Expert: James Yee - 9/21/2009

Question
Just letting you know about the strange experience I had yesterday with a couple of the cigars which I received from an extremely reputable retailer in the Asia Pacific region.

Receieved the cigars last week, placed them in my 30ct desktop humidor, which uses a puck 65% humidifier with RH beads. I noticed some greenness on one of the cigars (a Bolivar CJ) and decided not to put in in the humidor. I placed it in a zip-lock bag and put it aside. So far, I've smoked 2 cigars from what I've received and they've been brilliant.

Last night, I took out a Partagas Shorts to smoke. It took me about 3 minutes to light it, as the wrapper would not burn at all. After about 3 mins of smoking (where only the filler was burning no matter how much I tried to light the wrapper), I understood that the taste was spoilt. Not sure I can describe it for you, but it was very dry and full of chemicals. I thought it must have been a dud, so I chucked it out and picked up a Bolivar CJ from the humidor – but it had exactly the same problem (though the burn was better).

To test whether the problem was with my humidor, I decided to light up the greenish Boli which was still in the zip-lock bag. I only needed one puff to understand that it had the same problem as the other 2. Hence, the problem was not with the humidor.

Any ideas what this might be? I’ve never experienced anything like it. I decided not to try any of the remaining cigars.

As a final point, I had been cooking on the weekend, and on Saturday I created a considerable nightmare in the kitchen when I left pasta boiling the pot and forgot about it. It made a pretty bad smell in the flat. But I often cook different strong smelling foods, and the humidor is kept in another room. Never experienced any problems with that...

Any help would be appreciated.  

Answer
Hi Roger,

It sounds like the cigars were over-humidified at some point; if not by your humidor then either by the cigar retailer or somehow during shipping.  When the cigar is hard to light and the filler tobacco only burns, it's a clear sign that the cigar(s) were exposed to high humidity that saturated the wrapper leaf first, but not the filler tobacco yet.  The greenish colour on the Bolivar could also indicate that mold has began to appear.  Over-humidified cigars will also taste either bland, harsh or vegetal in flavour.

Let the remainder of your cigars sit in your humidor for at least 4 weeks (the more time, the better) so that they can naturally re-adjust to normal humidity in your humidor.  Be sure to monitor these cigars daily for any signs of mold growth.  If you do spot mold appearing on these cigars, remove them from your humidor immediately.  As an alternative, you may want to consider contacting the cigar retailer and explaining the situation to them and they may offer replacements for the bad cigars (or replace your entire order just to be safe).

Hopes this helps.  If you have any more questions, please feel free to just ask and I will be happy to help.

Regards,
James