Just like tasting wine and delicious food, how to evaluate the quality and taste of a cigar has always been discussed and concerned by all cigar lovers and experts. Like other commodities, the five senses are first used to judge cigars. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste are all essential steps, and only by repeatedly tasting in these steps can we discover the true meaning of cigars. When you taste cigars, you need to sit down and experience them in all directions with vision, touch, smell, taste and hearing. Vision and touch always come down in one continuous line. When you pick up a cigar from the cigar box, you are actually looking at it, and you will be attracted by its beautiful appearance and smooth feeling. Its silky texture, smooth texture and bright colors will definitely make you have unlimited reverie. Of course, the texture of eggplant coated tobacco leaves in different places is different. The best eggplant coated tobacco leaves from Cuba are really like silk, with smooth and soft structure, elasticity and toughness. In contrast, the surface of tomato coat in Cameroon is rough and greasy. These rough surfaces contain mellow taste and pure eggplant fragrance. Eggplant coats from Connecticut and Ecuador are smooth, and good Ecuadorian tobacco leaves feel smooth, but they look a little uneven. Connecticut eggplant is dark in color, not smooth to the touch, but shiny. Although the oily strength of eggplant skin is different, the oil in eggplant skin shows that cigars are well moisturized and relatively cool when smoking. Cool cigars are also relatively rich in flavor, because your nose and taste buds can not only capture the taste of hot carbonized tobacco leaves, but also capture a more subtle taste. Of course, there are no cracks and folds on the well-preserved cigar eggplant coat. If there are loose and enlarged circles or contractions, the internal structure will be destroyed. Internal damage also means that pumping is not smooth and combustion is unbalanced. After the cigar is lit by soot, you can further evaluate it visually. The first is gray, and the whiter the gray, the better, so white gray is better than gray gray. This is not just a matter of aesthetics. Fuente once said: "The whiter the ash produced by combustion, the better the tobacco leaves and the better the taste." Of course, ash is not something to taste, but gray ash means that the soil where tobacco leaves are planted lacks some important nutrients, leaving cigars with a dull body or monotonous taste. The final basis for judging the quality of cigars by vision is the burning speed of cigars. Unbalanced combustion will distort the taste. Different tobacco leaves and configurations determine that the burning speed of cigars may be different. It may be mild at first, then intense, or more diverse. The reason why there are so many changes in taste is mainly because tobacco leaves come from different regions. Uneven burning marginalizes the taste of cigars, and it is easy to produce a state that one cigar has burned and the other has stopped. These will lead to poor drinking, strong smoke, single taste and no taste. Regarding fragrance and taste, taste and smell are almost inseparable "partners", and many people are highly sensitive to taste or smell. Moreover, many people have experienced that nasal congestion affects taste function. Theoretically, if you lose your sense of smell, half of your taste buds will be lost, especially when you smoke cigars, because you are not eating cigars, but smelling cigars. In order to make the taste of cigars perfect, cigar manufacturers pay attention to the fragrance and smoke emitted by cigars. Flavor and taste are inseparable: "fragrance doesn't have to be strong or mild, but without it, cigars have no taste." On the contrary, taste can be quantified. "Taste mainly depends on the tongue and taste buds. Everything has only four basic flavors: sour, sweet, bitter and spicy, and other flavors are made up of these four flavors. " Generally, it is the so-called "food language" (coffee, chocolate, nuts, etc. ) is not used to describe cigars, but the words "sour, salty, bitter, sweet, peaceful, rich, mellow, rich and balanced" are used. With regard to durability, in addition to these languages used to describe and evaluate cigars, the core factors that produce cigars with different tastes are different types of tobacco leaves. In order to make the taste sustainable, that is to say, one kind of cigar tastes the same every year, which is one of the most difficult tasks for every cigar manufacturer. Because the climate conditions are different every year and every season, there are no two identical leaves in the world, so there are no two identical cigars in the world. So how can manufacturers continue the sustainability of cigars? There are two reasons why tobacco leaves from different regions and types are rolled. The first is to make up for the deficiency of nature-the taste of tobacco leaves changes every year, and the second is to make the taste more diversified. More specifically, we can get a similar taste from one type of tobacco leaves. In