Is it me or the Cigars?

405bench

I have a question but first I'll provide some info.  50 years old and smoked cigars for 31 and nothing but handmade premiums for 28.  Although I smoke a lot of robust or full body cigars I tend to prefer mild to mid pre-noon and medium post noon.  The past several years, I tend to pull a full body out at prime time (evenings after dinner).  I do this not because I like them but because I want to like them ( stupid huh).  Seems to me, the best quality of cigars recently is in the more robust or full body realm.  Take for example the Olivia V, it is simply beutiful to look at and feel, but for me they are a little to robust.  I have to be very careful in the first half or I will get dizzy smoking them.  I can only nasal about 10% on the exhale but after about a 3rd of the cigar is done it always gets much better and I end up nasaling significantly more and enjoying the experiance much more.  I find this true the vast majority of times regardless of the body of cigar, but I notice it more on full body smokes.  The back half is always better than the front half.  One thing I notice, starting a full body smoke is a little rough on the nasal passages but they wet up and I increase the exhale thru the sinuses on the back half.  I ussualy have to blow my nose toward the end.  So, my question is; Is it the cigars that change in mid stride or is it me (my senses)?    

kuzi16

thats a darn good question.

i am gunna have to go with the cigar. the act of you smoking it changes it. the part of the wrapper leaf you are smoking changes it. how fast/slow you smoke will change the cigar.

lemme 'splain one at a time.

as you smoke you draw smoke through the cigar and into your mouth. as the smoke goes through the cigar it hits other bits of tobacco. on that tobacco it leaves particles of the smoke. when you burn down to that point in the cigar you are not only burning the tobacco, but those particles as well. the further you go along in the cigar, the more there are to burn because more smoke has gone by/through that spot.
this is why a cigar will tend to build in flavor or body throughout.


the wrapper leaf is not uniform throughout. imagine this:
you have a big tobacco leaf in front of you. the stem to the leaf turns into the center vein of the leaf. from that vein others shoot off. near the edges of the leaf there are almost no veins. these leaf veins are what bring nutrients to the leaf from the plant. the farther away from the center vein, the harder it is for nutrients to reach. when you roll a cigar with that leaf you will go through a progression. the edges of the leaf will have a bit less flavor. this is part of the reason why you get a "sweet spot" in cigars.
this is also the reason why we have the NUB. when rolling the NUB the rollers cut off a bit of the edges of the leaf where the nutrients are less.... thus giving us "all sweet spot" cigars.

the speed that you smoke also changes the cigar. If you smoke fast you will heat up the tobacco too much and it will taste funny and bitter. if you like to smoke mild and medium cigars usually they you have an internal pacing system that makes you smoke "X" fast. then you light up a full bodied cigar. your pacing system kicks in. you start puffing away. soon you feel the power of the cigar start to catch up to you. you will have a tendency to slow down the smoking. this will cool the smoke and change the flavor. and in very general terms, cooler smoke = more/better flavor