Interpener: The Cannabis Sommelier

Interpening was inspired by the world of wine classification. As the cannabis industry develops, many elements of wine classification, like appellations, terroir, and typicity will carry over into cannabis—because flower from an outdoor farm in California is completely different from flower produced in a massive indoor operation in Colorado.

The categorization and naming of cannabis varieties and strains is misleading and inconsistent, due mainly to the gradual transition from black to legal markets. We explain why “Indica” and “Sativa” are inaccurate designations, and we unravel the strain name dilemma: is your Blue Dream really Blue Dream?

Professor of Southwest Studies, Santiago Guerra, joins us to uncover the history of this loaded word, from its origins in indigenous resistance to colonial oppression, through its use in mid twentieth-century racist government propaganda, to its restoration as a word full of rich history and culture.

Cola, bud, flower, nug, inflorescence… what’s the difference? We’ll give you a close-up look at the cannabis plant’s parts and help you identify mature trichomes—which is where the chemistry we care about happens.

It’s the chemistry that makes this plant so amazing and its effects and benefits so diverse! Over 100 cannabinoids, 150 terpenes, and 20 flavonoids have been identified in cannabis, and there are huge variations across strains. We’ll give you a grasp of the most common compounds that create the spectrum of effects from sedative to stimulating as well as a taste of the medicinal possibilities ahead as more research opens up.

If you’ve ever smoked cannabis, you’ve also smoked botrytis, powdery mildew, jar rot, spider mites, fungus gnats, excess synthetic nutrients, and probably a handful of hair too! And sometimes flower without any of those issues is still really bad. This is the section you’ll wish you never knew about!

Sure, everyone knows the cannabis aroma—it’s dank! But in the art and science of interpening, we analyze the nuances of aroma and use the data the nose knows to evaluate flower quality and determine its likely effects. Here we dive into how your olfactory system and trigeminal nerve work together in interpreting terpenes.

Interpening is a methodology for assessing flower quality and predicting how it will affect you. We’ll teach you how to identify all of the physical and aromatic characteristics that determine where the flower falls on the spectrum of effects from sedative to stimulating.