Being able to accurately analyze and recognize the flavors found within a premium cigar blend is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of collecting and smoking stogies. Just skim through any run-of-the-mill cigar review, and you will encounter a deluge of flavor descriptors being listed, along with numerous aroma-related comparisons. 

So why is it that some people pick up on cigar flavor profiles so much easier and more acutely than others? Well, part of that has to do with experience, but tasting flavors within a cigar can also correlate to one's ability to smell and taste on an acute level.

Additionally, cigar flavor profiles tend to be just as diverse as the regions of the world where long-filler tobacco is grown. Flavors can be influenced by the type of tobacco strain, the climate and seasonal weather that fosters growth, which portions of the plant are utilized, and the aging and fermentation procedures imposed upon harvesting. 

In essence, a premium cigar blend is like a smooth blended scotch whiskey. Both rely upon an ensemble of carefully curated ingredients to form a particular flavor profile with a predetermined body, strength, and set of aromatics. Much like any whiskey distillery worth its salt, a cigar maker also relies upon the talents of a skilled master blender to make it all possible. A topic that we will discuss in detail in another Deep Dive.

Now, back to the act of analyzing and recognizing the cigar flavor profiles within a blend, which requires a multi-prong approach. As the smoker, you must always have an open mind, followed by the ability to focus on what is being detected, with the right knowledge being in place behind it all. Having a plethora of cigars on hand in an array of blend styles and vitolas never hurts either. Which is precisely where a premium cigar subscription with a broad selection of carefully curated smokes comes into play. So, let's get to it, shall we?

Cigar Body, Strength, & Flavor Explained

Although our taste buds are what perceive flavor, aroma plays a crucial role in how our senses perceive a cigar. As long as you are not suffering from a sinus infection or have nasal congestion, your smell receptors will provide your olfactory senses and brain with a ton of information the moment you blow some cigar smoke out through your nose. This is why knowing how to retrohale cigar smoke is so important.

However, there’s more to a specific cigar type than just how it tastes and smells. Once cut and torch-lit, a cigar’s body, strength, and flavor all materialize in various amounts. Each of these core components is unique in how it influences our perception of what is being detected, with all three being confused for one another by the uninitiated on a routine basis. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these cigar smoking assessment terms, below you will find some quick explanations of cigar body, strength, and flavor. Remember, body and strength can oftentimes influence perceived flavor, and vice versa. So obtaining a general understanding of all three is key to discerning what you are tasting when you smoke a cigar.  

🔸Body is most helpful in categorizing different types of cigars into three main buckets: Mild, medium, and full. This provides us cigar smokers with a way for us to describe the weight of the smoke. The creamier, oilier, heavier, and denser the smoke, the heavier the body.

🔸Strength generally refers to the nicotine content of a cigar, as well as the intensity associated with spiciness, bitterness, and potency. Cigar strength can also be used to describe the overall physical effects tobacco has on the body, from the brain to the esophagus, and onward to the gut. For example, a higher-strength cigar might be better following a meal as it may help aid in relaxation and digestion, or it could be a touch hard on the larynx and nostrils due to its intensity.

🔸Flavor is the most dynamic, and arguably, the most subjective of the three, as it relies upon one's ability to discern whether a combination of tastes can be deemed delicious or not. Some are straightforward and instantly recognizable, while others are not, and require some serious focus and contemplation with each passing puff. It is here that smell-related and taste-oriented attributes are detected the most.

Tobacco Nerd Note: Pick a basket of Gala apples in an orchard, and you’ll notice that while each fruit resembles the next in size, shape, and color, each fruit has its unique skin pattern, sweetness level, and flavor intensity. The same is true for tobacco, as it too is an organic consumable substance and subject to variation from farm plot to farm plot, or even plant-to-plant. Each individual cigar has its own unique blend, even when the tobacco used is all sourced from the same seed strains and grown on the same farms.

Dissecting Cigar Flavor Profiles

Given that personal tastes vary greatly, nailing down a particular flavor can be a bit of a challenge. This is why smoking an array of different cigar types is so important, as it allows you to compare and contrast cigar blends and the flavor profiles they produce.

Whatever blend you may be smoking, pay close attention to the intensity of the tastes you are experiencing, for this will determine the "magnitude" of the cigar flavor. Equally important is the act of detecting precisely which parts of your palate are picking up on particular flavors, as that is what determines taste. A smack of spice toward the back of the throat is going to be a hell of a lot different than a sweet caramel note on the tip of the tongue.

