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LearnCigar Glossary
This glossary holds the short version of every term the site's reviews and Learn pages lean on... plain definitions, each pointing to the full page that carries the detail.
Terms run A to Z. Each entry gives the quick definition, then links the full Learn page and any close relatives. The definitions stay deliberately short... the linked pages hold the depth, the myths, and the exceptions.
A
Aging. Resting finished, rolled cigars so the tobaccos settle, mellow, and marry. Aging happens after rolling and never really ends until the cigar is lit... distinct from fermentation, which happens to loose leaf in piles before rolling. More aging is not automatically better; a mild blend can fade. Full page: Fermentation & Aging. See also: How a Cigar Is Made, Storage Basics.
Arapiraca. One of Brazil's two famous wrapper leaves, grown around the town of the same name in Alagoas. Dark and naturally sweet-leaning with a rustic edge, it shows up on maduro-leaning blends. Its Bahia-grown sibling is Mata Fina. Full page: Brazilian Wrappers. See also: Brazil, Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf.
Aromatic. A word borrowed from the pipe-tobacco world, where it names blends with added flavoring. In a cigar shop it usually just means infused... a cigar that picked up its aroma from botanicals during curing rather than from anything applied to the leaf. If a shopkeeper steers you to "the aromatics," expect the infused case. Full page: Flavored & Infused Cigars. See also: How Infusion Works.
Ashing. Removing the ash by rolling or pressing it gently against the tray... never flicking or stabbing like a cigarette, which breaks the ember. Full page: Ash Management. See also: Reading the Ash.
B
B&M. Brick-and-mortar... a physical cigar shop with a walk-in humidor. Prices run a few dollars above online for the same stick, which buys singles, advice, and cigars you can look at before paying. Where most people should buy their first ones. Full page: How to Buy Cigars. See also: How to Read a WSA Review.
Band. The paper ring around a cigar's body carrying the brand name, sometimes joined by a second band naming the line or vitola. It protects a strip of wrapper, and it earns a mention in reviews when the glue sticks to the leaf. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: How a Cigar Is Made, Reading the Wrapper.
Belicoso. A figurado with a standard straight body ending in a short, rounded taper at the head. The taper funnels smoke onto a smaller patch of the palate. In practice the name gets used almost interchangeably with torpedo. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: Parejo Shapes, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Binder. The leaf rolled around the filler to hold the bunch in shape. It is picked for strength, elasticity, and clean burning rather than looks... the structural worker underneath the wrapper's paint job. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: Cigar Wrappers, Long vs Short Filler.
Bloom/Plume. Crystallized oils rising to a cigar's surface as a fine, even, dusty-white shimmer that wipes away clean and has no smell. Harmless and genuinely rare... most of what gets called plume is actually mold, which is fuzzy, musty, and stains the leaf. Full page: Reading the Wrapper. See also: Storage Basics, Humidity and RH.
Box code. The factory and date stamps on the underside of a Cuban box. A missing or nonsense code is a tell; a plausible one is not proof, since fakers stamp boxes too. Full page: Fake Cuban Cigars. See also: Cuba.
Box-pressed. A cigar pressed into a squared profile after rolling... same tobacco, flat sides. Soft presses keep rounded shoulders; sharp presses have edges you can feel. Full page: Box-Pressed Cigars. See also: Parejo Shapes, Figurado Shapes.
Bunch. The filler leaves gathered, folded, and rolled inside the binder... the cigar before its wrapper goes on. Bunching is its own factory job, and a careless bunch is behind many draw and burn problems. Full page: How a Cigar Is Made. See also: Anatomy of a Cigar, The Draw.
Bundle. Cigars sold in cellophane-wrapped packs rather than a cedar box, commonly 16 to 25 sticks, usually at a lower price. The savings come from the packaging and the marketing budget, not automatically from the tobacco... plenty of bundles are handmade and good. Full page: How to Buy Cigars. See also: Handmade vs Machine-Made.
C
Cabinet box. A plain wood box, often slide-lid, cigars commonly ribbon-bundled inside... the understated packaging tier collectors tend to prefer. Full page: Reading a Cigar Box. See also: How to Buy Cigars.
Calibration kit. A pre-sealed pouch with a 75.5% two-way pack inside... the no-mixing version of the salt test. Seal the hygrometer in for a day and read the offset. Full page: Calibrating a Hygrometer. See also: Humidity Packs, Gel, and Beads.
