What makes cannabis flower “top shelf” and deserving of its price and placement? In an ideal world, price and quality are directly related; the highest priced flower is also the highest quality flower. But how is quality defined and measured? Let’s break it down.
Cannabis flower is a function of 1) genetics (nature); and 2) environment (nurture). When we evaluate flower, we ask ourselves two questions:
- What are the defining attributes (e.g., appearance, aroma, taste, feel) of this cultivar’s genetics?
- How well does this specific flower reflect those standards?
The nature-nurture framework is commonly used, but for purposes of this post, let’s use the Westminster Dog Show as an example. Meet Trumpet, the Bloodhound who won Best in Show in 2022 (left) next to the Bloodhound’s standards (right) published by the American Kennel Club (“AKC”).
The AKC publishes standards for each breed, which are specific to the breed’s genetics. Bloodhounds aren’t judged by the standards of a Dachshund. Likewise, the award of “Best in Show” isn’t given to a dog breed, it’s given to a dog, so training and development are necessary.
The concept is similar with cannabis flower – a specimen is evaluated against a standard. This is a straight-forward exercise with popular cultivars, such as Blue Dream, Jack Herer, OG Kush, because they give you a reference. However, there are seemingly so many flower options available these days, it can be difficult to establish a standard for each cultivar.
Here is some advice to help you separate the signal from the noise.
Cultivar Names vs. Genetic Lineage
In California’s cannabis market, cultivar names are only loosely connected to their genetic lineage. Many brands rename cultivars for commercial benefit. Examples include:
- “Effects-Based”. When a brand takes an existing cultivar and renames it based on an anticipated effect. This type of marketing is designed to appeal to inexperienced cannabis users, because they’ll want to know more about what they’re consuming.
- “Proprietary” Genetics. When a brand takes an existing cultivar, renames it, and claims it’s the product of a “pheno hunt” and/or breeding program. Many brands associated with celebrities adopt this approach to highlight a celebrity’s involvement.
- “Selling Mutton as Lamb”. When a brand takes an existing cultivar and renames to another cultivar with higher demand. Cannabis critic, Jimi Devine, has called out many cultivators upselling Gelato as Runtz.
Cultivation
Let’s take a look at the nurture side of the equation and how cannabis flower is cultivated.
Cannabis flower is cultivated either indoors, in a greenhouse, or outdoors. Typically, the highest priced flower is cultivated indoors due to production costs. Cultivating indoors requires an insulated building equipped with lighting, HVAC, and irrigation systems that consume electricity. Outdoor flower is typically the least expensive flower because it has the lowest cost of production. Greenhouse flower is typically priced above outdoor flower and below indoor flower.
Here are a couple of additional notes regarding cultivation:
- The primary benefit of indoor cultivation is environmental control. It provides plants with the best conditions for growth by delivering supplemental CO2 and regulating temperature/humidity. These same conditions can be repeated over and over again producing a very consistent product.
- Artificial lighting cannot compete with the amount of energy produced by the sun. Outdoor flower has better lighting than indoor flower, but doesn’t have any environmental controls, resulting in lower quality flower at times. This is due to so many external variables that are out of the cultivators control.
Post-Harvest Processing
How the flower was handled post-harvest will have a dramatic effect on the quality of the final product. You can’t improve flower quality post-harvest, but you can certainly destroy it.
Trimming/Bucking: This is the process of removing parts of the cannabis plant that do not contain THC-producing trichomes (e.g., leaves and stems). Trimming and bucking can either be performed by hand or by a machine. All top shelf flower should be hand-trimmed and there is no such thing as “top shelf machine-trimmed flower” (read more about this in Hand-Trimmed vs Machine-Trimmed). All of our Live Cured Flower is hand-trimmed by our expert harvest crew, leaving each bud perfectly manicured with a natural appearance.
Drying/Curing: This is the process of removing moisture from the flower. Traditionally dried and cured flower requires exposing it to heat and oxygen, which also degrades the flower. Our Live Cured Flower has had the moisture removed while minimizing exposure to heat, light, and oxygen. Compared to traditional dry/cure methods, our Live Cure process is more labor intensive and expensive, but preserves more attributes of the live flower.
Using Your Senses
Top shelf cannabis exhibits several characteristics that set it apart from lower-quality flower. These qualities can be identified by just using your senses.
- Appearance: Visually appealing hand-trimmed buds with details such as the calyxes and pistils preserved. Vibrant colors, like deep greens, purples, and oranges. Trichomes are plentiful, glistening, and well developed. The bud should look like a flower and have an intact bud structure. Small broken down machine-trimmed pebbles are not top shelf.
- Aroma: Must have strong and complex aromas that can range from fruity, citrusy, and floral to skunky, diesel-like, or earthy notes. There should be a broad spectrum of terpenes that allow you to journey through different layers of scents on the inhale and exhale. The aroma is considered an important factor in the overall quality of the flower and should never be overlooked.
- Flavor: Top shelf cannabis should offer a rich and pronounced flavor profile that complements its aroma. It will provide a pleasant smoking or vaping experience with nuanced tastes that may include sweet, spicy, minty, citrusy, or other distinctive notes noticed on inhale and exhale. Our Live Cured Flower offers that complexity due to how we preserve the flower.
- Potency: High-quality cannabis strains are known for their elevated levels of cannabinoids and terpenes. Although high levels THC and CBD are thought to be the mark of top shelf cannabis, it’s important to note the roll terpenes play in the overall effects you experience (read our previous post on the Entourage Effect). I would trade a 35% THC score for higher levels of terpenes any day.
- Feel: The smoke should be smooth and not irritating. Any coughing and the flower should be excluded. Our Live Cured Flower produces an incredibly pleasant, light and flavorful smoke. Since cannabis is typically consumed by smoking, this is one of the final deciding factors.
Evaluating Flower Categories
As we described before, there are many levels to grading cannabis and many factors that need to be taken into account. Here’s a little line-up based on cultivars we carry, so you can see the comparison between our flower (labeled Top Shelf in the example below) and other brands. Look through these examples and see how wide the spread is.
OREOZ: Our flower is more purple and has been trimmed to preserve the natural structure of the plant. Beautiful color throughout the entire bud.
SUNSET SHERBET: Clearly better trim than the rest of the examples. There’s a more developed structure with swollen calyxes and well defined flower components.
TANGIELAND: This is our most popular cultivar. We have a lot of experience working with this cultivar. Expert trimming preserves the well developed natural structure of each bud.
APPLE FRITTER: Consistent coloring throughout the entire flower bud. You can clearly make out all the components of the flower and see that it’s reached the cultivars genetic potential.
As you can see there is a obvious progression from bottom shelf to top shelf. The post-harvest processing can make or break a great harvest. But you can also see that some underdeveloped buds were never destined to become top shelf from the beginning and no amount of post-harvest care can really improve that.
Curated Cannabis has an extremely selective process when choosing what to harvest. We closely monitor the overall health of the plants throughout their life cycle. Each plant must express the full genetic potential of the cultivar to be selected for harvest. Tremendous effort and care is put into the post-harvest processing to make sure each expertly trimmed bud is preserved just as it was at harvest. Our Live Cured Flower perfectly captures the elegance and beauty of the live flower bud. Each painstaking step in our process ensures perfect flower is presented to you in each jar.
When it comes to shopping for top shelf flower, hopefully these tips make it easier to evaluate your options.
Stay stoned and stay safe!