That said, here’s a brief synopsis of what cigar magnitude means and some common tasting notes found within premium cigar blends for those looking for a cheat sheet.

Magnitude

Magnitude is how one measures flavor intensity. Due to the complexity of a premium cigar blend, the act of measuring magnitude tends to be multifaceted and isn't commonly used to describe a specific taste or flavor. For example, you may pick up on "light" notes of Spanish cedar, followed by a "strong" floral flavor stemming from an aromatic that finishes with a "medium" amount of toasted pecan and leather. 

Regardless of what flavors you detect, magnitude intensity is generally categorized by the same range of descriptors as body and strength, and include: 

• Mild/Light
• Mild-Medium
• Medium
• Medium-Full
• Full

Taste

Now, as for the act of describing a cigar flavor profile, reverting to the old tried-and-true flavor wheel will only help ascertain a fragment of what your senses are registering. Bitter, sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and that ever-complex "umami" taste do not always translate cleanly when analyzing a sea of cigar flavor profiles. 

Naturally, this gave rise to utilizing descriptors of tastes and smells that most humans are familiar with to describe what a premium cigar blend has to offer. They don't always have to be digestible or even edible, just recognizable and memorable.

Fruits - cherry, citrus, plum, raisin, fig, orange zest, currants, etc. 

Nuts - almond, walnut, cashew, pecan, peanut, hazelnut, etc.

Flowers - rose hips, potpourri, lavender, honeysuckle, etc.

Vegetation - grass, hay, tea, vegetable, wet leaves, etc.

Herbs & spices - cinnamon, clove, all-spice, thyme, oregano, cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla, etc.

Earth and minerals - soil, musk, mineral, metallic, salt, manure, loam, etc.

Non-flavors - dry, harsh, hot, astringent, paper-like, cardboard, etc.

With all 5,000-10,000 taste buds and countless smell receptors soaking up everything that the cigar has to offer (both before being lit and while under combustion), the following categories deserve to be considered as well, as they too are often detected in premium cigar blends:

Animal - grilled meat, gamey, farmyard funk, etc.

Sweet - honey, brown sugar, toffee, whipped cream, caramel, mocha, etc.

Chemical - ammonia, shoe polish, charcoal, permanent marker, tar, etc.

Woody - sawdust, cedar, campfire, dried hardwood, tannins, distillery barrels, etc.

Spicy - chili pepper, ginger, peppercorn, paprika, cinnamon, etc.

Earthy - soil, dust, loam, wet wood, chalk, manure, rot, etc.

How Cigar Size & Leaf Selection Influence Flavor 

Basic flavor profiles and synonyms explained, we now turn toward the importance of cigar sizes, or cigar vitolas as they are more commonly called.

Being that a cigar consists of multiple layers of tobacco, there’s a lot to consider when pondering how the structure and contents of the cigar itself influence flavor. Unless it is a "puro," or a cigar made with tobacco that has been sourced from a single country, most premium cigar blends contain different strains of tobacco that have been sourced from various regions around the world. Pulled from different portions of the plant and then submitted to an array of aging and fermentation methods, the layers of tobacco leaf within a cigar are as complex of an affair as the cigar flavor profiles you are attempting to analyze.

Equally important is the ratio of filler and binder tobacco to the wrapper. Unless it is a "barber pole blend," most cigars only contain one wrapper. However, cigars can contain dual binders, and any mixture of tobacco in the long filler that the master blender deems worthy. While the wrapper is commonly associated with 70% or more of flavors and aromas, the types of tobacco stuffed inside can greatly influence what is being perceived. That said, slimmer cigars contain less long-filler, and therefore offer far more of a wrapper-forward smoking experience. 

While our Klaro article on types of tobacco leaves will surely satisfy the horticulturalists in the crowd, a brief rundown of the tobacco leaves used to construct a cigar should suffice for today’s "tasteful" topic of discussion.

The Wrapper

As the outermost layer of tobacco, cigar wrappers are the star of the show when it comes to appearances, and are responsible for a hefty amount of the flavors and aromatics being detected. Although the number of recognized cigar wrapper variants hovers in the 50+ range, the four most common strains include Connecticut, Corojo, Habano, and Maduro.

