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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe association of premium cigars with terms such as chocolate, coffee, vanilla, leather, nuts, honey, citrus fruit or dried fruit is comparatively recent. It does not originate from the world of cigars itself. Rather, it is part of modern tasting culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you look at Cuban catalogues, specialist literature, trade documents and cigar advertising from the late 19th century until well into the 20th century, you will notice that cigars were not described in the same way back then as they are today. The language was more direct, more reserved and in many ways closer to the actual essence of tobacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cigar could be described by its origin, strength, burn, draw resistance, elegance, finesse or flavour in a general sense. An aficionado in 1920 might have described a Havana as \u201efine\u201c, \u201earomatic\u201c, \u201esweet\u201c, \u201erich\u201c, \u201estrong\u201c or \u201edelicate\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would have been unusual, however, if he had said that it reminded him of Ethiopian mocha, Venezuelan chocolate, bergamot peel, roasted hazelnuts or acacia honey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This language only came later.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From the 1970s and 1980s, critics such as Robert Parker helped to popularise a highly descriptive way of tasting. Tasting notes became more precise, more visual and increasingly comparative. Wine was no longer simply structured, elegant, tannic, fresh or long-lasting. It became a universe of blackcurrant, graphite, tobacco, cedar, cherry, violet, truffle, leather and spice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This vocabulary moved on. It found its way into the world of whisky, coffee and chocolate. And from the 1980s, and especially the 1990s, it finally reached the world of premium cigars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boom in premium cigars outside Cuba, the increasing number of brands and the growing need to distinguish one cigar from another created fertile ground for this new language. Retailers needed tools to advise consumers. Magazines needed a language to compare products. Brands were looking for ways to express their identity. Flavour wheels, tasting symbols and flavour descriptions became useful bridges between the complexity of tobacco and the curiosity of the aficionado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this. Descriptions can help to express feelings that would otherwise be difficult to convey. They can open doors and facilitate access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, there is a deeper reason why we speak this way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Memory is the filter through which flavour becomes language. When we try to explain what we perceive, we instinctively associate it with something we already know: Chocolate, coffee, honey, bergamot, leather, dried fruit or spices. These associations are not necessarily wrong. They are bridges. They help us to translate sensations into words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But every bridge also harbours the danger of leading us to the other shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we rely too heavily on borrowed references, we may move away from the very material we want to understand. We then describe tobacco in terms of everything but tobacco itself. As a result, we run the risk of not doing justice to the leaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because a premium cigar is not chocolate. It is not coffee. It is not vanilla. It is not leather. It is not honey.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the more honest challenge is not to abandon descriptions altogether, but to rediscover or even create a new tobacco-specific vocabulary. A vocabulary that can talk about leaf structure, fermentation, maturation, burn, mineral characteristics, vegetal depth, natural sweetness, bitterness, density, elasticity, terroir and the memory of the soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This would not make cigar tasting any less precise. On the contrary: it would make it more truthful.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A premium cigar passes through hundreds of hands before it reaches us: farmers, harvesters, drying specialists, fermentation masters, sorters, torcedores, quality controllers and packers. Reducing all this work to a comparison with chocolate or coffee may be convenient, but it is not always sufficient. Respecting a cigar also means talking about it in its own language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A premium cigar consists of whole tobacco leaves: filler, binder and wrapper. Each leaf has been grown, harvested, dried, fermented, matured, selected and finally part of a blend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This mixture is no coincidence. It is not a collection of independent effects. It is a project.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Balance, burn, texture, strength, aromatic identity, rhythm and consistency. Each leaf fulfils a specific task within a structure that should work from start to finish. The filler must burn correctly. The binder leaf must support the construction. The wrapper leaf should not only provide visual elegance, but also aromatic definition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing is random.