*For the sake of brevity I'll kick it off with a summary . In a nutshell, what exactly is "Plume"? What causes it? Should it be scraped off or otherwise removed from one's cigar prior to smoking it? Does it affect the other cigars in a humidor with a cigar "hosting" it in any way. MOST IMPORTANTLY, how does one tell if they are looking at "Plume" or mold? Thank You in advance - Mayam

I was out of town recently and visited a friend's place whom I hadn't seen in 7 - 8 years and pleasantly discovered he had begun smoking cigars as well. His Dad was quite the afficianado as I recall but we had no interest in such back when. We experienced our first cigars about 15 years ago together though on occasions to celebrate this or that but we wouldn't have known a good cigar if it had come along, jumped up between our teeth and proceeded to light it's self back when. It just kind of seemed strange coincidence we had begun an honest pursuit of quality cigars at roughly the same age now though. Honestly he has a couple years jump on me and has accumulated what he described as a quite respectable collection. He certainly had a couple nice humidors to look the part at least! )

Anyway, that brings me around to my point. He had a few that I instantly honed in on with some SUPER DARK wrappers that looked particularly good and uh... sheeny (that a word?), well oily, humidified, whatever is the appropo term. I took them to be Maduro wrappers but I'm still pretty much operating in the hobby with book smarts rather than experience so maybe they were some other type of dark, "sheeny" wrapper. Upon further examination I noticed whitish 'blotches' on them though and, so as not to come off as insulting I tried to innocently point this out to him thinking in the back of my mind his stock had gone bad.

It was then that he informed me of this condition known as "Plume" and that it was actually a sign of quality. Feigning belief and awe but still feeling in the back of my mind that his cigars were "turning" (for lack of a better term), I weaseled out claiming that I was not yet really a fan of "strong" or full bodied cigars that he claimed them to be and he offered me something else in a Conn. wrapper - blotch ("Plume") free. I believe the brand was Macanudo we ended up smoking first ultimately, and they were honestly better than anything I've so far purchased and sampled (I may be mistaken on the brand though). This "Plume" condition lingered in my mind though and I've since been looking it up as time allows. Not surprisingly either, I indeed was an idiot if it truly was plume I was seeing. Keen enough to observe Mr. Switzer's little kernel of wisdom though advising one to: 'remain silent and appear a fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt'

Anywho, I've looked up the term and read a few blurbs on the net about it (inclucing one that spoke about it a bit further down the list of posts in this forum as well) but I was kind of hoping someone here could maybe give me a real quick consolidation of facts about it. Particularly though:

What exactly is it and what causes it - all I'm sure of is its caused / found on darker, oilier wraps

Does it affect the flavor of it's "host" cigar and / or those in the humidor with it

Should the plume be removed from the wrapper prior to smoking; and how EXACTLY does one tell it's difference form mold?

I'm sure I'll end up with many more questions but I'm in the process of further filtering through what info I can gleen from the few trustworthy sites I've so far found. I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the "Brain Trust" here at Cigar Smokers.com as well though as the info will likely be more trust worthy with all the experienced cigar smokers here coming together and collectively agreeing on what is fact and what is just "anecdotal guesswork" that's been repeated so many times it's become accepted as fact.

Much appreciated for any of you who can offer me any knowledge on this subject and I thank You in advance.

Sincerest Thanks,

- Mayam