Flavors married...

[Shervin]

Is someone pregnant?

[e-man]

Some random thoughts:

For beer tasting/judging, we often used IMO (fake sour cream) to reset our pallet between beers. It has a very bland taste that resets your tongue to zero. Pickled ginger is served to reset the pallet when eating sushi, as it has all five flavors (salty, bitter, hot , sweet, sour). The theory is to balance out all flavors so none is dominant, ensuring that you taste each piece without any bias from the last piece. Pickled ginger wakes up all of your taste buds, rather than calming them. Maybe you can try one of these before a cigar and see if that helps you distinguish a difference.

What do you drink with your cigar? That alone can impact the flavors you taste. I usually start with Coke these days. If the cigar is too strong I switch to Dr. Pepper. It definitely changes the flavors I get from the same cigar. I will also drink a citrus drink (Mikes hard, 7-up, etc) that will help cut the oils and rinse the flavor out of my mouth if the taste lingers too long.

Make sure you really are experiencing the same taste from all of your cigars. When you puff, note which parts of your tongue "feel" the flavor. Different parts of your tongue taste different things. You may not be able to discern any taste difference, but if your tongue feels the flavor in different areas (or varying intensity), then it is definitely a different taste.


CC Puros don't have much variety in their tobacco. They have a relatively similar climate on the whole island, and few strains to choose from. If they have a bad growing season, then all of their sticks suffer that year. CC's don't really appeal to me, though I never considered them to be the standard to compare all others against. NC's have a lot more variety in both the strain and climate, as well as the luxury of selecting leaves from around the globe to create the desired effect. NC's typically age their tobacco much longer which allows them to create unique flavor profiles. NC's stockpile large quantities of something good. CC's pretty much use up everything from that season, regardless of traits. Personally, I gravitate towards tobacco grown in Esteli and Jalapa, yet I prefer it as part of a non-puro to bring more variety to the flavor.

Final note: If you smoke them fast, then they WILL all taste about the same.

[ashgan]

Originally Posted by Cypress

I would agree with you on this because the leaf is still wet if they are fresh rolled and I would separate them and let them dry for at least a few weeks before intermixing them.

The climate in Bombay is very humid and I have had problems with excess humidity, it usually hovers around 75-80 (and its winter here!). Don't even ask about Monsoon season. I do use 65% beads, but mu humi never really drops below 75 RH.

Do you guys think that this excess humidity would result in the smokes behaving like freshly rolled wet sticks? Should I try to dry them out a bit? is so, what is the best way to do so?

Thanks again.

[heavyd]

Originally Posted by e-man

CC Puros don't have much variety in their tobacco. They have a relatively similar climate on the whole island, and few strains to choose from. If they have a bad growing season, then all of their sticks suffer that year. CC's don't really appeal to me, though I never considered them to be the standard to compare all others against. NC's have a lot more variety in both the strain and climate, as well as the luxury of selecting leaves from around the globe to create the desired effect. NC's typically age their tobacco much longer which allows them to create unique flavor profiles. NC's stockpile large quantities of something good. CC's pretty much use up everything from that season, regardless of traits. Personally, I gravitate towards tobacco grown in Esteli and Jalapa, yet I prefer it as part of a non-puro to bring more variety to the flavor.

Interesting. Info like this is why I spend so much time here.

[MiamiRolled]

I have noticed this as well, but always blame my taste, not mingling of cigar flavors from humi. After smoking nothing but DPG blends for 3 weeks, I found even my Davidoffs began with his signature peppery half-inch. That is when I really believed it had to be my neutered tatse buds. I love DPG stuff, but when I don't want one...I really don't want one.

[Snake Hips]

Originally Posted by ashgan

The climate in Bombay is very humid and I have had problems with excess humidity, it usually hovers around 75-80 (and its winter here!). Don't even ask about Monsoon season. I do use 65% beads, but mu humi never really drops below 75 RH.

Do you guys think that this excess humidity would result in the smokes behaving like freshly rolled wet sticks? Should I try to dry them out a bit? is so, what is the best way to do so?

Thanks again.

[Mechanic voice] Well there's your problem! [/voice]

As humidity approaches 70% rh and above, flavors become bland, unpleasant and/or similar in my experience. I'm surprised you can even get air through those things at that humidity; I'd definitely try to lower it. Dry your beads out and put them in the humi completely dry. Your RH should drop to 65% and stay there until the beads become saturated with water. Just use the beads in reverse, basically.

[chip]

Originally Posted by Snake Hips

[Mechanic voice] Well there's your problem! [/voice]

As humidity approaches 70% rh and above, flavors become bland, unpleasant and/or similar in my experience. I'm surprised you can even get air through those things at that humidity; I'd definitely try to lower it. Dry your beads out and put them in the humi completely dry. Your RH should drop to 65% and stay there until the beads become saturated with water. Just use the beads in reverse, basically.

Worth a shot, but in general beads don't do a very good job of removing humidity. You may well have to resort to some sort of drying agent in conjunction with the beads.
I am of the same opinion/experience with higher humidity, and many years ago dropped my storage from 70% to 65%.....this is a common theme among many experienced smokers.
Good advice Snake Hips.

[ashgan]

Originally Posted by chip

Worth a shot, but in general beads don't do a very good job of removing humidity. You may well have to resort to some sort of drying agent in conjunction with the beads.
I am of the same opinion/experience with higher humidity, and many years ago dropped my storage from 70% to 65%.....this is a common theme among many experienced smokers.
Good advice Snake Hips.

Thanks for the tip guys, really appreciate it. Will try to dry out the beads and also keep the humidor door open with the air con on for a couple of hours. This would result in the ambient RH dropping to 45-50. I think this two pronged attack should help me reduce the humidity from my beloved sticks.

Cheers,

[fiddlegrin]

Originally Posted by e-man

Some random thoughts:

For beer tasting/judging, we often used IMO (fake sour cream) to reset our pallet ....

Final note: If you smoke them fast, then they WILL all taste about the same.

Excellent Post E-Man! Thanks for the good work.
Here, have some R.G. respect.

[The Postman]

Excellent posts my brothers. You guys had it covered right from the beginning to the end. Well done!!

[Phantom57]

Would guess your taste buds or too high or too low humidity. All can cause cigars to taste similar, and not good. Particularly if you are talking cigars with tobacco all from one country.

[StogieSteve]

Problem is real and can be easily corrected. Batch your cigars by brand and wrapper and separate. You can use cedar sheets or wooden dividers. Some cigars have a greater tendency to influence those they are touching than others. i keep my ISOM cigars separated and in a separate humidor.