The Quality Issue....

[Kenshiro]

So often we all bemoan the quality or lack there of in Amsterdam or NL in general these days..but what exactly is going on? Why is the product so dry at times and lacking in flavour and smell and/or effect?

I have this strange ritual now after my trips to test quality of home stash against NL shop product and I keep finding the same comparison- a lot of UK grown product is coming better in terms of finish, structure, taste/terpenes and effects (mostly) Even what I consider non top shelf UK is coming better all-round than a lot of Amsterdam shop product.

What is exactly causing the substandard quality of coffeeshop weed? Other than being fully aware its produced for a mass tourist market so a general consensus of " we don't care because you`ll still buy it". Where is the true corner cutting/breakdown/lack of terpene development/terpene loss coming from? Is it the growing process? Is it the drying/curing process? or is it both and some other factors? ( Poor genetics, environmental factors etc.)

Just some thoughts:
Old substandard lighting and tired genetics?
force drying/curing with dehumidifiers at the very last step possibly preventing that hay like chlorophyll smell? (Maybe a bit far fetched but who knows!?)
Shit Nutrients?
Product kept incorrectly for too long causing breakdown of cannabinoids and terpenes?

Answers on a post card....

[Kermit]

All the good growers left town for countries with a better legal status, all that is left is gang weed. Just my opinion.

[redeyezman]

All the good growers left town for countries with a better legal status, all that is left is gang weed. Just my opinion.

Before USA cannabis regulation/legalization my favorite strain was Mexican Cartel.

[OneHighMofo]

Firstly - [edit] Framed under the cosh of prohibition [/edit] there's just no way a commercial grow-op can take the care necessary to see the production value that's possible from a smaller garden. So the product is harder to look after and takes longer to process for sale - right from the word go.
To me - this is the fundamental difference between commercial and connoisseur grade.

After processing the product is being passed to runners who store it (not very well probably) where any amount of movement is going to knock trichomes off the surface of the bud. Glass - kept totally still in a totally dark room at 21°c or cooler is THE ONLY OPTION if the consumer wants 'top-shelf'.

If the storage container isn't airtight and environmentally controlled precisely; the product will dry out and degrade through oxidisation. THC will turn to CBN reducing the 'heady' potentcy and bringing about a larger body effect. The product will look tired and lose that visual freshness and vitality you'll see from the 'top-shelf'

From the runners - it's moved to shops where it's stored in plastic tubs in full sunlight, opened all day and knocked about.
It's hardly surprising to me that the bud often looks the way it does. There are just too many variables that aren't being considered.

Overall - I don't beleive that Amsterdam has a 'quality issue', it just has products of varying qualites and consumers of varying tastes - just like every other commercial industry.

[DjShaggy]

most of the green in amsterdam burns black and doesnt stay alight.

that suggests one of 2 things.

not (fully) flushed. still nutrients in the plant, will cause a nasty harsh taste.

not cured, still damp in the middle, will cause poor burning and a build up of oil down the joint.

both cause the ash to be black. if the ash isnt right the weed isnt right.

you cant tell if you mix tobacco in your joint, if you burn pure and the ash is black throw that shit in the bin.

[DjShaggy]

when i do get clean burning weed in dam, from places like voyagers (which can be VERY hit and miss) and Het Ballonetje (which ive only visited twice so far) it tends to be very nice, as good as any top shelf in the uk. sadly theres just too much which has been rushed (skipping flushing and curing) to get it straight to the shops.

our grows are flushed for 3 weeks, hung to dry then cured in glass for another 2-3 weeks, means about 8 weeks from cut to smoke but it makes a huge difference

[OneHighMofo]

most of the green in amsterdam burns black and doesnt stay alight.

I rarely see that personally. Out of the 20+ bags I bought over 420 this year - only one or two of them didn't burn properly. That's pretty consistent for my trips. I'd agree with 'a small percentage of green in Amsterdam burns black doesn't stay lit'. But I'm not at all convinced that's entirely that fault of the grower/runner/seller.

In my experience, darker ash isn't necessarily only a property of a 'bad flush or cure'. Largely because in many grow-ops. There is no flush. In organic or soil based medium there's no such thing as a flush. In fact - 'flush' is a concept brought across from the commercial hyrdoponic Tomato growing industry, aimed at reducing Nitrogen in the final product.

I've seen plants coming from a multi-strain grow that burnt beautifully while plants from the same room/feeding regime burnt darker.
I beleive cetain strains (particularly sticky ones) have a tendancy to burn dark. Krome's 'the white' is one of them. I've seen it in the clone only and some crosses that were 'the white' leaning.

I also saw recently two different pheno's of Oni Seeds Papaya Punch come from a room grown alongside Amnesia and Rainbow Jones - those Papaya Punch pheno's don't stay lit at all. They burn nice and white - but they will not stay lit and just don't burn well at all. The Ammo and Rainbow from the same room/feed regime? Top shelf.

Persoanlly I don't beleive the 'white ash' principle to be anywhere near as simple as most present/judge it.

[Kenshiro]

As a former combustor...I also don't believe the exact judgement of white ash equalling a clean or correctly finished product there are simply too many variables within a plants make up including the Terpenes etc.that can/could cause the darker or less successful burning.

