Quote Originally Posted by Dietblonde
Actually, what I meant was....what characteristics do you look for when you're trying to find the highest quality of bud?
Ok.... so I put up some pics of Grade A medicine. Why is it obvious those are top quality without tasting them?

Look how these samples are handled- all of them are, except for maybe the king's kush, look like they were never crushed in any way, never shaken, most of the trichome heads are intact, you can see em on the bubba kush, tahoe og, and the white. The piece of king's kush has the leaves pushed into the flower, it was a bit compressed during some stage of drying, I prefer not to have that.

That is truly an essential aspect of grade A medicine..., is how it is handled after harvest. The king's was definitely handled the poorest in the pics here; the other 3 were probably small scale growers that took some real TLC with the trim.

Another thing, not that resin density is the only thing to look for, but is an important aspect of bag appeal. Resin, crystals, trichomes as they are called are shaped like a mushroom in case you don't know. Thin stalk with a big top.... well the top or head as we say can break off easily. Properly made, hash is made of the trichome heads and nothing else.

With these samples, they look 'white' to the naked eye when you try to look at the flower portion... its hard to even see whether it is green or purple or blue underneath, too much resin glinting in the light, making it look white. Its because the trichome heads are intact and they make all those little miniature glints of light you can see in the tahoe og kush and the bubba kush pictured.

You'll find more often than not that dispensary bud is so overhandled, when you break it up there is a very real difference in resin density between the exterior of the bud and the interior. In those situations, even some of the whitish look can be lost from the exterior of the flower because some many trichome heads have been knocked off.

When the trichome heads break off, potency, aroma, and taste are lost.