Cameroon. A thin, delicate, toothy wrapper grown in Central Africa, prized for a sweet-and-spicy subtlety no other leaf quite copies. Supply has run tight for decades, which is a big part of the mystique. Full page: Cameroon Wrapper. See also: Cameroon, Reading the Wrapper.
Candela. The green wrapper. Leaf cured quickly with heat so it keeps its chlorophyll instead of browning... grassy, mild, and filed at the far light end of the color scale. Once so standard in the US it carried the trade name American Market Selection. Full page: Candela Wrapper. See also: Cigar Wrappers, Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers.
Cap. The small circle of wrapper leaf sealing the closed end of a cigar. Cutting just the cap opens the airflow and keeps the wrapper anchored; cutting below the shoulder invites unraveling. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: The Draw, Figurado Shapes.
Cedar spill. A thin strip of cedar, often the sheet from a cigar box, lit from another flame and used to light the cigar. Adds no fuel taste and a little cedar character. Traditional, slow, and impractical outdoors. Full page: How to Light a Cigar.
Cellophane. The clear sleeve on a single cigar. It's porous, so cigars breathe through it and humidify fine with it on. Leave it on for travel and mixed storage, take it off for long aging of one blend. Yellowing with age is normal, not damage. Full page: Cellophane: On or Off?. See also: How Long Cigars Last, Storage Basics.
Churchill. A long parejo, typically 7 × 47-48, named for Winston Churchill and the habit that made the size famous. A long, comparatively slim smoke for an unhurried stretch of time. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Which Size, When.
Cigar glue. Pectin-based, food-safe, flavorless adhesive for wrapper repairs... a thin film on a lifting seam or small crack, hold, wait. Full page: Cigar Glue and Field Repairs. See also: How to Cut a Cigar.
Claro. A pale gold to light tan wrapper shade... classic shade-grown territory, with Connecticut Shade the poster leaf. It tends mild, grassy, and dry. Candela is sometimes called double claro. The next steps darker are the colorado shades. Full page: Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers. See also: Connecticut Shade Wrapper, Candela Wrapper.
Colorado. The reddish-brown center of the wrapper color scale, often oily and aromatic, flanked by colorado claro on the lighter side and colorado maduro on the darker. Sun-grown wrappers often land in this band. Full page: Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers. See also: Cigar Wrappers, Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf.
Connecticut Broadleaf. A thick, dark, sun-grown leaf from the Connecticut River Valley, stalk-cut at harvest and dense enough to survive the long fermentation maduro demands... the tobacco behind the classic American maduro. People describe dark chocolate, espresso, and molasses. Full page: Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper. See also: Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf, United States.
Connecticut Shade. A thin, golden, mild wrapper grown under cloth in the Connecticut River Valley... the creamy leaf most people meet on their first cigar. The same seed raised under Ecuador's cloud cover sells as Ecuadorian Connecticut. Full page: Connecticut Shade Wrapper. See also: Ecuador, Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers.
Contract brand. A cigar brand that hires another company's factory to roll its blend. The brand owns the recipe and the marketing; the factory owns the rollers, the aging rooms, and the licenses. The opposite is a factory-owned, or house, brand. Full page: Contract vs Owned Brands. See also: Who Makes What.
Coolerdor. A picnic cooler pressed into service as high-volume cigar storage, run with two-way packs. The insulation and gasket that keep ice cold hold humidity just as well... the cheapest legitimate path to storing hundreds. Full page: Your First Humidor. See also: Humidity Packs, Gel, and Beads, Storage Basics.
Corojo. A Cuban-born wrapper seed with a spice-first, pepper-and-cedar reputation. Disease chased it out of Cuba, and it thrives today in Honduras and Nicaragua, often as hardier hybrids like Corojo 99. Full page: Corojo Wrapper. See also: Corojo vs Habano, Honduras.
Corona. The old benchmark parejo, typically 5.25 × 42-44... the size other vitolas get measured against. Petit corona and corona gorda are its shorter and fatter relatives. It's the old default... the modern robusto and toro have long since outsold it. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Ring Gauge.
Corona Gorda. Literally a fat corona... a parejo around 5.5 × 46, splitting the difference between the classic corona and the modern robusto in both feel and smoking time. The wrapper still carries a solid share of each puff at this ring. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Which Size, When.
Criollo. Cuba's native tobacco and one of the island's oldest seed lines, now grown across Central America, usually as the Criollo 98 strain. Rounder and softer in profile than its cousin corojo. The name is Spanish for native, which is exactly the claim. Full page: Criollo Wrapper. See also: Corojo Wrapper, Habano Wrapper.
