Cigar Talk (5) “Imprint” on a cigar

I believe that many cigar fans have found that there will be some unknown spots on the skin (wrapper) of cigars. It is a well-known fact that cigars are pure natural products, and the white, green, yellow and black spots that appear on a tobacco leaf are all “marks of nature”.

Green Spots

Most of the green spots are not mold, but the chlorophyll of tobacco leaves, a substance that imparts color to plants. Tobacco farmers pick the tobacco leaves, which need to be placed in a ventilated and dry place. They are strung together with bamboo poles and placed in a special room to air dry, that is, by drying, the moisture in the tobacco leaves is removed. During this process, the chlorophyll of the tobacco leaves will gradually be converted into red pigment. The wrapper with green spots is not fully air-dried and oxidized to turn red during this process, and the tobacco leaves are used for the next step of processing.

Yellow Spots

Defects in tobacco leaves can easily lead to yellow spots. Cigar leaves belong to agricultural products, and naturally there will be some raw material defects in the production and drying process, such as bundling, wrapping, tobacco leaf damage, fiber breakage, and pest erosion during the growth process. Yellow spots will appear. Although the cigar leaves are dehydrated and dried under the same temperature and humidity environment when drying, the temperature and humidity contacted by each leaf or the leaves at different positions are different. This is an unavoidable phenomenon. It is in a compact and squeezed state, and the degree of oxidation of each leaf is different, which leads to the concentration of some yellow pigments, which survive during the fermentation process and form a yellow spot on the wrapper, which has no effect on the flavor of the cigar.

Black Spots

The dark spots on the cigar are caused by the wrapper being too humid during the drying process. Common sense of life tells us that it is easy to cause mildew and blackening in a humid and closed environment. The same is true for cigars. The humidity of wrapper tobacco leaves is too high during the drying process, and its chlorophyll and sugar are not completely decomposed, resulting in tobacco leaves from initially lighter pigments. Black spots. When the storage temperature of a box of cigars is higher than 75%, the probability of black spots or markings on the surface of the wrapper is very high. Therefore, when we shop for cigars from overseas or buy cigars in physical stores, if we see a box of cigars that are laid flat with the above black spots or markings on the wrappers, we can judge this box with great certainty. The overall condition of the cigar is high, and it is not suitable for short-term enjoyment.

White Spots

Cigar white spots can be understood as normal small white spots and moldy flaky white spots. The small white spots are due to infection of the tobacco leaves with Cercospora, which does not destroy the physical shape of the leaves, but only erodes the chlorophyll. These small white spots sometimes appear on the cigar, and sometimes appear before rolling, but these white spots are basically small and will not spread, which is normal, and will not have much impact on the taste of the cigar. If it is a white spot that can be gently removed with a finger, it is completely a flaky white spot produced after mildew.

 

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