Things Every Cigar Smoker Should Know

The comforting world of premium cigars can sometimes seem bogged down by endless choices, confusing messages and opinions posing as fact. It can be a complicated, confusing hobby, even for a longtime smoker. To help navigate the maze, we’ve assembled a list of facts and information that aim to give insight and perspective to every level of cigar aficionado, whether novice or inveterate. cigar in pakistan

This list is by no means a Ten Commandments of cigar smoking. It’s more of a basic treatise that addresses pertinent issues and highlights some of the aspects that make the premium cigar industry unique. We’ve also included a few useful tips that will serve to enhance the smoking experience and elevate the enjoyment of this beloved pastime.

A field of sun-grown tobacco flourishes in a valley in the Dominican Republic. The crops grow from natural fertilizer.

Cigars Are a Natural and Artisanal Product 

Buzzwords like “natural” and “artisanal” are overused and abused in today’s parlance, but premium, handmade cigars have truly earned the right to flaunt these credentials. They are made of one thing and one thing only—tobacco. Pure, unadulterated tobacco. Not a single leaf is chemically treated or artificially altered for taste. Everything from flavor to color is achieved through natural means—and that’s part of the cigar’s inherent beauty. networking service router

In fact, few consumable products are so natural. Perceptible flavors, whether sweet or spicy, are naturally occurring. The various alluring shades of brown are achieved through an organic process free of dyes or ripening accelerants. There are no preservatives to increase shelf life and no sweeteners, artificial or natural. Such additives and chemicals are the domain of cigarettes and machine-made cigars, which are mass-produced in the billions. 

On the craft side, rolling the perfect handmade cigar is an artisanal skill, and one that takes many years to fully master. Blending tobacco is as much art as it is science, and because tobacco is subject to the whims of nature, the blender must be able to work effectively with an ingredient that can change from year to year due to crop variations. 

Like wine, some vintages are better than others, but cigarmakers will do everything in their power to ensure that their product is consistent, even though crop quality is highly dependent on the weather. Consistency, however, isn’t the same thing as cloning, and there will always be minute variations from cigar to cigar. As with any handmade product, no two premium cigars will be exactly alike. The finest, most sincere cigars are natural expressions of both the cigarmaker and the soil from which the tobacco was grown. 

Two Hundred Pairs of Hands

It’s often said that 200 pairs of hands touch your cigar before it makes it to your humidor. Some claim the number is even higher. Suffice to say, every time you light up a cigar, many, many people with many different skills all contributed to bring you the ultimate handmade product. cctv camera installation dha lahore

It starts with seed selection and greenhouse cultivation. Cigar tobacco starts as a tiny seed, most often planted in a tray and grown in a greenhouse. Once the seedlings are a few inches high, they’re transplanted to the fields where they can flourish. At full height and maturity, the leaves are removed by hand, harvested and hung in a curing barn to dry and turn brown. That’s a few dozen hands before the tobacco has even left the farm.

The cured tobacco is then taken to a facility, unpacked and piled up for fermentation. When fermentation is complete, the tobacco pile is separated and laid on drying racks to air out. Then, it’s all repacked and stowed for aging. After a few years, the aged tobacco is unpacked again, rehydrated in a special misting room and categorized for color. That’s a few more dozen hands.

The outer wrapper leaves will also undergo destemming or despalillo, a process where the thick, central vein is removed from the leaf. Sometimes that step is done completely by hand, other times the tobacco is fed through a stripping machine. For filler, a worker will remove part of the stem by hand, leaving the rest intact. More hands.

Don’t forget the rolling process, which requires appointed factory workers to dole out the proper proportions of aged tobacco to the rollers each day. The torcedor takes his pile of leaves back to his rolling table and recreates the cigar according to the cigarmaker’s blend, bunching and rolling each cigar by hand. The blend is formulated of exacting proportions of very specific tobaccos to impart a very particular smoking experience—a formulation that puts more hands on your cigars. 

Tobacco Undergoes Fermentation

Fermentation is common to producers of wine and spirits, defined as a process that converts sugars in organic material to alcohol, often with the use of yeast. In the tobacco industry, it’s more of a microbial fermentation—one that breaks down the leaf organically through the use of water, pressure and oxygen. No alcohol is produced in tobacco fermentation, but the process releases heat as it changes the chemical composition and physical traits of the leaf through humidity and oxidization. computer repair dha lahore

Tobacco undergoes fermentation for one simple reason: it makes the tobacco taste better. The process affects the flavor and smell of tobacco, making it less astringent and reducing bitterness while bringing out its more floral, nutty and sweeter aspects. 

Fermentation is fairly simple. Once tobacco has been cured in a barn, the leaves are arranged in large piles known as pilónes. The only thing added is water. The weight of the piles produce pressure while the enzymatic and microbial breakdown produces the heat. The piles are checked daily and the temperature is monitored. When the internal temperature of these pilónes reaches a certain point, the tobacco pile is taken apart, rotated by hand and painstakingly reassembled.

Ideally, tobacco is piled and fermented according to size and type. Different-sized leaves and different tobacco varietals will ferment at different rates, so the pile must be as homogenous as possible. The idea is to naturally alter the taste of the tobacco and transform it from its raw, bitter state to something smokeable and pleasant. Underfermented tobacco will often have a harsh aftertaste and smell like ammonia. It’s not a process that can be skipped or rushed and is critical in the world of premium cigars.