Cuban sandwich. Mixed filler: chopped short-filler pieces wrapped inside a few long-filler leaves. A budget construction that smokes noticeably better than plain short filler, because the whole leaves give the burn some structure. Full page: Long vs Short Filler. See also: How a Cigar Is Made, What Is a Puro?.
Curing. Drying harvested tobacco in barns for several weeks while the green fades to brown... moisture leaves as the chlorophyll breaks down. Air-curing is the norm; quick heat-curing is the exception that keeps candela green. Cured leaf still needs fermentation before it is smokable. Full page: How a Cigar Is Made. See also: Fermentation & Aging, Candela Wrapper.
Cutting station. An event setup where cigars, cutters, and lighters sit staged in one place... guests cut before they wander off. Beats circulating one cutter through forty people. Full page: Wedding and Celebration Cigars. See also: How to Cut a Cigar.
D
Draw. The resistance felt when puffing... how freely air moves through the cigar. Tight means too much resistance, loose means too little, plugged means blocked outright. The biggest mechanical factor in whether a smoke is a pleasure or a workout. Full page: The Draw. See also: Burn Issues, Anatomy of a Cigar.
Draw tool. A retractable auger that clears a plugged cigar from the head without cutting deeper... the purpose-built fix for a tight draw. Full page: Fixing a Tight Draw. See also: The Draw.
Dress box. The decorated, paper-finished retail cigar box... the version built to sell from a shelf. Full page: Reading a Cigar Box. See also: How to Buy Cigars.
E
Ecuadorian Connecticut. Connecticut-seed shade wrapper grown in Ecuador, where a permanent deck of Pacific cloud does the job of shade cloth. The default mild, creamy wrapper on a large share of modern blends. Full page: Connecticut Shade Wrapper. See also: Ecuador, Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers.
El Laguito. The Havana factory created to roll Cohiba... originally Castro's private production house, still the brand's home. Full page: The Two Cohibas. See also: Cuba.
F
Fermentation. The controlled sweating of cured leaf in managed piles called pilones... weeks or months of heat and moisture that drive off ammonia, darken the leaf, and build the flavors a blender wants. It happens to loose leaf before rolling; aging happens to the finished cigar after. Full page: Fermentation & Aging. See also: Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf, How a Cigar Is Made.
Figurado. Any cigar that isn't a straight-sided cylinder... if it tapers, points, or bulges anywhere, it belongs to this family. Belicoso, torpedo, pyramid, perfecto, and salomon are the main shapes, and they are harder to roll than parejos. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: Parejo Shapes, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Filler. The tobacco inside a cigar... most of its volume and most of its flavor. Blenders build it from different primings (ligero for power, seco for aroma, volado to keep it lit), as whole long filler or chopped short filler. Full page: Long vs Short Filler. See also: Ligero, Seco, Viso, Anatomy of a Cigar.
Flavored. A cigar with flavor put on the tobacco... food-grade essences, oils, or sweeteners applied to the leaf, the tip, or both, then rested so the flavor settles in. On this site the word always means the handmade, all-tobacco kind. Distinct from infused, where the leaf only absorbs aroma from the air around it. Full page: Flavored & Infused Cigars. See also: How Flavoring Works, Sweet vs Sweetened.
Foot. The open end of a cigar... the end that gets lit. On most parejos the filler shows in cross-section at the foot; some figurados close it, so the first puffs taste mostly of wrapper. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: Figurado Shapes, How to Taste a Cigar.
G
Ghosting. One cigar's aroma soaking into the cigars stored around it. Infused and flavored cigars are the usual offenders... their oils keep off-gassing in the box, and everything sharing the air picks up the scent. The fix is separation: infused sticks live in their own sealed container, always. Full page: Infused Cigars & Ghosting. See also: Storage Basics.
Glass-top box. A cigar box with a clear display lid. Habanos S.A. has never packaged Cubans this way, which makes the glass-top 'Cuban' box the closest thing counterfeit-spotting has to a guarantee... it's fake. Full page: Fake Cuban Cigars. See also: Cuba.
Gordo. The big-ring parejo, typically 6 × 60 and often just called a Sixty. All that filler makes for a cooler burn, a smaller wrapper share in each puff, and a long sit. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Ring Gauge, Which Size, When.
Guillotine cut. A straight cut across the head of the cigar. Double-blade versions slice from both sides at once and tear less than single-blade. The default cut... works on nearly every shape and gives an open draw. Full page: How to Cut a Cigar. See also: The Draw.
