Nicotine Strength – we measure it based on the classic 5 levels: light, med-light, medium, med-strong and strong.

Overall Aroma Register – the predominant aroma encountered during the multiple blind taste-tests we perform

After Smoke Aroma – this is not the “finish” after a puff while your cigar is still lit, it is the aroma that persists in your nose after your cigar is out

Organoleptic Richness – it is the convergence of key attributes such as aromas, palate perceptions, complexity, evolution and nicotine strength

Complexity – it is the horizontal dimension provided by the proportion, the variety and the quality of the various components of the aromatic palette along with the taste/palate perceptions. You can read our full article on complexity.

Evolution – in theory, and in short, it is a time dimension, representing the changes of the cigar characteristics as the tasting of the cigar progresses. See also our article on the evolution of a cigar as you smoke it.

Persistence – it is the duration of the aromatic and palate sensations after the cigar has been smoked. The longer the positive sensations persist, the better the experience is.

Smoke Duration – you will see that we tend to smoke slowly when we taste-test the cigars and we encourage you to smoke slowly too. This is the only way to truly enjoy the cigar and limit health impacts.

Shape – we observe the manufacturer preferred naming convention for the shape. Our members can search the analyzed cigars based on gauge (diameter) range and length range, reflecting a classification Cigar Sense has made with the purpose of simplifying the search.

Length – it is expressed in inches

Gauge – it is the measure of the diameter of the cigar, expressed in 1/64 of an inch

Country of Origin – the country where the cigar is manufactured

Wrapper Origin – the country where the wrapper leaf has been produced

Wrapper Type – it is simply “natural” or “dark”. Dark wrappers typically relate to maduro’s or oscuro’s, but can also be dyed wrappers. In fact, there are many processes used to get to a wrapper result that is marketed as maduro/oscuro. The detailed wrapper color classifications (eg claro, colorado claro, etc) coming from our analyses are aggregated to offer this very simple selection to help our members. Our focus is on matching cigars to consumer personal preferences. We are not aiming to provide a search engine based on pure anagraphic cigar data, nor we are qualified or entitled to review/certify the manufacturers processes.

Price Range – it usually corresponds to the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

Value for Price – this is the average value of all the outputs from each panelist based on their prior raw, gustative, organoleptic, mechanical and conclusive considerations. Our panelists get to see the price range for the cigar they evaluate in the final page of their online analysis form.

We may sometimes provide some beverage pairing suggestions. Of course this doesn’t rule out other pairing possibilities, which are extremely wide in variety and based on personal taste. To learn more, we invite you to read our article on pairing cigars with beverages.

Since 2017 we also may provide in our published analyses some indications about how the cigar fits our members. This is displayed in median fit % and is compared to the median fit % for all cigars in our database. The higher the median fit % of the analyzed cigar, the better the cigar performance is across our members at worldwide level. This serves as a prediction of the success of the cigar among consumers based on their personal preferences.

We don’t score cigars, we rank them based on how they fit our members’ unique personal tastes. We also support manufacturers with analytics for their strategic product planning exercises.