Back to my original point though:

What I still can't get my head around is that you can have a non bone/dusty dry product in Amsterdam that is still lacking flavour? Now I'm not talking flannel wet bud's here that haven't had the opportunity to process every remainder of chemicals etc within the plant.
But some that still remain moist inside- against Sahara dry poorly kept product we so often see in the shops still doesn't hold a better terpene or taste experience??? Or even smell! But why!?
If it's still moist/under cured it's lacking ...if it's bone dry it's still lacking...and herein lies the confusion for me..

Of my last two trips I have noticed any purchases that were particularly dry after 2 days of natural poor storage in a baggy getting bashed about by moi...the flavour and feedback totally diminishes beyond acceptable..it shouldn't degrade so quickly IMO

[OneHighMofo]

What I still can't get my head around is that you can have a non bone/dusty dry product in Amsterdam that is still lacking flavour? Now I'm not talking flannel wet bud's here that haven't had the opportunity to process every remainder of chemicals etc within the plant.
But some that still remain moist inside- against Sahara dry poorly kept product we so often see in the shops still doesn't hold a better terpene or taste experience??? Or even smell! But why!?
If it's still moist/under cured it's lacking ...if it's bone dry it's still lacking...and herein lies the confusion for me..

Of my last two trips I have noticed any purchases that were particularly dry after 2 days of natural poor storage in a baggy getting bashed about by moi...the flavour and feedback totally diminishes beyond acceptable..it shouldn't degrade so quickly IMO

I have no real idea - there's certainly no distinct patterns that I can discern. I've seen plants taste beautiful straight from the drying box that lose their taste after 2-3 months of storage. I've seen others that taste subtle until they've had a couple months cure and other strains still that lose some volume - but gain sublte complexity with time. I regularly keep product around for 12 months and longer that retains flavour. The oldest thing I have in my stash (kept in the cool and dark, humidification controlled via boveda packs and moved very little) right now is two+ years old and still tastes great.

So my best guess is that there are properties of the plant excacerbated by less than ideal environmental conditions that lead some strains (read cannabanoid and terpene profile) to behave differently to others .

[Kenshiro]

Something else I'm starting to notice creep into a lot of product across the city are those dreaded start of seeds without obvious signs of bananas or pollination.

I must have found at least 7/8 of my purchases had this issue in what other wise was perfectly good quality grade...such a shame

[Nuggz]

Glad someone finally chimed in about that ash thing.

White ash-hole elitists annoy the ever living fuck out of me!

[Marok21]

But some that still remain moist inside- against Sahara dry poorly kept product we so often see in the shops still doesn't hold a better terpene or taste experience??? Or even smell! But why!?
If it's still moist/under cured it's lacking ...if it's bone dry it's still lacking...and herein lies the confusion for me..

Of my last two trips I have noticed any purchases that were particularly dry after 2 days of natural poor storage in a baggy getting bashed about by moi...the flavour and feedback totally diminishes beyond acceptable..it shouldn't degrade so quickly IMO

Not easy and I don´t know it, too

Well in general growing weed for the coffeeshops is not legal... the producer have a big risk and in the most cases they try to hurry up to get the weed as fast as possible into the shops. They don´t really look ( or only a little) on curing, flushing and try to dry it faster than it usually takes... and maybe that is the big point... I can´t name it but they try to finish the product faster and that could be a main reason.

White ash is for me still a indicator of quality but it´s not a must... like said before there are for sure different reasons that some weed burn more black than the others.

Personaly I don´t smoke much weed so I can´t really say something about the weed quality in Coffeeshops in general but I had also nice grown not shaked weed from coffeeshops but it´s harder to find it... on the other hand my mate smokes a lot of Coffeeshop weed and compared to 2 years before it seems like quality in the last time goes up... some batches he had were really awesome like some Zombie Kush from Grey Area which was coated in crystals... looked even better than some batches of Urban Remo

[Marok21]

just forgot to say that the nl changed their weed policy over the last years and so they hunt growers like crazy with crazy punishments like u loose your house when you get caught while growing... many many good growers which supplied the coffeeshops stopped their work because of the high risk... now you have a lot more big players like "real" criminal organizations who supply the shops especially in the other parts of nl and look mostly for profit... I think from that point you also saw a lot more of that "bewerkte" weed with sand, glas, brix and so on also in coffeeshops. I remember the time when a coffeeshop in Venlo had only one strain in stock because they wasn´t able to get clean weed

And in the years before... when the police and goverment didn´t care of growers you never heard of this kind of "bewerkte" weed. You also had a lot more good quality weed in general... not only one or two strains from a whole menu that are real good. It was also much easier or saver for homegrowers to sell their stuff to a coffeeshop... Homegrown Fantasy for example was known for many batches from private growers...

A older friend told me that it was best when it was allowed to buy up to 30 gram from a coffeeshop every step to "regulate" it more ended with a less quality product and a stronger black market

Well I have to say that in Amsterdam it´s a little different to the rest of nl becuase you have this big canna scene there... still many good growers doing their thing but even in Amsterdam it´s getting harder to find some real well finished products...

[madmaxxx]

gansters love money.if your pay they take your money.as kermit said all the good growers went to countrys where there not classed as criminals.the days of the 90s and smallgrowers opening shops is dead.all you got to look forward to is higher prices to keep the gangsters in the luxury there used to.

[RoMoney]

Good thread, a lot of interesting points on supply chain and also transportation, storage etc.

I think we are spoilt too, there's much better weed everywhere in Europe now so the Amsterdam experience isn't as amazing as it was when we were all smoking shit. As for hash I think the block hash has been a great development and that is recent enough.

I will not be handing in my membership for the #WhiteAshGang anytime soon