Is Cheetah Piss indica or sativa? Its genetics and family tree

The three parents

Lemonnade, also called The Original Lemonnade or simply Lemonade, is a sativa-dominant cross of Lemon OG and Gorilla Haze bred by Growing Passion; Leafly users call it energetic, focused and giggly, with lemon, lime and citrus flavors.²

Gelato 42 is the cut most sources name: Leafly lists “Gelato 42” as another name for Gelato itself, a hybrid of Sunset Sherbet and Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies, and SeedFinder draws the parent as Gelato “pheno #42”.^6,8 The number is disputed: Leafly’s Cookies-family genealogy lists the Gelato selections that went into production in 2014 as 25, 33, 41, 43, 45 and 49, and GreenState, citing Gelato’s breeder, Sherbinski, writes that “Gelato 42 has never been a thing”.^5,11

London Pound Cake, also called Pound Cake, is an indica-dominant cross of Sunset Sherbert and an unknown indica bred by Cookies, and Leafly lists Cheetah Piss among its children.³ Together with Gelato it puts Sunset Sherbert, a Girl Scout Cookies × Pink Panties cross, on both sides of the family.^8,12

Is it related to Cat Piss?

As far as published lineages go, only by name: Leafly, AllBud and SeedFinder all say Cheetah Piss is an homage to Cat Piss, a sativa that Leafly lists as a phenotype of Super Silver Haze and that Westword describes as an energetic, ammonia-smelling strain popular at West Coast medical dispensaries in the 2000s.^1,4,13,16,17 No account puts Cat Piss in the cross: Weedmaps calls Cheetah Piss “thought to be a spinoff”, while Premium Cultivars says the two share no genetic relationship.^7,14

The reported effects differ: Leafly users call Cat Piss talkative, energetic and aroused, and both Leafly and Westword describe Cheetah Piss as the more relaxing of the two.^1,13,17 The lines have since met in at least one cross: SeedFinder lists Cheetah Cat, from Equilibrium Genetics, as a cross of Cheetah Piss and NorCal Catpiss.⁶

How indica or sativa is it?

Most sources call it balanced: AllBud lists 50% indica and 50% sativa, Zamnesia says the same of its autoflower, and Leafly files it simply as a hybrid whose effects are mostly energizing.^1,4,18 SeedFinder is the exception, judging from its short plants, tight internodes and broad leaves that it may be slightly indica-dominant.¹⁶ The parents pull both ways: Lemonnade is sativa-dominant, London Pound Cake indica-dominant, and Leafly describes Gelato as evenly balanced.^2,3,8

The Cookies cut, clones and seeds

Sources disagree on whether the original can be had at all: SeedFinder’s database says its Cheetah Piss was never sold as feminized seeds and Weedmaps says it is unavailable as seeds or clones, while SeedFinder’s own write-up says nurseries sell clones and Premium Cultivars sells seeds, adding that it is not clear whether either descends from the Cookies original and that Cookies rarely makes its strains available to home growers.^14,16

Seeds sold under the name are new versions: Zamnesia’s Cheetah Piss Autoflower is a feminized Lemonnade × Gelato 42 × London Poundcake Auto cross, and Premium Cultivars lists Lemonnade, Gelato 45 and London Pound Cake 97 as the parents of its seeds.^7,18,19 SeedFinder also lists Cheetah Piss S1, a selfed line from Wolfpack Selections.⁶

What our lab data adds

Our strict matching keeps only products sold as Cheetah Piss: we excluded 80 results (63 of them flower) with near-miss names, among them crosses such as "Cheetah Piss × Lemonade" (5), "Cheetah Piss × Project 4516 Flower" (5) and "Sour Cookies × Cheetah Piss" (3) and the variant name "Forbidden Cheetah Piss Strain" (5).²⁰ Of the 298 tests we kept, 99 (33.2%) were on flower labelled with the Cookies brand, all from Nevada in 2020–2021.²⁰ Products sold under its other name, Funky Kitty, are not matched.^1,20