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This notion has become a selling point for many cigars since the status-conscious boom years of the 1990s, despite the fact that Cuban cigars, still the benchmark of excellence, are not known for this particular attribute.
So what does a clean powder-white ash contribute to a cigar’s quality? “Other than aesthetics, absolutely nothing,” is the blunt answer from Bahia Cigar’s Tony Borhani. “It means the soil has lots of phosphorus and calcium. The soil that produces Sumatra tobacco will always give a white ash. Cuban soil is low in calcium and that’s how they maintain it, so Cuban cigars’ ashes are hardly ever white.”
Quesada adds magnesium to the list of minerals that could influence an ash’s color, and believes that a range of gray ashes indicates healthier tobacco. “The traditional criteria in the industry are that extremes are never the rule,” he states. “Too white or too black is not as desirable as a range of grays.” Magnesium, while it may have an effect on how sweet a tobacco tastes, can also cause the ash to become flaky if there is too much of it in the soil.
