Interesting Cigar Facts

[Churchill's Ghost]

Leaf Shades



Double Claro: Very light, slightly greenish (also called Candela, American Market Selection or jade); achieved by picking leaves before maturity and drying quickly, the color coming from retained green chlorophyll; formerly popular, now rare.

Claro: Very light tan or yellowish. Indicative of shade-grown tobacco.

Colorado Claro: Medium brown, includes Natural and English Market Selection.

Colorado: Distinctive reddish-brown (also called Rosado or Corojo).

Colorado Maduro: Darker brown; often associated with African wrapper from Cameroon, and Honduran or Nicaraguan grown wrapper from Cuban seed.

Maduro: Very dark brown or black; primarily grown in Connecticut, Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil.

Oscuro: Very black, (also called Double Maduro), often oily in appearance; has become more popular in the 2000s; mainly grown in Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and Connecticut, USA.

[ggiese]

Double Claro
While oftentimes greenish to slightly greenish, this wrapper can also be of a yellow shade. It is achieved through a heat-assisted, fast drying process retaining the chlorophyll content of wrapper leaves. These wrappers have a very mild flavor. At one time these were very popular cigars, but interest had waned. There has again been an increase in the offering of these cigars recently.


Claro
This is a "shade-grown" tobacco, which typically has a light, tan color. Tobacco plants that yield these wrappers are usually grown under shade tents and the leaves are picked before they mature. They are then quickly air-dryed. Claro wrappers are typically mild (neutral) flavor.


Colorado Claro
Typically called "Natural", this wrapper often is a light brown in color and is most often sun-grown.


Colorado
Colorado wrappers have a range from medium-brown to brownish-red shade. These wrappers typically are shade-grown and characterized by a rich, sweet and fairly strong flavor. Colorado wrapped also cigars tend to have a subtle aroma.


Colorado Maduro
The color of this wrapper is somewhere between Colorado and Maduro, and is (as you point out) most notable in the Cameroon leaf from Africa. These wrappers have a distinctive sweet, rich and pleasantly spicy taste.


Maduro
The word Maduro means "ripe" in Spanish. It references a longer wrapper leave fermentation process, or most often are cooked in a pressure chamber to produce their distinctive wrapper color. These wrapper colors can vary from a dark reddish-brown to a very dark brown and are primarily grown in Connecticut, Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil. Cigars wrapped in a Maduro wrapper can vary in taste from mild/mellow to sweet and typically produce strong, earthy flavors with a mild aroma.

Oscuro
This wrapper is sometimes also called "black" or "negro" and is typically darker than Maduro. Oscuro is produced by leaving the wrapper leaves on the tobacco plant for a longer period of time before harvest. Only those leaves which have had the most sun (the top part of the tobacco plant) are used and they are fermented for a longer period of time to produce a dark, rich, oily "toothy" wrapper. Not unlike Maduro, cigars wrapped in Oscuro are sweet, strong and earthy with a mild aroma.

[ashauler]

It's interesting to see all these colors refer to harvesting early or late or whatever. From everything I've learned, tobacco is either "ripe" or it isn't. I've read some info on different varieties, primarily pipe and cigarette varieties, that suffer when allowed to over-ripen, but I've never heard of picking leaves "early" to affect their color. Leaf color is a function determined by the processor after harvest.....in other words, I could grow a leaf completely under shade. Harvest it very early, and still have it come out very dark brown in color. True, due to the typical fragility or thinness of shade grow leaves, it would most likely fall apart and be unsuitable for wrapper use.

From what I've seen, length of time on the stalk and the position of the leaf on the plant determine the thickness of the leaves....or durability if you will. This durability factor definitely affects what types of processing the leaves will endure and still come out "wrapper quality". Candela shade ligero leaves....definitely doable. Might taste like shit, but it's doable.

[prophetic_joe]

Nice posts George and Churchill's Ghost.

[badwhale]

Leaf Shades <snip> Oscuro: Very black, (also called Double Maduro), often oily in appearance; has become more popular in the 2000s; mainly grown in Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and Connecticut, USA.[/FONT][/SIZE]

They don't grow that way, they're fermented that way. Also, I thought that the majority of ISOM tobacco is sold in a colorado shade, or in other words, there's rarely "maduro" ISOMs and I can't think of one "oscuro" ISOM.

Will

[Churchill's Ghost]

1. When cigar smokers don’t inhale or smoke just a few cigars per day, the risks are only slightly above those of never smokers.

2. The risk of dying from any cause is statistically greater for cigar smokers than for people who have never smoked, with the risk higher for smokers less than 65 years old, and with risk for moderate and deep inhalers reaching levels similar to cigarette smokers. However, for those who don't inhale and smoke just 1 or 2 cigars per day, the risk of dying from all causes is statistically insignificant when compared to never smokers.

3. For those who inhale or smoke several cigars a day, types of health risk can be similar to those associated with cigarette smoking: nicotine addiction, periodontal disease, tooth loss, and many types of cancer, including cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus. Cigar smoking can also cause cancers of the lung and larynx. Cigar smoking can also increase the risk of lung and heart diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

4. When cigar smokers don’t inhale, or smoke just a few cigars per day, the risks of disease are greatly reduced compared to heavy cigar smokers. The increased risk for those smoking 1 to 2 cigars per day is too small to be statistically significant and the health risks of the 3/4 of cigar smokers who smoke less than daily are not established and are hard to measure.

Hence the the belief that cigars are better for you than cigarettes!: