Cannabis Quality Assessment Framework
Article Written by Gabriel Younes
Read time: 8 mins
Established industries like wine and whiskey have long employed sophisticated sensory evaluation methods for assessing quality, yet medical cannabis has largely relied on laboratory testing and subjective patient feedback to determine flower quality.
This comprehensive Q&A with Gabriel Younes explores a groundbreaking approach to evaluating medical cannabis flower through the lens of sensory science. Drawing inspiration from the wine industry's established "BLIC" model (Balance, Length, Intensity, and Concentration), Younes has developed a structured framework centred on three key aromatic characteristics: Freshness, Loudness, and Complexity.
Here, Younes answers questions about sensory evaluation of cannabis, addresses common misconceptions around terpenes, and touches on the correlation between aromas and potential therapeutic effects.
Freshness, Loudness, and Complexity
You've developed a quality assessment framework for medical cannabis inspired by the wine industry's "BLIC" model. Could you explain how your "Freshness, Loudness, and Complexity" framework works?
The emerging medical cannabis industry has lacked a systematic vocabulary for evaluating flower quality, an area where more established sectors like wine, whiskey, and coffee have long applied structured frameworks. In the wine industry, the quality of a wine is often judged based on the “BLIC” model – Balance, Length, Intensity, and Concentration, which are hallmarks of a quality wine.
When it comes to cannabis, Freshness, Loudness, and Complexity are aroma characteristics I’ve identified that serve as subjective indicators of quality. Assuming the product is clean and free from contaminants, a quality flower is one that has retained a high concentration of volatiles (naturally occurring terpenes & flavorants) as well as a complete cure. This implies a high resin content and good vapour production.
I should make it clear that cannabis is a prescription-only medication in Australia and this article is intended for general informational purposes only. For advice regarding medicinal cannabis or any health condition, please consult a qualified healthcare professional.
How did your background or experiences lead you to develop this specific approach to cannabis quality assessment?
I grew up learning about wine judging and wine quality through a family connection, and while I do love wine, my true passion was always cannabis. As I learned about wine quality, I began to apply what I learned to cannabis, which is a very similar discipline with a lot of overlaps, especially with aroma and quality.
What specific indicators do you look for when evaluating the "Freshness" component of medical cannabis?
Freshness is a gauge of how oxidised or stale the flower is. It doesn’t refer to how recently the flower was harvested, more that it’s a judge of how well it has been preserved. Often, a recently harvested flower can appear to have low freshness due to poor drying or curing, or loss of volatiles. Think of the difference between freshly-ground pepper and pre-ground pepper. A flower with high freshness should smell intact and not like it has degraded.
When assessing "Loudness" in cannabis, what sensory elements are you evaluating beyond just aroma intensity?
Loudness is mainly to do with aroma intensity or strength, but part of this is also how far the smell carries. A high-quality flower should be so loud that it can easily be smelled across the room. Up close, it should almost singe your nose hairs from how pungent it is.
How do you define and measure "Complexity" in medical cannabis, and how does this affect flower quality?
Complexity is a tricky one – it’s basically a gauge of how broad the chemical profile of the flower is, and how well it has retained the volatiles that were originally in the plant at harvest. A complex flower has layers of aroma that make it harder to describe and pin down. For example, you have one flower that smells like citrus and parmesan cheese. Compare this with a flower that smells like ripe citrus, juicy tropical fruit, hops, parmesan cheese, and petrol. The second flower has a higher complexity, with more going on. This would suggest that the flower has retained a lot of the more delicate volatiles that are quick to evaporate after harvest, providing a more “complete” flower.
Sensory Training and Evaluation
What techniques would you recommend for patients wanting to "train their nose" to better evaluate the quality of their medical cannabis?
Smell everything! Start paying close attention to what things smell like, especially when you’re shopping or cooking. I’ve found it helpful to think about how different smells relate to one another – like the difference between raisins and grapes, or ripe vs unripe mango. It’s worth consulting an aroma wheel like the one developed by Cambium Analytica to help mentally categorise different aromas.
Aroma wheel from Cambium Analytica Hypermetrics pt. 1: Developing a Modern Cannabis Aroma Lexicon
How do you differentiate between subjective preferences and objective quality markers when assessing cannabis?
This is a complicated one, as everyone judges cannabis differently. I do my best to put aside my own personal strain/aroma preferences when assessing flower, and purely focus on quality metrics like freshness, loudness, and complexity. Aside from the smell of chlorophyll (cut grass or hay aroma indicating an incomplete or flawed cure), or mould, in my opinion there are no “bad” aromas in cannabis – it’s just down to personal preference.
Some strains naturally smell like “bad” aromas like vomit, floor cleaner, or rotting fruit, but this has nothing to do with the quality of the flower, more the patient’s own preference. To some, these aromas are desirable. Others might have the opposite reaction and hate the smell, and that’s just down to personal taste, and doesn’t reflect on the quality of the flower.
Other quality metrics are less subjective, such as trichome density, trim, nug size, and so on. But there’s always an element of personal preference here, especially when considering how heavily to weight these characteristics towards the overall quality of the flower.
