Cigar Taste

you arent missing anything.... not really anyway. you just have not developed your sence of taste as well as you thought you have.

a while back i posted an article in some thread somewhere about how to develop your palate. i dont have the patience to look through and find it at the moment but the long and short of it is to read reviews and look for those tasts in review. get to know some of the more commonly mentioned tastes in cigars: coffee, earth, leather, black pepper, white pepper, chocolate...

use a taste wheel. (i have one,i can hook you up)

go out to eat and taste food you have never had. the more things your taste buds try the more work they do the strongert they get. work those taste buts out!!! go on a food adventure at least once a week. try something that you have never had, or dont have often.

pay attention to smells. smell is much of taste.

as far as tasting the cigar itself... roll the smokein your mouth. let out about 90% of the smoke. force the rest through your nose.

oh yeah... keep a cigar catalog. this will force you to think about your cigars and how they taste.

Big Deel

The tastes are hard to pick up on for me. I now can taste some of them, but I couldn't in the beginning. Like every thing, you just need time/practice.

Your pallet will change after smoking for a while. Many of the cigars I tried in the beginning were just to "strong" for me at that time.

Kuzi WTF is a taste wheel and where do I find one?

PM me your email and ill hook you up.

kuzi16:
the long and short of it is to read reviews and look for those tasts in review.

I'm going to disagree with kuzi a little bit on that point. I actually think it's better to write your own review of a cigar before reading anybody else's. Otherwise, you wind up trying to taste what they tasted, instead of tasting what you taste. After you've smoked it and written down your own thoughts, then go look at other reviews if you want to; compare notes.

As a general matter, though, there's not a darn thing wrong with the 3 taste categories you mentioned. BF. As long as you know what you like, that's all that matters. Figuring out what it is you like about this one and don't like about that one, I think that comes with time.

iduno... maybe its a bit of both. if you do find reviews get to know that reviewer and what they like. im sure that will help. People have told me my reviews are spot on, i still dont believe them but if they are, what would be wrong with looking at what others think? if it tastes like cedar then it tastes like cedar.

I sent you my info KUZI

kuzi16:
iduno... maybe its a bit of both. if you do find reviews get to know that reviewer and what they like. im sure that will help. People have told me my reviews are spot on, i still dont believe them but if they are, what would be wrong with looking at what others think? if it tastes like cedar then it tastes like cedar.

I don't think there's anything wrong, necessarily, with looking at what others think. I just think it sets up expectations in your mind of what a cigar is going to taste like, and when you have a predetermined set of expectations in your head, you're going to tend to taste what you expect. If you don't set up the expectations, you might taste something different. Then you can look at what others tasted and compare notes. Next time you smoke that cigar, see if your tasting experience differs.

jlzimmerman

urbino:
I actually think it's better to write your own review of a cigar before reading anybody else's. Otherwise, you wind up trying to taste what they tasted, instead of tasting what you taste. After you've smoked it and written down your own thoughts, then go look at other reviews if you want to; compare notes.

+ 1

jlzimmerman:
+ 1

Is that good?

j0z3r

Yeah, its a good thing. I agree with both sides, actually. I think that reading a review before can help you identify something you might wonder about, by that same token i can also see how reading a review will cause one to expect a certain taste to come out.

And to reply to the original post, I don't think it is bad to just know whether you like or dislike a certain taste without being able to identify it. Chances are that part will come with some time, but even if it doesn't, is that going to make you unable to enjoy the cigar? I feel some things are better left unanalyzed, lest you spoil some of the mystique, my opinion of course, take it for what its worth.

Joe

urbino:
kuzi16:
iduno... maybe its a bit of both. if you do find reviews get to know that reviewer and what they like. im sure that will help. People have told me my reviews are spot on, i still dont believe them but if they are, what would be wrong with looking at what others think? if it tastes like cedar then it tastes like cedar.
I don't think there's anything wrong, necessarily, with looking at what others think. I just think it sets up expectations in your mind of what a cigar is going to taste like, and when you have a predetermined set of expectations in your head, you're going to tend to taste what you expect. If you don't set up the expectations, you might taste something different. Then you can look at what others tasted and compare notes. Next time you smoke that cigar, see if your tasting experience differs.

though i read many reviews i try and enter MY reviews with a clear mind.

No doubt. But that doesn't necessarily make it the best approach for cigar smokers at large. That's who I was aiming my recommendation at.

fair nuff

Punch Champion last night. I rated it a good. I tasted smoke, with a light hint of happiness.

