Ya, I don't think heat is adding anything either I suspect it's more of a "cooking" kind of thing.
This doesn't really make sense to me. When you smoke, you're hitting temps of at least 450F, and potentially quite a bit hotter than that. For example, the center of a cigarette "cherry" can exceed 1000F during inhale, and I think something like a forced air bong hit can probably get even hotter.
How hot do you think it can get in your pocket, 130F? Even that's probably pushing it. In the grand scheme of things, that's not much hotter than room temp, and it shouldn't be hot enough to do any real chemical conversions or release anything that won't be released in ordinary smoking. Just the hot smoke passing through the rest of the unsmoked weed in a bowl or joint undoubtedly heats things hotter than they could ever get in your pocket.
To be clear, I believe your story, I'm just saying that other than my speculation about change in humidity, I don't have a good explanation for what actually happened. If it were possible to consistently improve the taste or effect of cannabis by simple warming/heating before smoking, this would be common knowledge, and everyone would be doing it.
There are some that advocate actually drowning the plant by submersion 7-10 days prior to harvest, it is said to start the cure (conversion of chlorophyll) prior to actually curing. There is a thread on here somewhere about it, I been doing a slightly less intensive version for a few years now. I'll try to find that thread and post it for you, I think you would find it interesting at least.
Sure, I'd love to see that.
I can tell you right off that if overwatering helps, it has to be for other reasons than early breakdown of chlorophyll. There is no way that by itself overwatering a plant (even "drowning" it) causes breakdown of chlorophyll. Water surplus is a pretty common natural condition and plants can handle it without self-destructing their feeding mechanism! As some food for thought, if this were really true, something like deep water culture would be impossible.
To be clear, there is quite a bit more to a cure than just chlorophyll breakdown. That's part of it, but there is also breakdown of larger organic molecules into smaller ones, breakdown of starches into sugar, depletion of sugars, and equilibration of water throughout the plant material. There is also some decarboxylation of cannabinoids, and (possibly) minimal conversion of some into others.
I can think of a couple reasons why overwatering prior to harvest might help; its not specifically because of chlorophyll.
By itself overwatering is a flush, and that may aid the final product by washing out salts or other water-soluble compounds. Overwatering a plant may cause some sort of metabolic "stress" reaction, and that may be at play here. If you reduce the plants ability to feed, its may deplete stored nutrients faster. Also, just having more water present inside the plant may prolong post-harvest metabolic processes, and maybe that's at play here.
Note that plants are actually still alive for a while after being chopped, and they are carrying on metabolic activity for a while thereafter. That's one reason why you're supposed to do your drying in the dark. . .so that the plants use up stored sugars instead of making more via photosynthesis. Some people give plants a 1-2 day dark period prior to harvest, and part of it is for the same reason. The plants will use up sugars, instead of making more, plus absence of light should allow light-sensitive cannabinoids to build up to higher levels.
