By Troy Ivan
ibc@ichibancrafter.com

It’s been exactly 8 years since I wrote Color and Cannabis Concentrate Quality, and in that time, there’s been incredible change in every aspect of our lives.  With the time that’s passed behind us and progress racing past us so fast, I wanted to look at what really matters when selecting and evaluating cannabis concentrates with a current and refreshed perspective.  The world of commercial cannabis production has ramped up a lot since back then, and technological advances keep coming.  I even have Grammarly now, so my commas are in the right spots!  Grammarly and AI tech have revolutionized how we work, so if I’m using Grammarly, I figured I’d also get some input from AI and ask ChatGPT.

---

ASK ChatGPT

I asked ChatGPT, “Why isn’t cannabis concentrate color important?”  Here’s what I got back:

Via ChatGPT:
The color of cannabis concentrates isn’t a definitive indicator of quality or potency. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Extraction Process: Different extraction methods can result in varying colors. For instance, butane extraction might yield darker concentrates compared to CO2 extraction, but both can be high quality.

2. Plant Material: The type of cannabis used can influence color. Strains with more pigments, such as anthocyanins, can produce darker concentrates, regardless of potency.

3. Purity vs. Color: A concentrate’s potency and purity are more crucial than its appearance. A clear, light-colored concentrate can be less potent than a darker one.

4. Terpene Profile: Color doesn’t indicate the presence of terpenes, which are vital for flavor and effects. Concentrates with rich terpene profiles may vary in color without affecting their quality.

5. Personal Preference: Ultimately, the user’s experience, flavor, and effects matter more than visual appearance.

In summary, while color can provide some insights, it shouldn’t be the sole factor in assessing the quality of cannabis concentrates.

---

That was actually an excellent answer.  AI has quickly caught up to what took me a long time to learn, understand, and put together in a relatable way.  It still echoes my article from nearly a decade ago.  However, some of the feedback, like “Ultimately, the user’s experience, flavor, and effects matter more than visual appearance,” remains too ambiguous.  In a time when general cannabis quality is in a declining race to the bottom for profit and survival, we need to be all the more specific with our selection of products and quality.  Unfortunately, at a time when careful product scrutiny is essential, our Canna family’s focus on concentrate color as a leading indicator of quality hasn’t evolved with experience and education. 

So, what really matters in cannabis concentrate?  That’s a great question, and I’m glad you asked because that’s what I want to discuss!  Let’s begin with color.  Color often gets prioritized without regard for the simple fact that there are so many processing cheats to create a great-looking concentrate that’s terrible quality.  Then, because it’s just good-looking bunk, it needs to be chemically tweaked to cover up the lack of quality in the primary extraction.  It’s a cycle of chasing color with sub-mid material and aggressive processing.  Chase color, fake quality to cover.  Fool consumers. Make money. Easy.  ChatGPT missed that part!

Color is manipulated because consumers fall for it all day long.  You can’t test the concentrate like a taster at the ice cream shop, so visuals and aroma are all we have on this side of the counter.  It’s said that color matters because people “eat with their eyes first,” but it’s more apply, “A moth to a flame,” situation.  What a consumer sees with their eyes is indeed incredibly influential, especially with those who don’t have a better way to evaluate their choices.  The “eating with the eyes first” idea is misapplied and extremely myopic in the cannabis world’s hyper-focus on one color that supposedly indicates quality.  Light, glowing yellow.  A pretty yellow concentrate shouldn’t automatically be assumed to be excellent quality any more than a chocolate should be considered great because it’s brown.

When my fat arse craves cake or ice cream while locked into the sofa watching old Cheech and Chong movies, I don’t worry about the color of what I’m going to devour.  I only worry about the two things that matter: a flavor that sounds good and if it’s going satisfy my gluttony.  My satisfaction expectations are generated by a complex, intersecting bunch of ideas being analyzed and sorted behind my glossed-over eyes without me really participating.  I don’t consciously weigh every aspect.  My needs do that for me.  After chowing down, I’ll fondly bask in the fading succulent sweetness, creamy mouth feel, and full belly satiation without color entering my thoughts a single time.  Consuming cannabis is the same for me.  ChatGPT was loosely inferring to this idea of satisfaction over color.

