🔥 Buy 5-Pack 🔥

Unlit Impressions

Bunched and wrapped in a most impressive manner, the look and feel of this robusto is about as ideal as it gets. Just as flawless as the wrapper, comes a cap that is cleanly applied and quite deep, and the Nicaraguan-grown Connecticut Shade wrapper leaf exudes aromas of ginger snap cookies, cedar and salt, dry graham crackers, and the faintest waft of citrus rind. Bu that is just a tease of what the filler and foot have to offer.

Cinnamon toast and raw ginger root rip right into your nose hairs like a swarm of space bots sent straight from the belly of the mothership. Intense but not too bold, these smells off the foot is balanced by the aroma of dried oats and a generic citrus scent. There is some Sumatran leaf aroma in there too, but being that it is of the Indonesian kind and rather heavy on leather and earth. 

Ginger holds the throttle at medium tilt even in cold draws, and here it takes the taste to a whole new, but somewhat different tasting level. Craft ginger ale, with all of the mixed root, berry, and herbal undertones that come in a bottle blast off with an effervescent rocket thrust. Deeper inside sits a raw doughy taste that mixes with the earthy leather flavors of the spiced Sumatran binder for an extremely clean tasting note.

Initial Smoke

Spicy and still all ginger, the retrohales and mouthful of flavors that form at first feel a bit bold for something so light looking. Honey oat bread helps pull these spicier notes to heel before long, and along with this doughy backbone makes blast-off incredibly smooth.  

1st Half

Sooner than later, you will realize that this premium cigar blend is totally fine with letting the doughiness take over at any given moment. It starts with a shift from honey oat bread to a more artisanal rustic farm bread, pauses for a moment, and then hits you with a handful of pine nuts and pita chips. 

Ginger still shuffles about on the back and sides of the tongue and is somewhat spicy and sweet, but by now it is a touch more herbal and is almost like a cough drop flavor profile. As you go, this taste starts to be overcome by some cedar spill scrap and a medium shake of black and white pepper spice. 

Burn, smoke formation, and draw are excellent, and the body of the cigar sits right at the mild-medium midway mark. Flavors and strength are slightly stronger, but that could be due to the increasingly lengthy finish that forms over time. 

2nd Half

Toasted oak touches the tongue with tannins and organic wood vibes that leave the tongue and other portions of the mouth a dash dry. A swig of refreshment later, and you are back on track with a medium amount of roasted nuttiness that is slightly hard to dissect and categorize. What is found is still very tasty though, so best to just let the medley be itself for the time and embrace what comes next.

Coffee of the lighter variety eventually develops where the nut flavors began their ascent, and in a way, do still affect the overall cigar flavor profile. Mixing light with dark, like a latte utilizing a distinctly nutty coffee strain that is devoid of any bitterness, the medium tastes of Raumzeit continue to rock. Interestingly, it isn't until the very last of the final third that Sumatran spiced tea and some of the cinnamon and exotic tastes that come with this tobacco strain show themselves. Better late than never, but a bit odd considering that the Indonesian binder has been in play from first light.

Parting Puffs

Here sits another premium cigar blend that succeeds at shifting from darker and richer to a lighter, more delicate finish post final third. It isn't like the cigar smoke striking the tongue was all that intense or heavy beforehand, but the transition to light balsa wood, floral dried flowers, and a medium mixture of salt-and-pepper definitely is a distinctly brighter way to close things out. 

My only issue, and it is a big one, is that removal of the band is a royal pain in the ass of an operation, and will likely result in you cracking the cigar or giving up entirely. So good luck getting to this stage ya'll because you are going to need it.

Ash / Burn / Smoke / Draw

If properly stored and rotated with the rest of the cigars stuffed inside that Klaro humidor, GEC's Raumzeit is sure to burn without any issue. Not once have I ever had the need to touch one of these sticks with a torch after ignition, and that is after a half-dozen smokes. 

The draw is equally on point, as is the strength, shape, color, and size of both the ash and cone underneath. All told, this blend is the pinnacle of what cigar construction should be, and it consistently provides a 100% worry-free performance with plenty of medium-bodied smoke to spare for the senses.

Final Thoughts 

Revisiting the GEC Raumzeit a full year after first smoking it truly has been a rewarding experience. Not only does it still burn and balance itself out with the very best of them, but it also builds in character and smoothness as it goes. Again, this stick pictured here rested in my Kobi humidor for nearly a year, and it only got better with age. 

My only real complaints with the blend are its one-sided repetitions at times, and the absolutely atrocious debanding process that is required, which oftentimes results in a cracked wrapper. Too much glue mixed with the thick matte paper and zero starter pull tabs are a recipe for band removal disaster, with more than half of the cigars I smoked resulting in me tossing the cigar instead of finishing it off. 

But a quick fix when it comes to band application and a little tweaking of the blend by GEC&s engineers should result in a near-perfect premium cigar blend smoking session. Of which I feel that the band is more of a concern than the sensational tobacco that continues to make 2024's "Surprise Stogie of the Show" such a smash hit.  

Stogie Specs