H
Habano. A family of Cuban-seed wrappers grown today mostly in Ecuador and Nicaragua... spicier than Connecticut, comfortable at almost any strength, and one of the most common wrapper names on modern cigars. Full page: Habano Wrapper. See also: Corojo vs Habano, Nicaragua.
Habanos S.A.. The Cuban state company that markets and exports every legitimate Cuban cigar brand worldwide. If a Cuban cigar didn't pass through Habanos S.A.'s chain, it isn't a Cuban cigar... which is most of what tourists get sold. Full page: Cuba. See also: Fake Cuban Cigars.
Head. The closed end of a cigar, the one that goes in the mouth. It is sealed by the cap and gets cut before smoking... the opposite end from the foot, which gets lit. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: The Draw.
Herf. A gathering of people smoking cigars. No structure, no dues, no ceremony... a few chairs and a couple of hours. The word sounds like an institution and isn't one. Full page: Cigar Lounge Etiquette.
Homogenized tobacco leaf (HTL). Sheets of pulverized tobacco and cellulose, pressed uniform so machines can roll them as binder or wrapper. Cheap and consistent, and one of the clearest tells of a machine-made cigar... a handmade premium cigar uses whole leaf instead. Full page: Handmade vs Machine-Made. See also: Long vs Short Filler, Anatomy of a Cigar.
Humidor. A box built to hold cigars at a stable relative humidity, traditionally lined with Spanish cedar that absorbs moisture when the air runs wet and releases it when dry. Any sealed container doing that job counts as real storage. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Humidity and RH.
Hygrometer. The gauge that reads relative humidity inside cigar storage. Digital ones drift, so they get checked against a known reference now and then... a wrong gauge means quietly wrong storage. It's the instrument behind every RH number a review quotes. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Humidity and RH.
I
Infused. A cigar that absorbed added aroma during production... the tobacco rests in rooms alongside botanicals, herbs, and essential oils and soaks up the scent without anything touching the leaf. The method behind the ACID line and the modern infused category. Subtler and more tobacco-forward than applied flavoring. Full page: Flavored & Infused Cigars. See also: How Infusion Works, Infused Cigars & Ghosting.
L
La Casa del Habano. Habanos S.A.'s official franchise store network... the one retail channel where a Cuban cigar's authenticity is close to guaranteed. The reliable buying rule reduces to: buy there or from an authorized dealer, or assume risk. Full page: Fake Cuban Cigars. See also: Cuba.
Lancero. The skinniest long parejo, around 7-7.5 × 38-40. With so little filler inside, the wrapper carries an outsized share of the flavor... heavily wrapper-forward by geometry. A demanding format that factories hand to experienced rollers. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Ring Gauge, Cigar Wrappers.
Ligero. The top priming... leaves from the top of the plant that caught full sun. Thick, dark, slow-burning, and loaded with nicotine, it works as the engine of a blend and gets buried in the center of the filler bunch. Full page: Ligero, Seco, Viso. See also: Strength vs Body vs Flavor, Fermentation & Aging.
Long-filler. Whole leaves folded lengthwise and fanned so air travels from foot to head, stacked in a deliberate recipe of primings. The standard for handmade premium cigars... a slower, more even burn and a flavor arc the blender controls. Full page: Long vs Short Filler. See also: Ligero, Seco, Viso, How a Cigar Is Made.
Lonsdale. A long, slim, old-school parejo, typically 6.5 × 42-44... corona proportions stretched long, with the trim ring gauge keeping the wrapper's voice loud in every puff. An old catalog staple that shows up more in special runs than core lines these days. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Ring Gauge.
M
Machine-made. A cigar built by machine for speed and price... usually chopped short filler, and often homogenized tobacco leaf or other non-tobacco materials standing in for the binder and wrapper. A different product class from handmade, all-tobacco cigars, and outside what this site covers. Full page: Handmade vs Machine-Made. See also: Long vs Short Filler.
Maduro. A process, not a plant: longer, warmer fermentation that turns a thick, sturdy leaf dark, sweet, and rich. Many different tobaccos can be taken to maduro... and darker does not automatically mean stronger. Full page: Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf. See also: Oscuro Wrapper, Fermentation & Aging.
Mata Fina. Brazil's best-known wrapper leaf, grown in Bahia in the rural northeast. Dark, with a built-in natural sweetness that barely needs the maduro treatment. Arapiraca, from Alagoas, is its more rustic sibling. Full page: Brazilian Wrappers. See also: Brazil, Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf.
