CIGARS POSSESS two primary characteristics that make up their overall taste, or flavor profile: blend (flavor notes) and body. Some separate body and strength; I don’t. It’s a masturbatory semantic exercise. Body and strength are different, but largely the same. Leave it at that.
BLEND: Tasting notes are simply the descriptive terms assigned to flavors generated by the tobaccos in the cigar’s blend—the coalescence of tastes of the wrapper, binder and filler when smoked together in a single rolled cigar.
Cigar magazines, websites and books assign numerous descriptive words and terms to convey a cigar’s flavor notes: nutty, fruity, peppery. spicy, hint of cacao, trace of espresso, earthy, woody, floral, grassy, leathery—the terms go on and on.
Premium and ultra-premium hand-rolled long-filler (totalmente a mano tripa larga) cigars do not achieve these tastes from having been infused with artificial flavors. They’re organic flavors found in the tobacco itself courtesy of the terroir (a combination of soil type, elevation, weather patterns and human factors); the varietal (or type) of tobacco; curing and fermenting time and techniques—all have tremendous impact on the flavor of the tobacco. Can a cigar truly have a hint of cacao? Yes. Does it taste like biting into a Tootsie Roll? No.
Terroir is so significant that many distinguish the difference between a puro and a multi-origin blend. (Puro is a Spanish word that has a double meaning; directly translated to English it means “pure,” but in cigar parlance it means a cigar rolled in a country of origin exclusively from home-grown tobaccos. Meaning the filler tobaccos, the binder and the wrapper leaves are all grown in a single country.) Multi-origin blends, by contrast, are what the name indicates: You might have, say, an Ecuadorian wrapper with Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers with a Mexican binder.
Combined, these elements create the overarching flavor profile.
Tasting cigars is akin to tasting Cognac, coffee and the like: The adjectives used to describe the resulting sensory sensations are simply a guide that will help others determine if a cigar will appeal to them and their favored flavor profile. Your personal preferred profile is determined by your palate. All mammals, man included, taste numerous compounds, yet the sensory palate consists of only five (not four) basic tastes: bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate).
Contrary to popular belief, these basic tastes and the resulting labyrinth of flavor compounds and the notes they yield are not detected by specific regions on the tongue. This misconception stems from what’s often referred to as the “tongue map,” based on a German paper written in 1901 and later mistranslated by Edwin Boring, a Harvard psychologist. This “map” purportedly shows that the back of one’s tongue registers “bitter,” the rear left and right sides “sour,” the front left and right sides “salty” and the front region “sweet.”
Some areas of the tongue are indeed more sensitive than others, but those supposedly segregated taste regions are in fact distributed fairly evenly over the tongue’s surface.
BODY & STRENGTH: Body is the other primary component of the overall flavor profile, and it falls into three basic categories: mild, medium and full-bodied. Much of a cigar’s body is derived from the combination of tobacco primings: Ligero, Viso, Seco and Volado. E.g. More Ligero means fuller-bodied; less means less. And so on. That’s overly simplified, nonetheless true.
A novice smoker may require some time to determine which cigars’ strength best suits their personal comfort zone. Think of body the same way you think about the alcohol content of wine: Some wines are as low as 5.5 percent alcohol by volume; others are as high as 15.5 or 16 percent; and fortified wines such as port (Vinho do Porto) and madeira are even higher with ABV topping 22 percent.
Strength is the nicotine content of a cigar. It’s a standalone element of body, but the two are inextricably connected. You can’t have one without the other. That’s why I don’t separate them—though again, many do. I just think it’s splitting hairs.
TASTING: A seasoned cigar enthusiast will judge his cigar by evaluating a number of criteria in addition to blend and body: construction, aesthetic and condition of the wrapper (smooth, veiny and oily, matte, toothy), draw, how the cigar lights, aroma, ash and aftertaste.
Ultimately, however, there is one undeniable truth: The difference between a “good” cigar and a “bad” cigar is something only you can determine—it’s an entirely subjective observation.
TO THIS POINT: Keep in mind that ratings and reviews in magazines, videos and blogs are, like the descriptive terms above, merely guides. Opinions are like assholes—everyone has one. And if the rater or reviewer’s tastes don’t align with your own, the rating or review, from your standpoint, is meaningless.
The singular exception to this rule is the cigar’s construction; it is either well-made and has a perfect draw or it does not. There is no subjectivity to construction—it is completely objective.
