Cigar Flavours By – Mike's Cigars 1030 Kane Concourse Bay Harbor,FL US-33154 http://www.mikescigars.com/ customerservice@mikescigars.com
Cigars are made all over the world. And since every place has its own soil and climatic conditions, we get a lot of different tobaccos to taste and experiment with, not to forget the wrappers and binders. The world of cigars is full of permutations and combinations of an amazing number of flavors, and that is what keeps connoisseurs busy with trying one after another -- in the quest for the perfect taste.
When a connoisseur describes a certain cigar flavor, he uses a lot of terms popularized by magazines like Cigar Aficionado. Many of the terms are similar to the ones used while tasting wines. After all, cigar tasting is quite akin to wine tasting -- you look at the color, take in the aroma, and finally take a gulp. In cigars you decide the
taste by how much it delights your palate, and in wines the decision is left to the tongue.
Cigar connoisseur have a certain poetic license when talking about the flavors they like or dislike. Therefore, you can expect cigar reviews to have a lot of adjectives, which basically function to make a picture of that taste in your head.
Let’s familiarize ourselves with some core flavors a cigar can have.
Plants: You will find one of the plant flavors in every cigar. They are grass, moss, hay, tobacco, tea, and wood. Wood has some variations too - oak, cedar, and smoky. The word “vegetal” is used to describe a green vegetable like flavor.
Herbs and spices: Ingredients that generally make up the undertones/overtones. They include flavors of licorice, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, clove, and pepper. If the word “spicy” is used, it would usually mean a full-flavored strong cigar with a robust flavor of a single spice or more.
Minerals and earth:The soil, region, and fertilizers that are involved in the cultivation of a particular tobacco give an elemental sort of taste that can be anything like barnyard (a musty combination of grass, hay, and earth), earthy, lead, must (a combination of earth and dust), and salty.
Fruits: Not prominent, but significantly noticeable. Citrus, cherry, molasses, raisins, and orange zest make up the gamut of fruity flavors. Nuts: A prominent part of cigars flavors. They can be raw or roasted. The most popular choices are almond, walnut, pistachio, cashew, peanut, and marzipan.
Flowers: Some cigars don’t really have a floral hint, perhaps rose at its best. However, some swear by floral qualities in cigars, which might be hibiscus, jasmine, and the likes.
Others: Apart from all the flavors mentioned above, there remain some that cannot be characterized under a particular group. For instance, char, coffee, chocolate, honey, and musk are some flavors that usually come up in the third part of the smoke. Then there are leather and cream textures which are not really flavors but are used to describe the overall impact.
The taste of a cigar is also dependent on other factors beyond the ingredients, and that includes storing and lighting. When a cigar is left in a suitable environment for long, the flavors and aromas get time to settle and interact with each other. Therefore, an old cigar would have a much developed taste as compared to a fresh one. Moreover, the cigar also needs to be kept in a humid environment so that the natural oils of its leaves don’t get dried up. And this is what humidors are for. A cigar humidor is basically a box with a mechanism to maintain a certain level of humidity. Cigar shops are actually walk-in humidors where the perfect temperature is maintained to keep the cigars good.
The way of lighting a cigar can also impact the taste. Matches and candles are not suitable because they have a high sulphuric and wax content respectively, and these materials leave a strong smell while burning and mar the original aromas of a cigar by interfering with them. One should ideally have a butane-lighter for the purpose.
Despite what we or anyone else say, you should keep in mind that everyone has their own taste. And that’s why a high quality cigar like Partagas Cigars may be liked by a lot of cigar lovers while others might say that it’s just not their thing. We say, keep exploring. You never know when you hit treasure!