What Wine Spectator’s 100-Point rating system is to wine, the Trichome Institute wants to create for weed.
“Sophisticated wine shoppers don’t go into a liquor store and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, I’m looking for this species of grape at this percentage of alcohol. Could you please help me with that?'” says Max Montrose, president of the Trichome Institute, a provider of cannabis education and training.
Useful weed resources
Strain reviews: Check out our marijuana reviews organized by type — sativas and sativa-dominant hybrids, ditto with indicas.
Favorite strains: 25 ranked reviews from our marijuana critics
Follow The Cannabist on Twitter and Facebook
Trichome Institute developed a program called Trichome Assurance Grading, or TAG, as a means to assess the quality of cannabis flower.
“When you go to the grocery store and buy food, it’s been quality-checked; when you buy medicine, it’s been quality-checked. We are a multibillion-dollar industry that has no way to measure and quantify what our units should cost,” Montrose says in a discussion with Cannabist editor-in-chief Ricardo Baca on The Cannabist Show.
TAG grades aspects of flower that are scientifically measurable — such as structure, trichomes, ripeness, pungency, contaminants and mold — utilizing sight, smell and taste. Two double-blind tests are conducted by testers who have received Level 3 Interpening certification — the institute’s equivalent of sommelier training.
Watch the full episode of The Cannabist Show
Subscribe to The Cannabist Show podcast:
