What was the lab testing for? Is there something they can test that correlates to harshness?
it wasnt a lab per se, it is a company who sells stuff to cannabis growers.
they said they got people to smoke it... they stated no controls, nor who tested it. they didnt state any specifics, so it could be a gaggle toking up, or experts. but we dont know.
this is all they said about it:
"Cured flower from Cherry Diesel was evaluated by a group of industry experts for flavor and smoking characteristics in a blind taste test. Overall, the duration of the flushing period had no impact on flavor, smoothness of smoke, or color of ash (Figure 5a-d) (P < 0.05). The seven-day flush period had the highest “bad” rating (21.1%) and the 0-day flush had the highest “great” rating (16.7%). Most panelists rated the flavor of the samples as “okay” or “good”. The ten-day flush had the highest “okay” ratings at 48.6% and the 0-day flush had the highest “good” rating at 47.2% (Figure 4a).
The terpene profile, as tested by a third-party laboratory, indicated earthy to spicy flavors for all flush treatments. Most panelists rated the samples as either “earthy” or “sweet” (Figure 5b). Sweet was chosen as the predominant flavor by 38.9% of panelists for the ten and seven-day treatments and 32% of panelists selected sweet as the dominant flavor for the zero-day treatment. Panelists selected earthy most frequently (32.4%) as the dominant flavor for the 14-day flush.
Taste test panelists rated the ash color and smoke quality of each sample. Ash color was predominantly black or gray (Figure 5c). Smoothness of the smoke increased with decreasing flushing time, although was not significantly different (Figure 4d). Thirty-six percent of testers rated the smoke from the zero-day flush flower as smooth whereas only 19.4% rated the 14-day flush flower as smooth. The 14-day flush had the highest percentage of harsh ratings (41.7%) compared to other samples. Panelists were asked for their flavor preferences before testing in order to determine whether personal preference would affect taste test results. Statistical analysis determined that personal preferences did not influence taste test outcomes (data not shown)."