From there, a cigar wrapper can be classified as either a lighter natural (a.k.a. claro) or a far more opaque maduro. Natural wrappers are usually shade-grown beneath a canopy, and can range anywhere from pale green, all the way up to a ruddy red, and do not undergo nearly as long of an aging and fermentation process. Natural cigar flavors can range anywhere from mild and milky, all the way up to spicy and floral, depending upon the type of wrapper seed strain.

Wrappers on maduro cigars, on the other smoke ring, are fermented for far longer, and are almost always sun-grown. Due to these extended aging and fermentation times, darker colors and richer, sweeter, and oilier tastes often emerge in maduro wrappers. They also can be veinier and coarser to the eye and touch due to their sun-grown upbringing. 

The Binder

Binders are what keep a cigar in one piece and play a crucial part in the combustion process. Less flavorful than the wrapper, but occasionally quite aromatic, binder leaves are rarely fermented for lengthy periods and oftentimes are wrapper leaf rejects that don't make the cut. That said, there will always be some level of flavor associated with the binder, as it too combusts and impacts the palate and not just the nose.

The Filler

At the heart of the cigar is the filler, which is where much of a premium cigar blend gets its intense undertones and body. Cigar filler can be pulled from any of the following leaves commonly used on a tobacco plant, with ligero, viso, seco, and volado being the core four.

Ligero leaves are the uppermost portion of the plant, and since they receive the most sunlight, they are generally the most intense in every aspect. Not just flavor and aroma, but strength and spice as well.

Viso leaves grow directly below and are quite flavorful, but not nearly as potent as ligero. These leaves are widely considered to be the most versatile leaf on the tobacco plant, and are commonly used in all three sections of a cigar.

Seco leaves rest toward the middle and lower sections of the plant and receive even less light than the foliage above. These leaves are generally used as a form of combustion aid within the filler and are typically the most mild.

Finally, there is the volado leaf, which sits right at the bottom of the plant and gets the least amount of light. Many master blenders view these leaves as having little to no worth, and due to their proximity to the soil underneath are commonly referred to as "sand leaves." 

The Blend

A beautifully balanced premium cigar blend is engineered from day one to take your taste buds on a vibrant voyage. Once combined, the wrapper, binder, and filler have the power to transform a clump of slowly decaying tobacco leaves into something truly special. 

But before you fire up that stogie with your torch lighter and get to puffing, there’s one last cigar flavor profile influence that must be considered: The tobacco aging process.

Tobacco Nerd Note: As for infused cigars, which often feature things like liquor, honey, syrups, coffees, spices, or fruits for additional flavorings, that’s a whole other diatribe for another time. So check out that link in the prior sentence and note that the premium cigar market has released some truly intriguing flavored cigars over the past two decades alone.

Aging Influences Everything

 

Aging and fermenting tobacco is a mandatory addition to any premium cigar blend, and constitutes much of the mellowing and marrying of the different tobaccos found within a hand-rolled stogie. 

Given that a designated amount of aging and fermentation is prescribed for each stacked bale of tobacco leaves brought in from the field, the complexity associated with these piles, or "pilones" is an incredibly complex affair. Without fermentation, a cigar can no longer be labeled as "premium" and will likely be quite harsh due to all of the naturally occurring chemicals within the leaf.

Cigar tobacco fermentation processes are a time-tested and proven methodology, allowing the removal of many of the impurities found within tobacco to take place courtesy of heat, time, moisture, pressure, and a hefty serving of airborne bacteria. In the process, it also allows the flavors and aromas of the leaf to mature and mellow, and in many cases grow more complex.

Parting Puffs

If by now you are still feeling stumped, and are only tasting tobacco when you smoke a cigar, don't worry. Practice makes perfect. Even the palates of the world’s most skilled master blenders are still evolving with each cigar that is smoked. The important thing is to remember that smoking a specific cigar type is a recreational hobby and should be done at leisure without distraction. 

Pleasure and relaxation are the primary reasons why we enjoy this time-honored pastime of sticking wadded-up bundles of smoldering leaves in our pie holes. If you start taking your cigars too seriously, you may be inadvertently taking the joy out of the entire ritual. So smoke casually, use your nose to retrohale often, and try not to get distracted by outside influences if you want to analyze and recognize certain cigar flavor profiles.

However, for those of you out there who do take this hobby seriously and are determined to analyze every subtle cigar flavor profile encountered along the way, we offer one final piece of advice: Don’t forget to jot down some tasting notes in a cigar journal. Write down what you liked, disliked, or were unable to ascertain, and be sure to include as many tasting notes as possible. It may just help determine what cigar you will be smoking next.