order to ensure the diversity of taste and the continuity of the same taste every year, the tobacco leaves of a good cigar must come from several different regions, and different varieties, grades and harvest dates can make the whole cigar taste perfect and balanced. As Fuente said, "A cigarette manufacturer must have a series of tobacco ingredients to roll cigars. If you only give him salt and pepper, you will set a limit for him. " But if you give him different amounts of materials and spices, even if the pepper harvest is not good in a year, you can adjust it to achieve the overall balance, but consumers will not realize any differences and changes. "I believe that it seems that the same cigar has always had a consistent configuration, but in fact we have been fooled." Just like two delicious red apples taste almost the same, we are used to and convinced of their taste. Similarly, no two cigars taste exactly the same, but we always believe that they taste the same. But it is not easy to achieve overall balance. Any configuration has infinite variables to change the taste. Chelner only listed 10 variables: soil, tobacco varieties, climate, geographical factors, processing methods, harvesting methods, fermentation process, alcoholization environment, rolling methods, moisture retention and so on. Not all cigar manufacturers agree with the variables listed above, but they all agree that eggplant skin has the greatest influence on the delicate taste of cigars, and eggplant heart determines the strength of the taste. Chelner said: "Neutral eggplant coats, such as Cameroonian eggplant coats, can make up for various and fragrant eggplant hearts and eggplant cigars. "Eggplant skins in Connecticut can deliver 20% of the fragrance, while Cameroon can only deliver 5%. "He quantified these figures, and pointed out that the strong eggplant cover and eggplant coat will eliminate this 20% influence, while cigars with larger ring diameter are less affected by the taste of eggplant coat, so the ratio of eggplant heart to eggplant coat in Churchill size is much larger than that in Lancero size. Chelner's analysis on the distribution ratio, alcoholization degree and overall structure of cigars is more specific than that of his peers. He also quantified the influence of the ratio of eggplant core to tomato cover tobacco leaves on the taste and aroma. Under normal weather and tobacco quality, Chelner thinks that the influence of eggplant cover on the whole cigar taste accounts for more than 20%, and eggplant core accounts for more than 40%. Of course, these figures are not immutable, but one thing is certain: tomato sets, even relatively light-flavored tobacco leaves, have a certain impact on the taste; The heart of eggplant will determine the overall intensity of taste; Whether eggplant skin can add personality and unique flavor to the whole depends on its own conditions such as seed source and type. The factors that most other producers agree on are the alcoholization conditions and structure. A good cigar has a series of different flavors. One way to change the taste is the aging time of different tobacco leaves. Fuente said: "Alcoholization can make cigars smoother and richer in taste. Cigars just brought from the table of the cigarette factory don't have this taste. " Both Carrillo and Chelner agreed. The last factor that affects the taste is good structure. Apart from other factors, even the best configuration in the world, poor structure will lower the grade of cigars. There are many reasons why the structure destroys the taste: first, smoking is not smooth, and loose smoking will increase the temperature of cigars and destroy the taste; If you sip it too tightly, it will reduce the sensitivity and perception of taste buds, and you can't really taste the taste. Even after quantifying the taste, cigar masters don't want to turn cigar rolling into a purely scientific process. Chelner insists that tobacco leaves are naturally developed: "A good cigar will affect every sensory cell of mine." Carrillo also said, "When I meet a good cigar, I don't want to put it down." Fuente is more calm than his two peers. He praised the unique artistic conception brought by a good cigar: "It emits smoke and slowly moves towards peace in silence." They know in their hearts that cigars are far more meaningful than what they summarized above. However, cigars are still analytical and observational. These tobacco experts admit that the quality of cigars can be distinguished by observing the richness and complexity, ash content, burning speed and taste of tobacco leaves. But this doesn't mean that your romantic story with cigars is over, just that you can learn more about cigars. Of course, these standards and understandings are all theoretical. More importantly, practice yourself according to the above standards and steps in the process of smoking cigars, and then sum up your own standards from personal experience, and you will become an authority. Disclaimer: This article only represents the author's personal views and has nothing to do with Phoenix. 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