Cannabis can be tasted and appreciated like fine wine and the idea is gaining momentum nationwide. Over in the global ganja epicenter of California, encouraging people to blind test cannabis is nearly standardized.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local chef, entrepreneur and industry veteran Chip Moore, 36, is the founder of the 4 and 20 Blackbirds<\/a> collective and has been treating its members to the blind tasting concept \u2014 wherein participants don\u2019t learn strain names before sampling, followed by discussion about the key characteristics of tastes, smells and effects.<\/p>\n In the hippy hamlet of Fairfax north of San Francisco, the newly formed Herba Buena<\/a> collective, whose co-founder Alicia Rose comes from the wine industry, incorporated blind wine-style tastings as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alicia said the \u201ceffusiveness of the aromas\u201d should guide aficionados through the tasting process. She\u2019ll often make collective members smell a jar of Herba Buena\u2019s ultra-organic cannabis before revealing the strain. \u201cI like them to smell and experience the flower before identifying it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a totally surprising development. The<\/em>\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0mentioned treating cannabis like wine as far back as 2007 and magazine The Clever Root<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a farm-to-table foodie publication backed by the wine industry \u2014 has included an entire column devoted to cannabis. The magazine\u00a0Marijuana Business Daily<\/em>\u00a0now publishes the results of blind taste tests in each issue.<\/p>\n As cannabis continues to be normalized and elevated through taste-testing events like these, industry leaders are wise to borrow from the wine and food culture, further illustrating how cannabis can offer as much of a connoisseur experience as wine or fine chocolate.<\/p>\n 1. When you blind test weed, make it blind. \u201cThe main difference is that when someone knows the strain they are tasting they have already categorized how it\u2019s supposed to smell and taste based on their previous experience with that strain,\u201d said Moore.<\/p>\n 2. Pick rare strains. Don\u2019t choose popular favorites like Sour Diesel or OG Kush \u2014 aficionados can identify their signature lemonhead or pine-sol funk aromas in one whiff, and the results lead to sample bias.<\/p>\n 3. Pre-roll some joints. Unlike wine, cannabis strains can be identified visually from across a room, rendering moot the whole point of the blind taste. \u201cI want to challenge the participants to use their senses,\u201d says Moore, \u201cparticularly smell to reach past their preconceived notions and really get to know the bud they are smoking.\u201d<\/p>\n 4. Take a \u201cdry hit.\u201d Draw on an unlit joint to taste its terpenes<\/a> at room temperature. A dry toke reveals a lot about the quality of the herb. It should have a clean herbal taste without any sharp salty notes which can indicate the presence of unflushed fertilizers.<\/p>\n 5. Fire it up, but no bogarting. \u201cI tell them to start off slow, not take one of those big, \u2018I\u2019m not going to get this joint back\u2019 hits,\u201d laughs Moore.<\/p>\n 6. Write down your notes. Privately record initial impressions and share joints to taste how the joint changes as it smokes. As leading cannabis judge Swami of Swami Select says, \u201cEach joint is a journey and each tells its own story, how well it was flushed, whether it\u2019s indoor or sungrown, this kind of things.\u201d<\/p>\n 7. Use coffee beans as a palette cleanser. Coffee beans help refresh noses over-exposed to the onslaught of cannabis terpenes and smoke.<\/p>\n 8. No spoilers. As the joint burns, Moore asks folks to continue to record their observations, but don\u2019t shout out what they think the strain is. It creates expectation bias.\u00a0<\/p>\n 9. Don\u2019t overdo it. Wine tasters spit out the wine. Smokers just need to go slow. \u201cThe purpose is not to get so high they forgot what they\u2019re doing,\u201d says Moore with a chuckle.<\/p>\n 10. Guess the strain. Write down your last impressions, along with any possible guesses as to what the strain is. Discuss.<\/p>\n 11. Repeat. The best way to elevate your cannabis critiquing is to keep practicing.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, how do you choose your cannabis?<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 21 of Cannabis Now.\u00a0LEARN MORE<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The post How to Blind Test Cannabis for an Elevated Experience<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Cannabis can be tasted and appreciated like fine wine and the idea is gaining momentum nationwide. Over in the global ganja epicenter of California, encouraging people to blind test cannabis is nearly standardized.\u00a0 Local chef, entrepreneur and industry veteran Chip Moore, 36, is the founder of the 4 and 20Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[605,50,3879,85,116,13546,13547],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42167,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42166\/revisions\/42167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How to Conduct Your Own Blind Smell & Taste Test<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: How to Blind Test Cannabis for an Elevated Experience<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"