As a bit of a help guide to those of you who may be just getting into cigars, lets go though some less ventured ground, certainly an area that brick and mortar cigar shops don’t have the time to mess with, their time is more spent on sell, sell, sell and less on here’s what this is.

Lets look at cigar components:

Wrappers
Fillers
Binders

Wrapper: most of the flavor of a cigar is generated from the wrapper, as much as 75%. The tobacco leaves for the wrapper should be smooth and uniform in color, some are slightly veinier than others, some have bumps referred to as “tooth”. The wrappers can range in color from light (claro), medium (natural) to dark (maduro) and then extra dark or (oscuro).

The claro wrappers are generally grown in the shade and picked before they are mature, the flavors vary but are usually neutral to sour like a green apple.

The natural wrapper is a bit darker light-medium brown sometimes referred to as (colorado) and can be shade grown as well but with richer flavor than the claro.

Maduro wrappers vary from reddish brown to very dark almost black shades in some instances. Maduro refers to “ripe”. These wrappers will offer a rich flavor to the cigar.

Oscuro wrappers are even darker than maduro as these leaves , generally from the top of the plant are left on the plant the longest and have had the most sun exposure. A very rich, full body is attained from these leaves.

Fillers: This is the bulk leaf or center mass of the cigar. There are many types of fillers, and they vary from region to region in taste and body.

Some origins for fillers: Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil.

Dominican filler: generally medium body, sweet notes
Jamaican filler: light body, sweet
Honduran filler: rich, medium to full
Nicaraguan filler: full body, spicy
Mexican filler: Full, strong, spicy
Brazilian: medium to full body, spicy, sweet notes

Binder: This is what holds the cigar together, the leaves are thicker and usually from the top of the plant.

Binders originate from various regions as well: the better binders come from, Cuba, Connecticut, Ecuador and Mexico, but other countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras and Brazil produce excellent binders as well.

Well this was the first in a series of cigar notes, let me know if it was helpful and what other info you might like. Ill put it out there. Talk to you soon. Jorge (El Cubanito) P.S. the girley picture is just to make you look!

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