The cannabis industry needed to find some common ground. With the cannabis business kept in the shadows for most of its history — with the exception of the 1970s when the hippies very publicly turned on, tuned in, and dropped out — the industry has been historically fragmented. Lots of growers lived and worked within their own communities and didn’t liaise with one another. An industry slang developed throughout the underground cannabis culture, spoken by those in the know, but once cannabis became legal, there grew a need for a more proper, standardized language.
Now that cannabis is a mainstream product consumed by mainstream people, traded around the country and world like any commodity, the need for a language emerged so people can talk about the product together. Without that language, it would be impossible to communicate a point.
It’s likely that as a buyer, supplier, broker, and many other roles in the industry, it will be necessary to interact with many different parties, people, and even languages. A standard, therefore, is pivotal.
Take the tobacco, beef, and hops industries as an example – all of these commodities have existing standards. It’s a nice idea to be a sommelier of cannabis, but at the end of the day, it’s simply necessary to have a language to trade wholesale goods.
BREAKING IT DOWN
Cannafax uses the International Cannabis and Hemp Standards’ common language and 100-point grading scale to translate the quality of cannabis for buyers and suppliers. So how does this grading system work and what do the scores mean?
Cannafax Co-Founder, Jhavid Mohseni, joined other industry veterans in developing the common language that is now a part of the International Cannabis and Hemp Standards (ICHS) process. It’s an objective way of assessing cannabis, broken down into four consistent categories that everyone can agree on.
Each product is scored on a scale from 1-100 in each of the four categories to produce a final Certificate of Grade — a summary of the product’s data and final score. The four categories that make up the qualitative analysis are aroma, color, structure, and trichome assessment. Let’s take a closer look.
AROMA
Aroma refers to the flowers’ smell and the pungency and quality of the terpenes after drying and curing.
COLOR
Color refers to the vibrancy and variety of colors in the final dried flowers, which are a result of both genetics and growing and processing methods.
STRUCTURE
Structure refers to the shape and density of the final dried flowers, which are a result of both genetics and growing and processing methods.
TRICHOMES
Trichomes are the glands that grow on the surface of the plant, in the highest concentration in the flowers, and contain the sought-after phytochemicals; cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids.
SO WHAT DOES THE SCORE MEAN?
Many would say that having a high or low score isn’t really the point. The scoring system is a way to sort and regulate, not judge. Is there bad cannabis? While that may be a matter of opinion, the Cannafax score is not designed to say if it’s “good” or “bad.” Not all apples end up on the shelves; some end up as apple juice. Everything has a place.
If a product receives a low qualitative analysis score, there is still room for it to go into extracts, edibles, or vapes. A flower could score high for aroma and have amazing trichomes, but maybe the color is weird, so the customer might not want to smoke it if they saw it — but a processor would take that flower and make some delicious extracts.
It’s important to note that before the qualitative analysis occurs, the initial quantitative analysis of cannabis influences what type of product it’ll go into. The quantitative analysis takes into account three indisputable factors:
Environment where cannabis was grown
Product type
Process of harvest
The combination of these factors can equate to over 200 types of products! Grading assesses the product’s qualitative data to determine the product type and then the qualitative analysis and grading system is used to fine-tune the dial within that range.
BECOMING FLUENT IN THE LANGUAGE OF CANNABIS
Cannafax’s qualitative analysis scoring is an effective and valuable way of communicating within the industry. By implementing the scoring system, one can deduce — from the product’s Certificate of Grade score — exactly what the flower’s characteristics are without having to see it in person. Because the market is still so new, it’s crucial to keep the grading system open and transparent. The more people use it, the more natural it will become, and as an industry standard, everyone in the cannabis supply chain can work together seamlessly.
That said, it’s understandable that grading cannabis can be a sensitive subject. Most cultivators put their heart and soul into growing their flower. Having an outsider come in and assess your product is always difficult.
This is why Cannafax is as unbiased and objective as possible, backed by data and proprietary AI-assisted software. It was built by cannabis veterans for the cannabis industry, and who pay homage and respect to the trailblazers who have carved the path from prohibition to the global legal markets.
The grading system helps everyone along the supply chain. Most consumers think they like a certain strain of cannabis or prefer an indica versus a sativa, but what they really like is a specific smell, structure, or growing environment. The more this grading language becomes the norm, the more fluently retail customers will understand the makeup of their cannabis.
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