BFGarner:
Punch Champion last night. I rated it a good. I tasted smoke, with a light hint of happiness.

best review ever. ... with a light hint of happiness. nice.

on a related note to that...
i went into the B&M and i saw this davidoff that was 31$ for a single. i asked the guy if it was "worth $31"
he said it was quite enjoyable.
i responded by saying "i didnt ask you if it was enjoyable, i asked you if it was worth $31"
what came back was the best review of a cigar i have heard in a long time: it tasted a little of earth, a little of cedar, and a bit of burning money.

lol burning money is perfect. Kuzi I never got that thing you were gonna email me. Let me know when you send it please. Im anxious and bored.

i just sent it a few minutes ago (maybe 20ish )

jlzimmerman

urbino:
jlzimmerman:
+ 1
Is that good?

+1

j/k. Yes, that means I agree with you.

j0z3r

BFGarner:
Punch Champion last night. I rated it a good. I tasted smoke, with a light hint of happiness.

That's a review I can agree with. I was pretty impressed with the champion myself.

madurofan

kuzi16:
what came back was the best review of a cigar i have heard in a long time: it tasted a little of earth, a little of cedar, and a bit of burning money.

ROTF LMAO. That is a great one.

Now that said here is my opinion on "tasting" a cigar as some of you have seen this from me before. A certain snobbish magazine, referred to here as CA, has reviews that sound more like someone was eating a steak with Au jus, while sipping a Brandy, accompanied by amazing potatoes and a side of peppers with cracked peppercorn on top. All followed up with a Key Lime Pie. I say BS! You are smoking 100% tobacco and unless you're smoking an Acid there are only certain flavors you can expect to taste. Now everyone's taste buds are different and everyone will taste a certain cigar differently but lets not get ridiculous. Typically you taste the ones that kuzi mentioned earlier. Also nut or nutty is a common flavor (I even tasted Peanut Butter -ish flavor once). However, when I read a review that says the tasted a heavy meat flavor with hints of Au Jus and cracked peppercorn on the back of the palate I thow it out.

I share the general spirit of that, maddy, especially in reference to the fatheadedness of CA, but also disagree to some extent. A person tastes what a person tastes. If the interaction of smoke from a given cigar with your taste buds causes your brain to say, "Hey, that somehow reminds me of orange marmalade," then so be it.

I wouldn't even say it's impossible for orange marmalade to be a flavor in a cigar. They are made of tobacco, but it's fermented tobacco. Fermentation can produce a wild array of sugars, acids, and other organic compounds. There's really no telling what flavors might crop up in a cigar.

CA's problem, to me, is twofold. One, they seem to think darn near every cigar has roughly 73 flavors. Two, they're trying to sell you something.

kaspera79

urbino:
I share the general spirit of that, maddy, especially in reference to the fatheadedness of CA, but also disagree to some extent. A person tastes what a person tastes. If the interaction of smoke from a given cigar with your taste buds causes your brain to say, "Hey, that somehow reminds me of orange marmalade," then so be it.

I wouldn't even say it's impossible for orange marmalade to be a flavor in a cigar. They are made of tobacco, but it's fermented tobacco. Fermentation can produce a wild array of sugars, acids, and other organic compounds. There's really no telling what flavors might crop up in a cigar.

CA's problem, to me, is twofold. One, they seem to think darn near every cigar has roughly 73 flavors. Two, they're trying to sell you something.

It really has to do with something you can relate too while I say coffee some one else will best describe it as chocolate. Or they have been watching willy wonka movie when the gum was a eight course meal.. I have had rare flashes of strange flavors like cherry, licorice, cinnamon,walnut cashew, or brown sugar, but more often I can't really put an exact flavor to a cigar profile.. simply it is an enjoyable cigar..Now if it tastes like crap that's easy to describe..

True dat.

I'm finding my own experience, now that I've started keeping track of what different cigars taste like to me, is that there are some flavors in kuzi's "most common" list (which was: coffee, earth, leather, black pepper, white pepper, chocolate) I've never experienced, and flavors not in that list that I experience with regularity. (It should be mentioned that kuzi clearly didn't intend for that list to be comprehensive.) Leather, for example, is something I haven't thus far tasted in a cigar. OTOH, I pick up fruit and tea tastes pretty often (in fact, pretty much every cigar tastes to one degree or another like tea to me, which is why I don't mention it as a flavor in my reviews unless it's unusually prominent). I don't know the difference between the flavor of black pepper and that of white pepper, but I can spot pepperiness and spiciness, which is more complex than pepperiness.

kaspera79

Well, leather is a taste I can relate too,while someone here mentioned the taste of a dirty belt all my leather has been clean. pepper is pepper I can't tell white from black, and there is a taste I often find at the end of cigars that reminds me of either grass or mint I just can't describe it..It makes me think " Green " if a color could have a flavor that would be it.. odd

I think I know the flavor you're talking about, kas. Does it almost make you think of Pine-Sol?

j0z3r

haha, pine-sol. I know the taste you guys speak of. I usually think of a pine scent.... pine sol seems a little too sanitary to describe how i experience the taste, but it has pine qualities to it for certain.