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For this reason, the widespread idea that a premium cigar must develop dramatically through three aromatic phases should be critically scrutinised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We often read that a cigar begins with chocolate, then moves on to bergamot or citrus notes and ends with roasted coffee. This is a seductive narrative. It gives the smoking experience a dramatic structure, almost like a theatre play in three acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A premium cigar does not contain modular flavour capsules. It is not designed to release one flavour in the first third, another in the second and a third in the final third. It is an organic whole, made up of complete tobacco leaves that have been combined into a coherent blend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What changes during smoking is not the identity of the mixture. What changes are the physical conditions of the smoke - and therefore our perception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the cigar burns down, heat accumulates. Moisture condenses. Nicotine becomes more concentrated. The smoke becomes denser, fuller and sometimes more powerful. The last part of the cigar can therefore appear more intense, moist and concentrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, this is not necessarily an aromatic transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cigar does not become something else. It simply shows the same blend under different physical conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The comparison with wine is helpful here - precisely because the modern cigar vocabulary owes so much to wine. A well-made wine can open up in the glass. Oxygen allows certain nuances to emerge, while others become softer. Temperature can change perception. Time can make the wine appear more expressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the wine does not change its identity. A Burgundy does not become a Barolo halfway through the glass. Its structure, origin and intention remain the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same should apply to a carefully composed cigar. The experience can become deeper. The texture can become fuller. The smoke can become warmer. The nicotine can become more prominent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the cigar must remain faithful to the project designed by the master blender. This loyalty is not a limitation. It is a sign of craftsmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In today's cigar culture, complexity is often confused with variability. A cigar that is constantly changing is sometimes considered more interesting than one that remains stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the highest art is not to create a cigar that surprises us by becoming something else, but one that accompanies us without being unfaithful to itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consistency is not simplicity. Consistency is difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keeping the balance from the first puff to the last requires in-depth knowledge of tobacco, careful fermentation, precise maturation, rigorous selection and disciplined construction. It requires respect for the leaf. It requires respect for time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And time is the true luxury of a premium cigar. Time in the field. Time during drying. Time during fermentation. Time during maturation. Time after rolling. And finally, time in the hands of the smoker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cigar already contains accumulated time. Our job is not to squeeze it into a catalogue of borrowed flavours. Our job is to give it the time it needs to express itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means smoking slowly. Listen. Paying attention. Letting the cigar burn at its own rhythm, not ours. A cigar is a companion. When we sit down with it, we are asking for something very simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don't betray us. Don't betray the tobacco. Don't betray the time invested in it. Don't betray the moment we want to share with it. Maybe that's where we should go back to: the pleasure of tasting tobacco as tobacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to deny nuances. Not to reject memories. Not to claim that cigars do not evoke images, sensations or associations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to remember that these associations should serve tobacco - and not replace it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Their development should not be understood as a succession of independent aromatic identities, but as the unfolding of the same blend through time, warmth, rhythm and concentration. The true task of the aficionado is perhaps not to constantly find new external references, but to refine a language that does justice to the tobacco leaf itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Master Blender does not create a spectacle of transformation. He creates a structure that endures. And perhaps, in an age obsessed with novelty and description, the most elegant cigar is not the one that changes the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the one that remains true to itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Filippo Costi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ein Gastbeitrag von Filippo Costi, (Chief Commercial Officer Maya Selva Cigars) \/ \u00dcber Aromar\u00e4der, Erinnerungen, moderne Verkostungskultur und den Mythos der aromatischen Entwicklung. Ich m\u00f6chte…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[662],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marktplatz",""],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/filippo_costi_maya_selva_3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77752"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77757,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77752\/revisions\/77757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zigarren.zone\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The real revolution began with wine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The timing was no coincidence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The human mind does not describe flavour abstractly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A premium cigar is tobacco. This simple truth deserves to be rediscovered<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Every decision made by the Master Blender has a purpose: <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
But does that really happen in a cigar?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It is concentration.<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps we should turn the question around<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When we light a cigar, we are merely entering the final chapter of a process that began years earlier.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A premium cigar should first and foremost taste of tobacco: authentic, natural, deeply rooted tobacco<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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