Inside the California Cannabis Awards Judging Process
Tomorrow, the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medalists of the 2026 California Cannabis Awards will be announced.
For many of the winning brands, the medals represent years of dedication to their craft. What most people don't see is the 3 week judging process that determines those results.
This year marks Budist's third consecutive year serving as the official judging partner for the California Cannabis Awards, alongside SC Labs for the Flower competition. Since partnering with the California State Fair in 2024—the first year the competition introduced human sensory judging—our role has been to power the judging process through a standardized methodology, recruit and train the judging panel, facilitate the evaluation process, verify scoring, and help ensure every product is assessed through a fair, consistent, and transparent framework.
As this year's judging window comes to a close, we wanted to pull back the curtain on how the competition works and why the judging process matters. While consumers see the winners and brands celebrate the medals, it's the integrity of the evaluation process that gives those recognitions meaning.
Raising The Standard for Cannabis Competitions
Cannabis competitions have helped shape the industry for decades, creating opportunities to recognize exceptional products, celebrate cultivators and manufacturers, educate consumers, and advance cannabis appreciation. Today, the industry includes a wide range of competitions, each with its own format, judging process, and purpose.
Legacy competitions like the Emerald Cup and High Times Cannabis Cup helped establish a culture that celebrated craft cannabis long before legalization, creating a platform where legacy producers could be recognized for their work. Consumer competitions such as the Farmers Cup and Best in Grass continue to provide another valuable perspective by putting products directly into the hands of consumers.
The California Cannabis Awards serves a different purpose. As part of the California State Fair—now in its 173rd year—cannabis is recognized alongside California's other celebrated agricultural products, including wine, cheese, olive oil, and craft beer. Like those longstanding agricultural competitions, the goal is to recognize excellence through a structured evaluation process led by subject matter experts and science-based analytical testing.
What makes the program especially unique is that the recognition extends beyond the awards ceremony. Throughout the 17-day California State Fair, the California Cannabis Experience brings the competition to life through education, expert programming, on-site sales and consumption, and immersive exhibits celebrating the culture, craftsmanship, and agricultural heritage of California cannabis.
Since partnering with the California State Fair in 2024, Budist has focused on building a human judging process that's repeatable, transparent, and grounded in standardized sensory evaluation. By combining a structured methodology with an accomplished panel of judges, the goal is simple: recognize California's best cannabis through a process the industry can trust.
The Foundation of a Credible Competition
A judging methodology is only as strong as the people applying it.
This year's panel brings together 34 trusted voices in California cannabis, including Certified Ganjiers, researchers and scientists, legacy operators, competition veterans, award-winning journalists, and industry professionals on the front lines at some of California's retailers. Collectively, they represent hundreds of years of experience studying, producing, evaluating, and advancing cannabis.
The panel was assembled for its depth of knowledge, professional experience, and ability to evaluate products objectively. Beyond subject matter expertise, judges are expected to approach the process with integrity and evaluate products using the structured methodology and evaluation framework developed by Budist for each category. That shared commitment to thoughtful analysis, consistency, and objectivity is what gives credibility to both the panel and the results.
Equally important is the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds represented across the panel. Collectively, the judges represent a broad range of ages, ethnicities, lifestyle preferences, professions, and use cases, bringing together a panel that reflects the true diversity of cannabis consumers, not just a limited subset of industry insiders. While opinions and backgrounds may differ, every judge shares the same responsibility: to fairly evaluate products and recognize the entries that best demonstrate quality, craftsmanship, and execution.
Meet the 2026 judging panel here.
A Standardized Methodology
At the core of the judging process is Budist's standardized evaluation methodology, designed to create consistency while recognizing the unique characteristics of each product category.
The evaluation is based on a 100-point system, a globally recognized approach used across specialty goods industries to classify product quality. Every product is evaluated across four core attributes: appearance, aroma, flavor, and experience.
Each category weights those attributes differently, creating a framework tailored to the product type while remaining consistent across the competition. Every category follows a structured methodology designed to recognize quality, craftsmanship, and execution in a way that’s unique to the products in that category. For example, products in the Edibles category, like chocolates and candies, are heavily weighted for flavor and overall taste; whereas products like medicinal tablets and capsules are heavily weighted on efficacy, not flavor or aroma.
One of the most important functions of the methodology is helping judges distinguish product quality from personal preference. Rather than simply rewarding the products they personally enjoy most, judges evaluate how successfully each entry delivers on its intended outcome, expression, and use case through a consistent sensory framework.
The Judging Process
Unlike competitions judged over a single weekend, the human judging process for the California Cannabis Awards unfolds over three weeks. The Flower category has an added layer of science-based analytical testing, which is conducted by SC Labs and evaluates all flower entries based on the percentage of terpene and cannabinoid content—granting medals to the entries that test the highest in these compounds. The Budist judging team then evaluates these medalists to determine which of them gets the highest scores in their respective category, which results in the Golden Bear winners for Indoor, Outdoor, or Mixed-Light.
The human judging process begins with independent evaluation. Every judge spends time with each product, documents detailed observations, and submits scores before hearing anyone else's opinion. This ensures every assessment is formed on its own merits before the panel comes together.
For the flower and concentrate categories, Budist also standardized the tools used throughout the competition to reduce unnecessary variables. Flower judges evaluated products using the PAX FOUR dry herb vaporizer and RAW hemp rolling papers, while concentrate judges used the SWITCH² from Dr. Dabber. Each was selected as a best-in-class tool to create a more consistent evaluation experience and help judges focus on the intrinsic qualities and expressions of the product itself.
Once independent evaluations are complete, each five-person judging panel comes together to compare observations, discuss their highest-rated entries, and identify the products that consistently stand out across the panel.
These panel discussions are one of the defining features of the competition. Drawing on decades of combined experience, judges compare observations, explain their reasoning, and challenge one another's perspectives. Discussions often explore cultivation practices, cultivar expression, extraction techniques, formulation, balance, efficacy, and overall execution.
Judges don't always agree—and that's part of the value of the process. Different perspectives often surface characteristics another judge may have overlooked, leading to a more thoughtful and balanced evaluation.
Following those discussions, each panel identifies its top-performing entries before reconvening for a final deliberation to determine the Golden Bear.
What Makes the Golden Bear Different?
Unlike the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals, which are determined through scoring (or analytical testing, in the case of Flower entries), the Golden Bear is selected through live panel deliberation.
By this stage, every product under consideration has already distinguished itself through independent evaluation and panel discussion. The focus shifts from identifying exceptional products to determining which entry best represents the highest level of quality, craftsmanship, and execution within its category—also known as “Best-in-Class”, which determines the Golden Bear winners.
Judges revisit their notes, compare products side by side, discuss the nuances that distinguish each finalist, and work toward a consensus. The final decision reflects not only individual evaluations, but the collective expertise of the panel.
More than a Competition
Credible competitions depend on credible evaluation. Behind every California Cannabis Award are three weeks of independent assessments, panel discussions, standardized methodology, analytical testing, and a panel of experts committed to recognizing quality with fairness, consistency, and integrity.
For three consecutive years, Budist has been proud to serve as the official judging partner for the California Cannabis Awards. On Wednesday, July 18, California's top producers will be recognized for their work.
Thank you to all of the partners who helped make this year's California Cannabis Awards possible, including: FairPlay Ventures, Embarc, SC Labs, Nabis, Redwood Roots, and GreenState.