When I sit down totally test a strain of cannabis, there are some very regimented steps I take t ensure that my grading is consistent across all testers. The average consumer likely would never need to dig this far into it, but I enjoy looking objectively at all flower that comes across my desk. For years I was in the restaurant industry, and I accumulated quite a breadth of knowledge on wine. I took these teachings and applied them to cannabis. With so many different growers, and phones, I needed a subjective way to assess all these strains. So far, this is the best way I can figure to do it;
- 1 tier grinder. No keif trap. At home I use a grinder with a keif screen, but when testing a flower, I don’t want to knock all those beautiful trichromes off. I want to enjoy them in this first joint. This is going to give me a much more “true to flower”taste and high. They get gummed up, and gross pretty quick. So I suggest just a cheap one you wouldn’t mind tossing out after a few taste tests.
- For an accurate test of the nose (smell) of the flower, you don’t want to take big huffs. Instead, take multiple small sniffs. Some terpenes are stronger than others. If you inhale too deeply, you could miss some of the more subtle tones hiding in there.
- When you first open your container, gently break your buds apart if they are all stuck together, and give the bag a gentle shake to move flowers around. This is going to let a lot more of the natural scents come through.
- Find the cleanest burning, flavorless, paper you can get. Flavoured blunt wraps, are cool and all, but they will never give you an accurate representation of the taste of the flower.
- Don’t inhale. No seriously. Well, at first. When I first light up a joint, I take 5-10 puffs, and take a look at the ash. If it’s dark grey, or black, I toss it out. With the over commercialization of cannabis, there are a lot of companies that are in it for a quick buck. Cutting corners where they can. When growing cannabis, farmers use a plethora of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. After the flowering stage, a good responsible grower will “flush” the plant. Feeding it only water to flush out all the toxic chemicals used to care for this plant. If your weed is burning black, it wasn’t flushed properly, and is chock full of pesticides, and fertilizers. I’m trying to get high off THC, not DDT.
- The density of the bud tells you a lot about the curing process, and the care taken during the flowering stage of the plant. You want it to be dense, but not rock hard. It’s a fine line. If it’s too dense, it’s just going to bust into powder and be a terrible smoke, but too loose means the flower wasn’t really harvested, or cured properly. Some strains are naturally a little fluffier than others. Some much denser naturally. Though, generally, density is a great indicator of quality.
- Another great indicator of of how the plant was cared for is the trim. Are there lots of leaves poking out all over your nugs? If your flower is a leafy mess, the grower cared very little about presentation. Only worrying about yield. You didn’t pay to smoke leaves. You paid for the flower.
- When looking you first get your flower, take a really close look at it. I like to use the x5 magnification setting on my phone camera. All those little white crystals are trichomes. They contain the THC, and CBD from the flower. If the cannabis has a heavy dusting, it’s a good bet that the quality is there.
- Hold smoke in mouth for flavour. Roll it around on your tongue. Exhale slowly. There are a lot of higher end strains that have a different flavour profile from the inhale to the exhale. Enjoy the full experience of your flower. Vaporizers are a great substitute to burning your cannabis. With the temperature control on most of the newer devices, you can heat up your flower to the perfect temperature to enjoy the wide variety of terpene profiles that cannabis has to offer from strain to strain.
- Have fun with it. If you aren’t enjoying it, why are you doing it?
