Edification on Cubans Requested

[Quint]

1st off if this is in violation of forum policy I appologize and Mods please delete.

A very good friend of mine who lives up in Canada and is a newbie to Cuban cigars purchased a box off PSD No 4 and Cohiba Silgo IV from an online store in Spain that claims to be in a duty free zone and has good prices. When I visited him earlier this year he was concerned that possibly the cigars were conterfeit. He let me have a look at the boxes they came in (being no expert myself) they seemed to have legitimate markings on them as far as I could tell from researching the internet about what to look for. The online store also lists factory code of product being sold. When I smoked a few that he gave me I would classify them both as average at best. Cohiba burned uneven. PSD burned okay but not a real tight ash and taste of both was like I mentioned average. I was very dissapointed to say the least.

We stayed in contact throughout the year and every once in a while I would ask him how the Cubans were he said PSD's got better with age but not much of an improvement in the Cohibas. I just recently went up for another visit over the summer and sparked up a few he had left. I would say the PSD's did improve dramatically and were a pretty darn good smoke. The Cohibas on the other hand were still nothing impressive.

Sorry for the long winded story but my questions are, has anybody delt with this online store before and are they legitimate ? As far as the PSD's getting better do you think the were just young cigars that need to age or is this store just ripping him off. The store on the outside seems to be legit but with both of us having very little experience in the cuban genre I really wouldn't know.

Thanks for any help
Quint

[basil]

I don't know about the cohibas, but the PSD4 are noted for being a cigar that is very good when fresh, and then moves into a "sick" period w/in 6-12 months (?), after which they're pretty hard to smoke for the next year or more. Then they improve considerably and are hard to beat. The time periods vary, I guess depending on storage conditions.

There is a wealth of information over on Cigar Pass.

[SmokinDVM]

My understanding, from very limited experience, is that MOST ISOM's need at least a year of age before they start to hit their peak. Some will need more age, some less, like the PSD4.

Let the Cohiba's rest some more, they are generally a very consistent smoke.

[cls515]

How old are the Cohibas?

[jiaguy]

I got the same thing from a fresh box of esplendidos. But mine were produced a few weeks before i bought them. The grass taste is overpowering and its like smoking lawn clippings. If you got at least some grassy taste then I'd say its probably a real box...

What to look for is three rows of white square dots above the Cohiba logo which should be embossed in gold. There should be a habanos slip in the box made of waxish paper and two stickers, the export sticker with a clear printing and a clearly imperfect lot number (red numebrs at bottom) and a habanos white with red text sticker.

The latch to the box should have a clear wreath on it, there should be a date on the bottom. No holograms or stuff I did dot see a single authenticity hologram at a Habanos store in Cuba despite their prevelance (fake) in the N. American market.

The clearest tell tale for a fake is a poorly printed export sticker, most fakes I have seen have had a shady sticker.

[Quint]

I got the same thing from a fresh box of esplendidos. But mine were produced a few weeks before i bought them. The grass taste is overpowering and its like smoking lawn clippings. If you got at least some grassy taste then I'd say its probably a real box...

What to look for is three rows of white square dots above the Cohiba logo which should be embossed in gold. There should be a habanos slip in the box made of waxish paper and two stickers, the export sticker with a clear printing and a clearly imperfect lot number (red numebrs at bottom) and a habanos white with red text sticker.

The latch to the box should have a clear wreath on it, there should be a date on the bottom. No holograms or stuff I did dot see a single authenticity hologram at a Habanos store in Cuba despite their prevelance (fake) in the N. American market.

The clearest tell tale for a fake is a poorly printed export sticker, most fakes I have seen have had a shady sticker.

Thanks for your info. I'll take a closer look at the box maybe takes some pics and post them.