How to Tell If Weed Is Good: Color, Smell, Taste and Trichomes

To tell if weed is good, check four things: color, smell, taste and trichomes. Quality bud is green, smells loud and pungent, tastes fresh and is coated in milky-white trichomes; brown, scentless or musty-tasting bud points to degraded flower or mold.

If you live somewhere cannabis sales are regulated, finding quality flower is probably easy. You just walk into a dispensary and ask where the bud you're about to buy came from, what strain it is, how much THC or CBD it has, and so on. 

But if you're an “old-school” grower who harvests at home for your joints or your oil, the best way to judge whether a bud is any good is to use the excellent senses nature gave you and learn to really look at a cannabis bud and size it up.

How do you judge weed quality?

Figuring out whether weed is good can feel like a challenge when you're new to cannabis. But it's not complicated. Here's what to pay attention to when you're checking out your buds.

Color

The best buds, the fresh and potent ones, are usually green or mostly green. Blue, red, orange and purple hues can show up in good bud too, as long as they're not a sign of mold. But bud should never be brown.

Brown weed is a sign of low quality, caused by oxidation and the breakdown of cannabinoids, terpenes and other important compounds. As bud ages and oxidizes, THC converts into CBN (cannabinol), and the high loses a lot of its punch. That joint will make you sleepy more than anything, and it's harsh to smoke because it burns fast. The smoke gets thick and heavy and can set off coughing fits. 

Smell

That pungent, unmistakable cannabis smell is one of the things that tells you: “this bud is legit.”

One way to know you're holding low-quality weed is when the buds smell damp or musty, because that can mean mold, which makes it dangerous to smoke. Cannabis with little or no aroma has probably been exposed to too much oxygen, which breaks down its aromatic (and psychoactive) compounds.

Taste

Whatever flavor notes a bud may have, whether pine, cheese or chocolate, one thing is for sure: quality weed should taste vibrant and fresh.

If the bud tastes bad, it probably had a moisture or drying problem, and with that comes a moldy, musty flavor. If a joint tastes off, your best move is not to smoke it. Inhaling mold and other contaminants can make you sick and do real damage to your lungs.

Trichomes

Another sign of high-quality weed is flower loaded with trichomes, the tiny resin glands on the bud. The thicker the layer of trichomes, the more potent the herb. Ideally, the trichomes (aka resin) should be milky white, shiny and look like fully formed crystals under a microscope or loupe.

On good bud you can probably see some resin or trichomes with the naked eye, but a loupe will show you a lot more detail. Trichomes hold most of the terpenes and cannabinoids that make a bud flavorful and potent.

You can also tell you've got quality buds when: there are no seeds, the hairs are orange or amber, the smoke goes down smooth and the bud looks resinous. 

To make sure you end up with high-quality cannabis, you have to check on your grow every day, keeping your grow room or garden in optimal shape so plants develop healthy, and preventing pests, mold and moisture problems during drying and curing. 

Low, mid and top shelf: the grades of weed

Cannabis flower can be sorted into several quality tiers. You can judge it by stickiness, terpene profile, flavor, texture and a bunch of other factors. To keep it simple, here are three basic categories: low-grade, mid-grade and top-shelf.

Low-grade weed

Low-grade buds look sad, mostly because they travel long distances after being crammed into small packages. Known as “brick weed,” they usually arrive as compressed buds or tight blocks. Here's how to recognize them:

• Look: dull, usually dark with plenty of brown tones.
• Feel: light, flaky, and you can tell it wasn't dried properly; no stickiness means few or no trichomes.
• Smell: if you ever hear someone say “my buds don't smell like anything,” red flag. No aroma means a lack of terpenes, probably degraded, plus possible moisture and mold issues.
• Taste: harsh on the throat, with a bitter, earthy, spicy flavor.
• Effects: it'll still get you high, but it likely has less THC.

Mid-grade weed

This is the kind of bud home growers all over the world mostly produce, with proper feeding, good watering and the rest. The key is putting real care and effort into the work. These flowers stand out from low-grade weed thanks to the following:

• Look: lighter green buds, a shiny layer of trichomes, a plump, healthy look and orange pistils poking out. They may carry extra sugar leaves left on to bulk them up.
• Feel: usually dense and sticky, and it springs back to shape after you squeeze it.
• Smell: pleasant and strong, but not overpowering.
• Taste: you'll pick up the terpenes on every hit.
• Effects: with higher levels of trichomes and cannabinoids, it hits a lot harder than brick weed.

Top-shelf weed

Top-shelf weed brings intense flavor and mind-blowing effects. It usually comes from professional farms and expert breeders in places like Northern California, Spain and the Netherlands.

If you're after the best buds out there, here's what to look for:

• Look: perfectly manicured, nugget-shaped, colorful, with deep orange pistils and a frosty coat of trichomes.
• Feel: big, sticky and with just the right moisture level.
• Smell: a complex, intense, skunky terpene profile. Pro tip: close the windows when you light up.
• Taste: the terpene profile is so flavorful it lights up your taste buds.
• Effects: the cannabinoid profiles deliver a wide range of experiences, from heavy psychoactive effects to the clear-headed feel associated with CBD.