Expert: James Yee - 5/21/2008

Question
Hi James,

I recently purchased a 5-pack Siglo IV at a cigar store in St. Martin.  Unfortunately, it was not an LCDH store. Anyway, I checked the cigar in the pack and compared it to my other Siglo IV that I purchased in LCDH in Toronto. The band looks the same but the shade of the cigar is quite different.  The ones I purchased in St. Martin is darker but slightly lighter than a Edicion Limitada or Maduro 5 wrapper. Can a Cohiba Siglo series have a darker wrapper?  Thanks.

Fred  

Answer
Hi Fred,

Though it's not extremely common, it is possible for the same type of Cohiba cigars - from different boxes - to vary in wrapper shade.  This type of occurence can also happen with other Cuban brands and different boxes of the same cigar can vary anywhere in shade from light claro to dark colorado maduro.  This is the result of letting the shade-grown tobacco (which is specifically used for the wrapper leaves) become slightly darker than normal during the growing stages.  While tobacco leaves are picked on a precise schedule, some tobacco will naturally grow darker than others; thus causing darker leaves.  

After the tobacco is picked, processed and cured, it will all go to the production floor for rolling.  Not all cigars rolled will be the exact same colour and shade level so after the cigars are rolled, all the cigars will be sent to a sorting table where they are all sorted by colour and grouped by shade by the factory's "escogedores" (colour sorters) before they're packaged in boxes.  This is why cigars within a box are very consistent in colour but may be significantly darker or lighter than cigars from other boxes.

Hopes this answers your question. If you have any more questions, please feel free to just ask.  

Regards,
James