I know a lot of you commercial folks don't cure, it's not because you want to provide the best product, it's because you want it out the door as fast as possible and sitting in jars isn't making money.
Not making money indeed, and risk being raided by the cops. At least, that's the case with suppliers of dutch coffeeshops, which rarely involves cured mj. And that... is also why many of them end yellow and give only water the last few weeks...
Supposedly harsh sugars/starches are converted to softer sugars during curing or broken down or used (because metabolism processes that continue to go on for a while).
Supposedly the breaking down of sugars, chlorophyll and whatever gets lost during the process leaves relatively more cannabinoids in the product hence relatively increases potency.
Supposedly certain terpenes go through a process that actually changes their aromatic characteristic, which is why you can have a certain taste in cured that wasn't detectable earlier.
I'm saying "supposedly" because I'm with st0w on this one, "I honesty don't know", it's all received and perceived wisdom which especially when it comes to growing cannabis isn't necessarily wise...
I would love to have the proponents and their "cured" herb to have them tested for terpene levels before and after to show you all the degradation of cannabiniods and terpenoids will be of noticeable levels.
I think it's good to have a closer look at curing and discuss it (although at riu...) but I would have loved to see your initial post include tests
you had performed as that would have been a more effective way to debunk a myth.
I don't sell any of my harvest and grow a lot more than I need, so I end up with jars of 'old' mj. I have for example cannalope haze now that is roughly 4 months old. Can't say it's "better" than like 1 or 2 months old, I think that it's partly a matter of taste. But, it's clearly different. (Even smoother). I do prefer fresh, but for me fresh is still after a good dry which for me
includes a cure, i.e. sweating/burping the jars. It's essentially just slower drying, to keep the processes going on for longer, supposedly
I got this nearly 30 year old grow guide from a few well known pioneers, and while it doesn't actually speak of "curing", it does specifically mention that sinsemilla tastes best a few months after the harvest, which lines up with my experience. I know from the past dozen strains I've grown and dried and cured and all smoked after both weeks and months that it is optimal after about a month and after about 2-3 months I start preferring the fresh I've frozen or the new harvest.
Not curing at all seems a little too extreme to one end, and considering a two month cure as something that is necessary too far to the other. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle again.