Honestly, it’s kind of like wine: the more kinds you try, the more you start to pick out the differences; and you can learn a lot about them without any sort of formal education.
An easy way to do that is by starting a weed journal. When you pick up flower, write down the strain(s) that you got, and then when you smoke it, write down stuff like how it smells/tastes, or how it made you feel. Before too long, you’ll start to be able to pick out things that you liked (for instance, lemon and pine scents, giggly and calm effects) and things that you didn’t like (skunky smell, sort of a racy feeling, too sedative, etc.) about different strains.
And, really, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work or takes a long time. When I picked up from a friend, I really couldn’t tell the difference between most of what they had; and when I picked up from a sketchy gray-market delivery service, there was more of a difference, but still nothing super substantial. It wasn’t until I’d been shopping at a dispensary for like six months that I realized that even though I “just liked weed,” I did actually have a preference for sativa-leaning hybrids with a fresh pine scent.
It definitely took time for me to develop my “nose” for weed, and I’ve used the wine analogy many times (its a good analogy for a few different aspects of weed).
The differences in taste between strains can be subtle if you’re not super experienced or super sensitive to it, and i think the more you’re around it the more your brain starts to tune out the “basic” weed smell that every strain has and focus on the more subtle differences.
The number of times I’ve come across some incredible smelling strain that smells like straight candy to me and I’ll have one of my non-smoker or casual smoking friends smell it only to shrug and say “IDK smells like weed” lol
I also advise anyone exploring weed to take the indica/sativa/hybrid distinction with a very, very large grain of salt. Every strain (and in fact even the same strain grown in different conditions) is different and complex, and you really have to smoke them to see how they affect you. I’ve had many strains that are “100% indica” or “100% sativa” hit me like the exact opposite.
At this point I don’t even pay attention to the strain “type” I just smoke a strain a few times in different settings to get a feel for how it actually affects me. And since most of them affect me in pretty much the same way (aside from a few outlier strains) I just smoke what tastes the best to me.
i think the more you’re around it the more your brain starts to tune out the “basic” weed smell that every strain has and focus on the more subtle differences.
The number of times I’ve come across some incredible smelling strain that smells like straight candy to me and I’ll have one of my non-smoker or casual smoking friends smell it only to shrug and say “IDK smells like weed” lol
This is so real. I work in a dispensary. Before this, I could tell wildly different strains apart. I usually bought on the darkweb before rec and knew what I was getting. But if they’d substituted one Blueberry cross for another, they would have gotten away with it. Now I smell weed and read packaging 35-40 hours a week paid, plus whatever I do for my own use.
Now you might be able to get away swapping Blueberry Cookies for Blueberry Muffin, but you’re not gonna get me with Blueberry Headband. Mendo Butter smells kinda buttery, and the smell my wife calls balloons is what most growers call banana.
I also advise anyone exploring weed to take the indica/sativa/hybrid distinction with a very, very large grain of salt.
This drives me crazy sometimes, because terps and minor cannabinoids play a huge part in strain specific effects, but aren’t dictated strictly by those three categories. Those categories are dictated by genetic percentages, not what those genes provided. And a lot of budget weed is so low on terps and minors that it basically is all the same. But dumbass customers who think they know everything only know those three things and don’t believe that terps and minors do anything. So I can’t tell them that the hybrid with 2% Myrcene, 1% Nerolidol, and 2% CBN is gonna be better for sleep than the 60:40 indica in the blue bottle with total terps and minors adding up to less than 2%. Cannabis labeling and education has a long way to go.
Honestly, it’s kind of like wine: the more kinds you try, the more you start to pick out the differences; and you can learn a lot about them without any sort of formal education.
An easy way to do that is by starting a weed journal. When you pick up flower, write down the strain(s) that you got, and then when you smoke it, write down stuff like how it smells/tastes, or how it made you feel. Before too long, you’ll start to be able to pick out things that you liked (for instance, lemon and pine scents, giggly and calm effects) and things that you didn’t like (skunky smell, sort of a racy feeling, too sedative, etc.) about different strains.
And, really, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work or takes a long time. When I picked up from a friend, I really couldn’t tell the difference between most of what they had; and when I picked up from a sketchy gray-market delivery service, there was more of a difference, but still nothing super substantial. It wasn’t until I’d been shopping at a dispensary for like six months that I realized that even though I “just liked weed,” I did actually have a preference for sativa-leaning hybrids with a fresh pine scent.
It definitely took time for me to develop my “nose” for weed, and I’ve used the wine analogy many times (its a good analogy for a few different aspects of weed).
The differences in taste between strains can be subtle if you’re not super experienced or super sensitive to it, and i think the more you’re around it the more your brain starts to tune out the “basic” weed smell that every strain has and focus on the more subtle differences.
The number of times I’ve come across some incredible smelling strain that smells like straight candy to me and I’ll have one of my non-smoker or casual smoking friends smell it only to shrug and say “IDK smells like weed” lol
I also advise anyone exploring weed to take the indica/sativa/hybrid distinction with a very, very large grain of salt. Every strain (and in fact even the same strain grown in different conditions) is different and complex, and you really have to smoke them to see how they affect you. I’ve had many strains that are “100% indica” or “100% sativa” hit me like the exact opposite.
At this point I don’t even pay attention to the strain “type” I just smoke a strain a few times in different settings to get a feel for how it actually affects me. And since most of them affect me in pretty much the same way (aside from a few outlier strains) I just smoke what tastes the best to me.
This is so real. I work in a dispensary. Before this, I could tell wildly different strains apart. I usually bought on the darkweb before rec and knew what I was getting. But if they’d substituted one Blueberry cross for another, they would have gotten away with it. Now I smell weed and read packaging 35-40 hours a week paid, plus whatever I do for my own use.
Now you might be able to get away swapping Blueberry Cookies for Blueberry Muffin, but you’re not gonna get me with Blueberry Headband. Mendo Butter smells kinda buttery, and the smell my wife calls balloons is what most growers call banana.
This drives me crazy sometimes, because terps and minor cannabinoids play a huge part in strain specific effects, but aren’t dictated strictly by those three categories. Those categories are dictated by genetic percentages, not what those genes provided. And a lot of budget weed is so low on terps and minors that it basically is all the same. But dumbass customers who think they know everything only know those three things and don’t believe that terps and minors do anything. So I can’t tell them that the hybrid with 2% Myrcene, 1% Nerolidol, and 2% CBN is gonna be better for sleep than the 60:40 indica in the blue bottle with total terps and minors adding up to less than 2%. Cannabis labeling and education has a long way to go.