Could you walk us through your personal process when evaluating a new cannabis flower sample?
First, I try to smell the flower before I see it. This helps remove bias and expectation about what it might smell like. I consider how fresh the aroma is, how loud or strong the aroma is, and how complex the aroma is.
Then I take a look, considering the quality of the cure, the moisture content, and the balance of moisture in the flower. In my opinion, a high-quality flower should have a sticky or powdery (but not dry) texture, with stems that pop cleanly (without cracking or breaking unevenly), indicating a complete cure. The bracts should be spongy and bounce back when squished. If it’s firm to touch or brittle in any way, the flower is too dry and may have lost some of its volatiles.
Then, I consider the colour. Regardless of whether it is green or purple, is it vibrant? Or has it faded to a muted, pale pastel colour? If the colour has faded or turned yellow/brown, this could indicate an old flower, an overdried flower, or a rushed dry and cure.
Trichome density is also important, a flower should have a thick coating of silvery white frost, with intact trichome heads that have not suffered damage. However, personally, a high trichome density is less important to me than the quality of the dry and cure, as a dry flower with a high trichome density will still have muted aromas.
Nug size is also a consideration, and I see a lot of debate about this online. Many will argue that nug size doesn’t matter, and that they’re better due to containing less stem. The fact is, smaller buds have a larger surface area, which means they go stale more quickly. Additionally, the smaller buds from a given plant have fewer cannabinoids and volatiles than the larger buds, mostly due to receiving less light. However, nug size is less of a concern for me personally than the aroma and cure.
Of course, the flower should also be well-trimmed and free of seeds, whether they be mature, fully developed seeds or undeveloped hermie seeds.
What common misconceptions do patients typically have about what constitutes "high-quality" medical cannabis?
I often see people assuming that a sticky, resinous flower is poor quality, as it can appear wet and clog up your grinder, unlike overdried flower which grinds with ease. A flower needs some moisture to preserve its aroma, as trichomes are coated with a protective film of water, which helps to lessen the evaporation of volatiles.
How does your sensory evaluation approach differ from standardised laboratory testing, and what insights does each provide?
Sensory evaluation and laboratory testing go hand in hand; they both provide useful insight into the quality and character of the flower, and both are necessary to understand a particular product. A product's Certificate of Analysis can provide key information on the terpene content and terpene profile, as well as moisture content & water activity, but cannot work as a substitute for sensory evaluation when it comes to quality.
Often, a flower will have a high terpene percentage with an ideal moisture content, but present with a poor, muted, or stale aroma. There’s much more to cannabis quality than just terpene or cannabinoid content, and many of the crucial non-terpene flavorants found in cannabis aren’t tested for in a regular lab analysis.
Connections Between Aroma and Effects
What evidence or experience suggests correlations between specific aromas and subjective effects in cannabis?
I think instinctually, people have always known that certain aromas are correlated with certain effects, and we have a couple of studies that point to this. A 2020 study by de la Fuente et al. analysed the Leafly strain database and chemical testing from Psilabs.org to find similarities between subjective effects and aroma/flavour. It was found that terpene profiles often matched the user’s perception of their aroma and effects. Strains that provided energetic, creative, and uplifting effects were correlated with citrus, tropical fruit, and pineapple aromas. Relaxed and sedative effects were correlated with berry, grape, earthy, plum, pungent, and woody aromas.
The next bit of evidence we have connecting aromas and effects from a 2022 study by Plumb et al., titled “The Nose Knows: Aroma, but Not THC Mediates the Subjective Effects of Smoked and Vaporized Cannabis Flower”. The blinded study found that a pleasant smell, not THC percentage, THC dose, or total terpene content, was the only variable that consistently predicted how much participants enjoyed smoking or vaping a cannabis sample.
How do terpene profiles influence the subjective effects of cannabis beyond just creating distinctive aromas?
Well, some terpenes have been shown to cross the Blood-Brain Barrier and as small, volatile, lipophilic molecules this shouldn’t be a surprise. If they cross the BBB, they would have some effect on the mind or body. Exactly what these effects are, and how these terpenes interact with each other and cannabinoids, is yet to be determined.
Have you observed consistent patterns between certain aromatic profiles and specific subjective effects?
Fuente et al. explore this extensively and show there’s a strong correlation between certain aromas and effects. Combining these user reports with terpene clustering data from the US and German markets (Smith et al. 2022, Herwig et al. 2024), I see cannabis as having 3 broad categories of aromas, effects, and terpenes:
The first category is the Cookies or Dessert lineage, which are caryophyllene, limonene, linalool or humulene-dominant, often with a small amount of terpineol. These often have aromas of candied fruit, berries, baked goods, cream, petrol, or garlic. According to de la Fuente et al., these aromas would be more associated with relaxed and sedative effects.
The second category includes the Skunks and other myrcene-dominant cultivars, often with smaller amounts of pinenes, caryophyllene, and limonene. Aromas can vary, but generally smell like overripe or rotting fruit, especially mango and orange, as well as decaying meat, cheese, or petrol. Sam the Skunkman, who created Skunk #1, the first commercial “hybrid”, selected for Skunk phenotypes that smelled more like overripe fruit, as opposed to those that were more like rotting meat, because he preferred the uplifting effects of the fruitier skunks as opposed to the sedating effects of the more savoury or acrid skunks.
