Weed quality: Imagining a pot equivalent to Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale

(Cannabist) What Wine Spectator’s 100-Point rating system is to wine, the Trichome Institute wants to create for weed. Trichome Institute developed a program called Trichome Assurance Grading, or TAG, as a means to assess the quality of cannabis flower. “When you go to the grocery store and buy food, it’s been quality-checked; when you buy medicine, it’s been quality-checked. We are a multibillion-dollar industry that has no way to measure and quantify what our units should cost,” Montrose says in a discussion with Cannabist editor-in-chief Ricardo Baca on The Cannabist Show. TAG grades aspects of flower that are scientifically measurable — such as structure, trichomes, ripeness, pungency, contaminants and mold — utilizing sight, smell and taste. Two double-blind tests are conducted by testers who have received Level 3 Interpening certification — the institute’s equivalent of sommelier training.