There is one primary instance when using color to identify the quality of a concentrate is assured to be reasonably accurate. FECO and RSO are black due to the plant material included as a significant component of the extract. Just by looking, you know it’s comparatively low potency and only suitable for oral ingestion. It’s good medicine, but you know, with certainty, it’s not a clean, high-quality concentrate. FECO and RSO aren’t really what we are talking about here.

Figuring out what matters with cannabis gets more complicated due to how personal and unique everyone’s experience with it is.  The diversity of preferences and wild differences in how the same product can affect different people make it impossible to say what’s important as a reliable rule for everyone.  When choosing from various concentrates on a shelf, I noticed that what’s important to me subtly cruised around in the back of my head, but I didn’t have a serious, conscious checklist to make a good decision.  I’m detail-oriented, so that bothered me, and I came up with a list of the most significant considerations involved in selecting concentrates.  It ended up being more involved than I initially intended it to be.  Some things you want to be included and others you want to ensure are excluded.  It gets interesting when you attempt to consciously evaluate how one consideration relates to another in comparative importance.  It reminds me of the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.  A significant point in the book is that the mind instantly answers questions about what you want or need without your conscious help or input. 

Once you interfere with the thought process and attempt to analyze or explain those choices, we often don’t have the experience or vocabulary to explain how we came to our decision.  We get in our own way and start messing up thinking.  It’s pretty weird but true.  This definitely happens when regular consumers are evaluating concentrates.  It becomes overwhelming to those without extensive processing experience and vocabulary, so under pressure to choose, color is easy to interpret and explain, and we grab onto it.  Regardless of the serious significance of other considerations, color constantly bullies its way to the front of the line like this for many people.  Using Gladwell’s reasoning in Blink, we can improve our ability to consciously evaluate our options by having the vocabulary to create a decision-making structure that can be easily discussed.   

ChatGPT did pretty well at a high level, but let’s break it down further for more refined meaning and vocabulary.  I must do this fast before AI catches up and makes Gladwell and me obsolete.  Using alphabetic order to list the considerations should help avoid confirmation bias, except for color, which I have blown already.  Some considerations may seem redundant but are different and important enough to single out and list separately.  In addition to sharpening our decision-making skills, take note, rank each consideration, and comment at the end with your top 5.  Let’s see how significant our personal choice differences really are.

What Matters in Cannabis Concentrates?

Color: No duration and no medicinal effect on consumption.
Cost: Simple price in terms of a budget.  Like the cheaper is better.
Component additives (known): Viscosity and terpene additives to compensate for
excessive or poor processing.
Component additives (unknown): Fillers to cheat color and volume. Often dangerous.
Degree of effectiveness: How well a product achieves the desired effect.
Duration of effectiveness: The duration that a product achieves the desired effect.
Extent of post-processing: Extensive bleaching and remediation post-processing to manipulate color.
Flavor: Lasts for seconds. No direct medicinal effects.
Form (shatter, crumble, wax, etc.): Preference in handling. No difference in components.
Harshness: Physical comfort of ingesting.
Knowing where it came from: Producer-specific preference.
Lung health: Specific concern about lung health.
Medicinal properties: Stress relief, relaxation, balance stabilizer, social belonging comfort, pain relief, anxiety relief, PTSD relief, cancer treatment, headache relief, nausea suppression, appetite stimulant, sleep aid, and energy enhancement.
Potency: Primarily applicable to THC% but could be other cannabinoid specific as well.
Smell: Aroma satisfaction.  Easily faked.
Strain: Cannabinoids/terpenes component balance.
Testing type and results: Knowing how complete product testing was.
Use: Dabs, joints, edibles, topical.
Value: How well the price provides satisfaction.
What friends say: Concern that others judge your contribution on color.

That’s a lot to sort through, but a handful of them should quickly grab your attention. Those are probably what’s most important to you. When I look at the totality of what matters to me in choosing a concentrate, it comes down to how well the product achieves the goal I have for it (relaxation, depression, pain relief, etc.) and my perceived value of it compared to its cost.  For me, color doesn’t even enter the realm of consideration, but for others, it may.  It’s not my plan to put down those that favor color. That’s ok.  We are all different.  I want this exercise to open the conversation for those who haven’t really thought it through intently.  If ChatGPT hasn’t done a great job thinking through it yet, it will be fun for a little while to be more thoughtful than AI for the short time I have left! 

Love you all, Stay Lifted!!

Checkout our FB group IchiBan’s Extraction Lounge.