How to identify quality cannabis flower

You can tell a great deal about dried flower before you buy it, and none of it requires a lab. Here’s what we look at — and what you’re welcome to ask to look at too.

Trichomes

Trichomes are the tiny resin glands covering the flower. Under magnification they look like mushrooms with a stalk and a head, and they hold most of the cannabinoids and terpenes.

You want a dense covering. On well-grown, properly harvested flower most heads look milky rather than glassy, with a few amber ones scattered through. Trichomes still completely clear generally mean the plant came down early.

Aroma

Good flower smells strongly and distinctly, whether that’s citrus, pine, earth, fuel or something sweeter.

Weak aroma is the most useful warning sign there is. Terpenes evaporate with heat, light and time, so a flower with very little smell has usually been dried too hard, stored badly, or simply been sitting around too long.

Colour

Green, and vividly so, with pistils in orange or rust. Plenty of cultivars run purple, blue or deep red, and that’s genetics rather than a fault — it’s also how half our best-looking jars got that way.

Pale or yellowing flower suggests a problem in the grow, in the drying, or light exposure in storage.

Moisture

Dry but not brittle. It should crumble when you break it up — not shatter into dust, and not squash.

Too moist is the one that really matters. Flower packed damp can develop mould, and that is not a discovery you want to make later.

Structure

Dense, well-formed flower with no visible stems or seeds. Loose or fluffy flower isn’t necessarily bad, but it usually means lower light during growth.

And then just ask

Every jar on our shelf can come out and be looked at properly. Bring your questions to the counter — working through this with somebody takes five minutes and beats reading about it, and it’s the part of the job our staff enjoy most.