The third category is Haze and other terpinolene-dominant strains, often with smaller amounts myrcene, phellandrene, ocimene, terpinene, and sabinene. These generally have sour aromas like unripe mango, tropical fruit, lemon, lime, and carrot, as well as incense, sandalwood and cat pee. Fuente et al. shows these may be more associated with energetic, creative, and uplifting effects.
Industry and Terroir Considerations
What role does terroir play in medical cannabis quality, and how might this concept evolve as the industry matures?
So, terroir refers to the “sense of place” or the effect of the environment on the characteristics of the plant. It’s normally a wine term, but it can equally apply to cannabis. The issue with cannabis is that most flower on the market is indoor-grown, meaning a highly controlled environment, often not using soil, which limits the impact terroir can have on the final product. Indoor cultivation can reliably produce a stunning, high-quality flower, but the effects of terroir would be less apparent. Some studies suggest that the pressures of outdoor cultivation (pests, UV intensity and exposure to the elements) can trigger the plant to produce higher amounts of secondary metabolites (volatiles and cannabinoids), however, due to the inexpensive production methods often employed by outdoor cultivators, the end product could end up with less volatiles than an indoor grow.
What we know for sure is that the environment can have a significant impact on the concentration and ratios of the plant's secondary metabolites. In the wine industry, families have been cultivating the same grapes on the same plots of land for centuries and have developed an intimate understanding of viticulture and how grapes respond to terroir. Due to prohibition and a relatively recent history of cannabis cultivation in the West, our understanding of these factors is very limited by comparison.
In the future, we may eventually establish appellations for cannabis, similar to the wine industry. An appellation of origin is a legally defined designation that identifies the geographic origin of a product, often including production requirements. For example, you could have an appellation for Tasmania, Northern Rivers, etc. Over time, we’d begin to get a better understanding of how these appellations and production methods affect the final product. Cannabis cultivator and pioneer Kevin Jodrey has done some work in recent years developing this idea, which was explored in Rebecca Richman Cohen’s 2020 documentary titled “Weed & Wine”.
How do you think growing conditions shape the plant’s chemical profile versus merely affecting aesthetic qualities?
Well, the amounts and ratios of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes in the plant can change depending on its growing conditions. Cannabis produces more of certain terpenes in response to pressure from specific pests or environmental conditions, so growing conditions could change its character in a way we don’t yet fully understand. For example, outdoor-grown cannabis was shown in a 2023 study by Zandkarimi et al. to have a higher ratio of sesquiterpenes to monoterpenes versus indoor-grown samples.
What challenges do you face in communicating quality distinctions to people who may lack sensory training?
One thing I’ve noticed is that when people are new to cannabis, it can be difficult for them to distinguish between different strains by smell. The same happens with wine – if you’ve never been exposed to it before, different wines all just smell like “wine”. It takes time to build familiarity and develop a tolerance to the base aroma and flavour so you can taste past the generic “wine” or “weed” flavours. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, a poor-quality flower (or wine) can appear great, especially if it’s a variety you like. And that’s a good thing! If it keeps you satisfied, best not to think too hard about it, it will become expensive and time-consuming.
What distinctions would you make between quality assessment approaches for recreational versus medicinal cannabis?
I would normally say there’s no difference, as recreational flower and medical flower are technically the same; it just depends on the context. However, in Australia, the TGA has strict microbial limits on medical flower, and as a result, almost all medical cannabis flower is irradiated to make it sterile. This is great for those with compromised immune systems; however, irradiation can have a significant impact on the volatiles in the flower, resulting in more muted aromas. It’s rare that an irradiated flower has the same richness and complexity as an unirradiated flower. Unfortunately, research in this area is limited, but we have some indication of how irradiation may affect terpene content. There are currently no studies that measure its effects on non-terpene flavorants, which could be a crucial yet overlooked aspect of the chemistry of cannabis.
Gabriel's "Freshness, Loudness, and Complexity" framework represents a step forward in establishing professional standards for medical cannabis quality assessment. By adapting proven methodologies from the wine industry, this approach provides healthcare professionals with objective tools for evaluating flower quality beyond traditional laboratory metrics.
As Australia's medical cannabis industry continues to evolve, the integration of sensory evaluation with laboratory testing offers a window into more comprehensive quality assessments. A holistic approach, merging sensory sciences with objective measures, may ultimately lead to better therapeutic outcomes and increased confidence in the application of medical cannabis.
Gabriel, previously known as CitrusQuest on Reddit, is a patient-turned-industry worker in the Australian natural therapy space. He is deeply passionate about quality and aroma. Coming from a wine background, Gabriel worked in various roles in the wine industry from a young age. He honed his skills developed in the wine industry and applied them to the burgeoning natural therapy industry.
Disclaimer: This information is shared with a global readership for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical or business advice. All patient-related information has been de-identified OR fictional to protect privacy. Nothing in this article is intended to promote the use or supply of medical cannabis to members of the public.
