You might get a much better idea of actual taste and potency if you vaporized rather than smoked well-dried bud. Besides all the other reasons cited why your test could provide disappointing results, smoking the bud can't help, with about 1/3rd of weight combusted to useless CO2, H2O, heat and non-fully-combusted polyaromatic hydrocarbons (carcinogenic tars). [Don't most list members use vaporizers by now?]
