An Ode to Olfaction

Last year I took perfume-making classes and learned that composing a perfume is outrageously difficult. Not only do synthetic orange blossom isolates smell different from orange blossom essential oil, and also from orange blossoms on a tree, but you have to balance top, heart, and base notes to create a scent story that lasts for hours. An average perfume can include as many as 200 perfectly blended scent molecules. Cannabis, by comparison, has over 1000 molecules. Nature does a much better job of composing scent than we give it credit for.

In Japan, they have a therapy called Shirin-yoku which translates as "forest bathing" and involves leisurely walks in the forest to soak in the atmosphere, and most importantly, the scent. One component of the scent of a pine tree is "pinene", which is a chemical compound (called a terpene) that is also found in many cannabis strains.

Terpenes are getting a lot of hype right now, and are responsible for the range, strength, and complexity of aromas across cannabis strains (yes, all weed smells different!). Our olfactory function is highly personal, and our brain encodes scents via a direct connection to our memory and emotion centers. If you had a bad first-time experience with weed, chances are your brain has linked that smell to negative emotions, and so you will perceive the smell as "bad", whereas someone who likes weed, smelling the exact same thing, would see it as a "good" or positive smell.

So maybe you're curious now and want to reprogram this mental block. It's totally possible! You don't even have to get high: just by introducing your brain to new, various, and complex scents (ideally cannabis, but alternatively, practicing some shirin-yoku or visiting a botanical garden works) you can re-train your nose to notice the diversity of terpenes, pick out which ones it's most attracted to, and then give weed another try. Surmise it to say, whatever strain smells the "best" to you, that's your body's way of telling you which terpenes will benefit it the most.

Now of course everyone is different, but in studies, the majority of participants have reported that these 6 common terpenes had the following effects and benefits:

Terpenes are also acknowledged to have an effect on the quality of your high, due to their interaction with the plant's cannabinoids, like THC and CBD, when you smoke it. It's also important to note that they evaporate very quickly. From my experience, it's best to consume weed within a month of purchase if you care about the presence of terpenes. For example, if you have 1-year-old weed with 24% THC and you also have 1-week-old weed with 16% THC, you're going to have more holistic health benefits and a better quality high with the "weaker" weed. The old weed will still get you high, but you won't get any of the added health benefits from terpenes, and the quality of high will be less dimensional.

Think of it like opening a bottle of (nice-ish) wine that you only drink a small glass of every night. After opening the bottle, the quality starts rapidly deteriorating. On day 3, it's lost the original zing and unique aroma characteristics. By day 5 it tastes like something under $10 from Trader Joe's. 10 days later, I'm basically drinking vinegar. Yes, it still gets me drunk, but why would that be more important than the rest of my experience??

The best way to preserve the quality of your weed is to keep it in a dark brown or blue airtight glass jar, out of direct sunlight, and in an environment below 75 degrees. It's recommended NOT to refrigerate it because the humidity fluctuates too much which could cause mold. It does need 55-65% humidity if you care. But bare minimum, just keep it in a dark place, and try not to buy more than you can smoke in a couple months!