Excellent question A lot of the different hints of flavor come from where the tobacco is grown. Some regions like Panama and Jamaica are notorious for their mild flavored tobacco leaf. In the case of Jamaica(which is home to the Macanudo folks) efforts to introduce powerhouse cigar leaf to the island have been very unsuccessful. Tobacco leaf is very hardy, but takes on the individual attributes of taste that are incurred on the leaf by the leaf's respective growing region. Honduras and the Dominican Republic are widely known as being the exact opposite of Jamaica in this regard. Cuban exile cigar families(most notably the Toranos) experimented and tried to introduce Cuban seed to Honduras and the D.R. Likewise, if you want a spicy taste, try a Mexican cigar, or one that features Brazilian leaf!. Mexican leaf is meticulously grown in the San Andreas valley, and like the hearty geography of the region, gives you a dry, harsh taste. While Cubans are puros, domestic cigars get their unique flavor from the combination of leaves from different nations. The torcedor tries to replicate this over and over again in order to get consistency and a great tasting stogie. Take any cigar-throw in three or four filler leaf from various nations, choose a binder from yet another nation, as well as the wrapper from yet another-and voila!. I'll leave it to others to go on about the different kinds of wrappers and binders.