Post #134666 by Mai Tai on Sun, Jan 9, 2005 7:57 AM

Yeah, there can be lousy Cuban cigars, just like there can be any lousy product in a niche market. I personally feel that there are a couple factors that make a very good quality Cuban cigar better than others is the quality of tobacco from Cuba and the quality that goes into rolling the cigar.

As an analogy, think of a tobacco leaf like a long narrow wild lettuce leaf. When you eat the leaf, the long soft rounded end part would taste milder, and the taste and bitterness would increase in intensity as you get closer to the stem end, until you got to the stem itself which would be pretty bitter. Well, the tobacco leaves in all good quality cigars are laid out in the same fashion - the rounded end part of the tobacco leaf (the milder part) is at the part of the cigar that you light, and the stem end is at the mouth part. This is an oversimplification, because they often use complicated blends of tobacco in cigars, but that is basically how the inside tobacco part is laid out. As you smoke any cigar, they tend to get more and more bitter as you work your way down to the stem end, partly because you are working your way down closer to the bitter stem part, and partly because tars and stuff are accumulating at the mouthpart as well. This is especially true of the last 1/4 of the cigar - a lot of cigars become unsmokeable at that point. I experience this a lot in Dominican cigars (not to knock Dominican cigars - there are some awesome Dominican smokes out there!).

The quality of the cuban cigar tobacco and construction comes into play here. There is something about the quality of the tobacco they grow - it doesn't seem to be bitter even when you get down to the stem end of the cigar, whether that's due to the climate, type of soil, growing technique, or whatever. A good Cuban cigar known for it's smoothness, like a MonteCristo #2 torpedo, will stay smooth all the way until the very end, and you need to break out the roach clip to finish that bad boy off, because you will be burning your fingers and lips off of the hot ash. No bitterness at all. I've noticed this from all of the good quality Cuban smokes, like Romeo Y Julietta, Cohiba, MonteCristo, etc. Although different brands and different sizes each have different blends for their own distinctive tastes from mild to spicy (like Erich mentions above, some can be REALLY strong, and knock you on your butt!) the Cubans will tend to keep their intended consistency throughout the entire smoke, and not become overpowered by bitterness at the end.

Here's where the quality of construction comes into play. Virtually every time my friends and I have run across a non-Cuban cigar that is totally unsmokeable when it hits the 2/3 mark, (whether it's Dominican, Honduran, whatever), we usually filet it open, and check out the insides (because we would just be throwing it away at this point anyways). And every time there is a big fat stem in there, that is thick like a twig or stick! I've never run across that in a Cuban cigar - they take the time during construction to remove all of their stems, at least in the ones I've smoked.

Just like there are good rums, whiskeys, and scotches out there that come from different manufacturers in different countries, there are good quality cigars from different manufacturers in different countries as well. Everyone has different tastes, so hey, smoke a Cuban cigar if you can get ahold of one, but more importantly, smoke what you like, regardless of where it's from!

Thus endeth my primer on cigar construction for today. Mahaloz for listening.