: Kretek International)

High Tea’s profiles are designed to complement terpene expression rather
than compete with it. Where a traditional flavored wrap coats everything in
artificial sweetness, High Tea leans aromatic, lighter, more intentional.

Winokur talks about it the way a sommelier might talk about food pairings.
“You can mix wrap flavors with different strains,” he said. “Depending on
the terps, it can contrast beautifully or complement them. I love helping
people think in pairings. If you’re drinking this and smoking that, wrap it
in this and you get a whole different situation.”

That sensibility resonates in a market that has genuinely matured.
Consumers pursuing today’s flower aren’t hiding schwag. They’re making
deliberate, informed choices, and they want every element of the experience
to reflect that.
The retail case: margins, loyalty, and the dispensary of the future

For dispensary operators, High Tea isn’t just a consumer story. It’s also a
margin story.

Accessories have become an increasingly strategic category as dispensaries
look for revenue beyond flower, vapes, and edibles. Wraps carry strong
margins — Winokur estimates 50 to 60 percent — on customers already in the
store. High Tea’s compliance-friendly status means more operators can
access that upside.

There’s also a loyalty dimension. Every time a customer has to make an
extra stop for accessories, that’s a friction point and a potential
defection. Dispensaries that can serve the full session — flower to wrap to
lighter — build the kind of habitual destination loyalty that compounds
over time.

Winokur sees this as part of a much larger evolution in what a dispensary
can be. “Dispensaries, if they do it right, have the opportunity to become
the convenience stores of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries,” he
said.

As restrictions loosen around general merchandise in various jurisdictions,
he envisions spaces where cannabis sits alongside drinks, snacks,
merchandise, and accessories — not just a transaction point, but a place
where people actually spend time.
Proof of concept, hand-rolled in kief

The vision has a proof point. At JAD’s, a high-end consumption lounge in
Denver, High Tea wraps are used exclusively for the house pre-rolls —
hand-rolled in kief and finished to order. They’ve become the most
requested item on the menu.

“Everyone we turn on to High Tea tries them and says they’re not going back
to tobacco,” Winokur said.

That kind of conversion loyalty is exactly what Kretek is looking to scale.
The company plans a national rollout of High Tea-branded pre-rolls in
dispensaries over the next year, backed by retail integration support —
loyalty program tie-ins, in-store education, and promotional infrastructure
— to help operators build the category with confidence.

New formats are in development as well, including cone variations with
glass tips and thinner, automation-compatible options designed specifically
for multistate operators. On the flavor side, Kretek is planning
limited-edition seasonal releases — fall, spring, summer profiles — to tap
into the growing appetite for scarcity and discovery.

“Flavors are very strange,” Winokur said. “There are always a few standbys
that everyone is looking for, but there are also viral flavor trends that
really capture attention. People like that chase, trying to find something
new and finite.”
Rolling toward what comes next
[image: high-tea-wraps-royal-sweet-pouches-lifestyle]A tobacco- and
nicotine-free wrap alternative positioned for dispensary accessory shelves.
(Photo: Kretek International)

Underlying everything is a philosophical stance Winokur returns to often:
The cannabis industry has an opportunity — and a responsibility — to
self-regulate, to present itself as clean and intentional as it moves
toward full normalization.

“If we help write the rules, we’re in a much better position,” he said.

High Tea is, in that sense, more than a product line. It’s an argument
about what cannabis culture looks like when it grows up; when it stops
hiding behind sweetness and tobacco and starts standing confidently in its
own flavor.

The wrap, finally, has caught up with the flower.

*kretek.com*
*highteawraps.com*
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Expert answers What makes High Tea different from traditional blunt wraps?

*High Tea is designed to deliver a blunt-style rolling experience without
tobacco, nicotine, or hemp.* Instead of masking flower with syrupy
sweetness or tobacco bite, the wraps are made with cacao, yerba mate, and
tea — intended to complement terpene profiles rather than overpower them.
Why does “no tobacco” matter for dispensary operators?

In many markets, *tobacco products trigger separate licensing,
merchandising rules, and compliance complexity*. In some cases, wraps can’t
be sold under the same license structure as cannabis. High Tea is
positioned as a tobacco-free wrap that can be treated more like rolling
papers, helping dispensaries keep accessory purchases in-house instead of
sending customers next door.
Are wraps really worth the shelf space from a margin standpoint?

Often, yes. *Accessories can carry strong margins while increasing basket
size* — and they’re bought by customers who are already in the store. The
advertorial cites estimated wrap margins in the *50–60-percent range*
(company estimate), making the category a potentially meaningful add-on for
retailers looking to diversify revenue beyond core product sales.
How should retailers merchandise wraps to drive trial and repeat purchase?

Think “pairing plus discovery.” Merchandise by *flavor family and intended
pairing* (e.g., fruit-forward strains with fruit-leaning wrap flavors) and
use budtender scripting that frames wraps as a “terpene companion” rather
than a disguise. Limited releases and seasonal flavors can also be
positioned as scarcity-driven discovery — an easy hook for repeat visits.