A good cigar is defined by an attention to detail. Cigar anatomy is a combination of exacting processes, from tobacco leaf through construction and wrapper. It’s remarkable how much time and detail is involved in the individual parts of a cigar.
Understanding cigar anatomy will help you taste and identify the qualities in the cigars you smoke. Some you smoke may be good, some can be otherworldly, and some just aren’t up to standard. This simple guide will help you understand why, especially the parts of a cigar that create such a difference in experience.
Cigar Anatomy: Discovering the Detail In What You Smoke
Nobody wastes a premium cigar by ripping it apart to inspect what’s on the inside. We can see it, feel it and taste it. But just how a tobacco leaf evolves into the cigars we love can be a bit fuzzy. It’s easiest to understand cigar anatomy in three distinctive steps: the cultivation of tobacco, how it is used in construction, and the all-important wrapper styles..
Cultivation and the Tobacco Leaf
Nuance is at the heart of a great cigar and it all starts with the tobacco leaf. Cultivation takes six months and small changes to conditions can transform the final taste. There are four different tobacco leaf types and each has its own purpose within the cigar. Learning more about volado, seco, viso and ligero will help you appreciate how much goes into any cigar.
Some tobacco leaves are sun grown. Sunlight produces a bolder, heavier taste, whereas shade grown tobacco is lighter in composition and taste. And these are the start of the subtleties. There is so much more to the tobacco leaf and its cultivation for you to discover.
Constructing a Premium Cigar
This is the fun part, the master blender constructing a fine cigar with fillers, binders and wrappers. the blending process changes year on year, using different cigar tobacco leaves, based on the harvest and more than a dozen other factors.
Cigar brands produce different cigars so the best tobacco doesn’t go into everything. By learning how a cigar is constructed you can further understand why some cigars are more valued than others.
Cigar Wrapper Styles
Dozens of different wrappers are used to finish the cigars we smoke, although there are eight all important types a cigar connoisseur needs to know about: double claro, claro, natural, oscuro, colorado claro, colorado, colorado maduro, maduro. The cigar wrapper is all important because it’s the first thing we taste.
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