Cigar Taste
So what are some tips as to distinguishing "tastes" in your cigars. Excluding the Nub Connecticut (creamy and smooth) and the occasional spicy taste I can't really decipher what it is I am tasting. Basically I think 1) This is good 2) This is ok 3) This is bad. Am I missing something or does this just come with time?
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
j/k. Yes, that means I agree with you.
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 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.
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.
I couldn't agree more. My point was what you said about roughly 73 flavors. I believe everyone tastes things differently and I believe everyone has their own palate of flavors. HOWEVER anyone who can pick 73 flavors out of a cigar is full of *hit.