There is a massive amount of weed available to buy out there, and not all of it is good!
Here we go through some of the points you can check to ensure that you are getting the best possible deal for your money.
Some people will sell any old crap as they are only interested in their own financial gain and not the quality of the plant. Anybody can grow bad weed, but a top shelf product requires experience and care.
Avoid buying bad weed by following the points below, ensuring that you are getting the best possible final product.
Of course, you could send your weed off to a testing facility, to be completely sure, but even these results are not a complete guarantee of quality, only which cannabinoids are present as well as THC strength, which does not relate directly to the effects of the weed.
Some lower THC strength strains can have very significant effects when consumed, so cannabinoid percentages should not be used as a fundamental measure of cannabis performance.
1. Are those trichomes sparkling?
Trichomes are where your cannabis plant delivers its resin and cannabinoids.
They are the microscopic spheres of cannabis resin that cover your cannabis plant’s leaves, buds, and branches, giving them a frosty white look.
A high concentration of mature trichomes is required for a wide spectrum of medically beneficial effects to be possible from cannabis. The trichomes should be glistening and gleaming like precious pearls.
Another telltale symptom of high-quality weed is the presence of mature trichomes, which have a sticky nature, something you will be able to gauge when you actually touch the product with your hand.
2. Is the colour of the bud strong, even and vibrant?
In terms of plant quality, the colour is one of the most useful ways to gauge quality.
Depending on the plant’s genetics, as well as how it was cultivated, colour might vary. Low temperatures during flowering might cause certain strains to produce purple bud instead of mint green. (This is OK, and does not affect the overall quality as long as the temperature fluctuations were not extreme.)
Orange and red colours can also be produced by drying the buds out over longer periods of time. The best way to tell whether the bud is high-quality is if the colour is rich and even.
You should stay away from anything that has grey flecks, and brown and yellow tints are a strong sign that plants were not treated with love.
3. Is the bud dense, but still a little crunchy?
The dealer should not offer you a larger bag than you were expecting. That may be a bad sign. Make sure that you feel the weight of the bag before handing over your hard earned cash.
A lighter or fluffy bud can be a sign of poor quality since it indicates that the weed within is likely to be sort of thing you might call ‘home grown’. This is to be avoided.
Squeezing the buds should produce a crunching sound and the buds should have a plump appearance.
4. Does the bud give off that lovely smell?
The pungent scent should hit you immediately upon opening the bag. If you have to stick your nose inside to get a whiff, it’s not worth smelling. Due to the wide range of terpenes and other cannabinoids, each strain will have a distinct aroma.
Good weed will quickly fill the room with its unique scent if it is not properly sealed up in a bag or jar. Particularly fragrant weed will sometimes be detectable by smell even when inside a plastic bag.
Cannabis that has lost much of its smell or tastes a bit like hay is a sign that it has been improperly cured. There are a small amount of exceptions to this rule. Occasionally some good weed strains have a very mild smell, but this is an extremely rare occurrence, and the grower should have knowledge of this.
Some experienced cannabis smokers prefer weed that has been cured for at least one year. This kind of product is harder to find but will have a more diverse cannabinoid profile and very often will be described as ‘fire’.
5. A lazy trim could indicate a lazy grower.
Quality buds are mostly determined by genetics, but the work doesn’t stop there. Pruning and other post-harvest activities are just as important, though are often ignored.
Carelessness in the harvesting process could be indicated if the buds still have a lot of leaf present on them.
Paying a gardener who doesn’t take good care of the plants is a waste of time and money.
Leaves won’t have any effect on you as far as getting high goes and they add to the overall weight. Avoid this sort of weed unless it’s a gift coming from a friend.
6. Does the weed burn evenly and produce grey ash?
Finally, keep an eye on the ash generated by smoking the doob. It ought to be an evenly balanced grey, showing there’s no evidence of chemicals or some other contamination.
If somebody has gone overboard with a chemical fertilizer you are very likely to see evidence of this in the ash. It wont appear smooth and uniform and the spliff may not burn evenly.
You can also tell that the weed is wet if you see black ash coming out of the burning joint.
The extra water remaining in any weed adds to the overall weight of any deal, so you are paying more for water, not for the actual bud. If this is the case, you could ask for a discount, or more weed to balance this out because the weed has not been dried correctly. You could even dry the weed out yourself in a jar, opening it every few days, but this should not be your job!
