Initial Smoke

Roasted walnuts, mellow Sumatran tobacco, the tastes of tea and exotic spices, and a super spicy retrohale set things off once the foot is torched. As you go, you may find familiar flavors of cinnamon sugar and burnt toast coming forth. Smoke texture starts off fairly dry, but after each puff, you will find the smoke growing darker and oilier on you. Additionally, the draw does feel a bit firm at first, but soon opens up to provide a near-ideal flow rate.

1st Half

And just like that, out comes all of the rich roasted tea tastes and vibrant Sumatran oiliness that this sort of wrapper is prized for are unleashed on the palate. Dark, earthy, and moderately funky down below, and all mellow milkiness and milder mineral up top, the first third of this stick seems determined to do its best. For the most part, it succeeds too, with bright, herbal retrohales providing plenty of reason to come back for more.

Smoother by the puff, yet not all that sweet on the tongue, nearing the centerline on the cigar means embracing burnt cedar and medium roast coffee. Oiled leather and a lick of the molasses spoon help make the dark side of this stick far more engaging, which, sadly, does not always compute on retrohale. 

2nd Half

Dank terroir and a mineral-like salinity shift the profile of the cigar away from the kitchen for a moment, and prep the tongue for the remainder of the second half. While refreshing at first, the flip-flop between these tastes and smells, and all of the chai spices off the Sumatran wrapper eventually grows tiresome. If only they could meld together, instead of trying to overpower one another at every turn.

Luckily, retrohales remain round and creamy, with plenty of cardamom and cinnamon settling atop them to make for a flavorful, full-bodied exhale upstairs. By now, the smoke texture is oily all around, and this helps patch over some of the spicier moments in the final third. Dry and very roasty, the only unique addition to this savory final section of the stick is a drop or two of cassis syrup, which is both sweet, fruity, and very wine-like in ways.

Parting Puffs

Dark, sharp, dry, and unbearably bitter, parting puffs in all three cigars were unpleasant, thus eliminating any additional points that would normally be allotted. What a pity.

Ash / Burn / Smoke / Draw

A perfect draw via a V-cut, followed by a gradual increase in smoke and body, made the physical feel of smoking this cigar quite the evolutionary achievement. Increasingly darker and oilier the further down you go, there was a lot to like about the build-up within this blend. The ash also looked really damn nice, especially earlier on, and outside of a sudden tunnel in the final third, and a touch of heat hitting the fingers and tongue, my review stick burned true the entire time.

Final Thoughts

The trouble with brand-new premium cigar blends is that they don't always have enough age placed upon them when they first hit the market. While the cigar manufacturing process does require lengthy periods of tobacco aging and fermentation time, and the finished product does receive an additional amount of time in an aging room for degassing purposes post-production, sometimes this isn't even enough.

Even though premium stogies are intended to be smoked fresh, many cigars can benefit from additional age. May it be a backstock box sitting up top in a walk-in humidor down at the local brick-and-mortar, a stronger stick that you set aside for further refinement, or a long forgotten obscurity languishing in a factory's aging room somewhere waiting to be added to Robert Caldwell's Lost & Found Series, age matters.

Karatoba is one of those smokes. A blend that starts out extremely promising, but gradually loses its balance the further down you go, before completely derailing in parting puffs. The cigar has a ton of potential, especially when the darker notes in the second half reach a more balanced parity with all of those Sumatran spice tea tastes, instead of jostling back and forth for your tongue's attention. 

Now, that's not me saying that I did not find myself enjoying this blend as it sits today. In fact, I found the first and much of the second third to be absolutely delightful, and would definitely smoke one again. But probably not until I let the cigar rest in my Kobi humidor for a few months to a half year. While this may sound torturous to some of you, I feel that this is what makes choosing 5-packs from the Klaro Cigars Collection so much fun. Smoke one or two now, and see what you think. Then, if you feel that the blend could benefit from a bit more age, set the remaining cigars aside for future enjoyment, and wait and see what happens...