Media rueda. A "half wheel" of 50 finished cigars, tied off at the rolling table as a counting unit. It divides cleanly into two 25-count boxes, which is one reason the classic box counts stuck around long after the 1865 tax law that set them. Full page: How Many Cigars Come in a Box?. See also: Reading a Cigar Box, Cigar Box Splits and Group Buys.
Mold. Live growth in fuzzy, raised patches of white, blue-green, or gray. It smells musty, smears or stains when wiped, and favors the foot and the seams. Mold means storage ran too wet... not to be confused with plume, which is harmless. Full page: Reading the Wrapper. See also: Humidity and RH, Storage Basics.
N
Natural. Trade shorthand for a wrapper that is neither candela nor maduro... cured and fermented the ordinary amount, landing anywhere from claro to colorado maduro. On a band, Natural or Maduro names the wrapper's fermentation path, not two different plants. The old import term English Market Selection (EMS) covers the same browns. Full page: Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers. See also: Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf, Cigar Wrappers.
Nub. The last inch or two of a cigar... the hottest, strongest, most concentrated stretch, where accumulated heat and tars turn plenty of good smokes bitter. Smoking it down is a preference, not a duty. Full page: The Nub. See also: How to Taste a Cigar, The Draw.
O
Oscuro. The darkest wrapper class... near-black leaf a step past maduro, built from thick tobacco and long fermentation. A color class and a process, still not a separate kind of tobacco plant. Full page: Oscuro Wrapper. See also: Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf, Cigar Wrappers.
P
Panetela. A slim, elegant parejo, roughly 6-7 × 34-38, mostly out of fashion in the big-ring era. Like all skinny formats, it puts the wrapper's flavor out front. A staple of mid-century catalogs, before ring gauges swelled. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Ring Gauge.
Parejo. The standard cigar shape: straight sides, a rounded head you cut, and an open foot you light. Robusto, toro, corona, and Churchill are all parejos... anything that tapers or bulges is a figurado instead. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Figurado Shapes, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Pennsylvania Broadleaf. A thick, dark, stalk-cut American leaf from Lancaster County with a rustic edge and real strength... Connecticut Broadleaf's rowdier cousin, and it has been showing up on more maduro blends. Full page: Pennsylvania Broadleaf Wrapper. See also: Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper, United States.
Perfecto. A figurado tapered at both ends, usually with a rounded belly and a closed foot. The closed foot means the first few puffs are mostly wrapper, so a perfecto opens on a different note than it settles into. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Cigar Wrappers.
Personal exemption. The duty-free allowance US travelers get on goods brought home... commonly $800 with up to 100 cigars inside it, under current guidance. Full page: Buying Cigars on Vacation. See also: Traveling with Cigars.
Petit Corona. The short classic parejo, about 4.5 × 40-42... the right size when the smoke has to fit inside a half hour or so, without giving up the corona's proportions. The classic short-break vitola. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Which Size, When, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Pilón. A managed pile of cured tobacco (plural pilones) that heats up from its own moisture, pressure, and chemistry. Workers watch the temperature, tear each pile down before it runs too hot, and rebuild it with the leaves rotated... the engine room of fermentation. Full page: Fermentation & Aging. See also: How a Cigar Is Made, Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf.
Plug. A hard knot in the filler that blocks airflow... found by feel as a firm spot in an otherwise even barrel. Massage, a deeper cut, or a draw tool are the outs. Full page: Fixing a Tight Draw. See also: The Draw.
Priming. One round of harvest. Pickers work up the stalk a few leaves at a time over several weeks, and each pass is a priming. The word also names the leaf's position: higher primings caught more sun and smoke stronger. Ligero, viso, seco, and volado are all primings. Full page: Ligero, Seco, Viso. See also: How a Cigar Is Made, Long vs Short Filler.
Punch cut. A small circular blade that twists a plug out of the cap, leaving the rest intact. Smaller opening, firmer draw, nothing to unravel. Can't handle pointed heads, and the hole can clog on a long smoke. Full page: How to Cut a Cigar. See also: The Draw.
Purge. Blowing gently out through the cigar instead of drawing in. It pushes out stale smoke and built-up tars and evens the ember... useful before a relight, and when flavors turn bitter near the end. Full page: Burn Issues. See also: The Nub.
Puro. A cigar whose wrapper, binder, and filler all come from a single country. Nicaraguan puros are common, Mexican San Andrés puros exist, and most cigars are not puros at all... multi-country blending is the norm. Full page: What Is a Puro?. See also: Origins, Nicaragua.
Pyramid. A figurado that tapers along its whole length, from a wide open foot up to a pointed head. The ring gauge keeps changing as it burns, shifting the wrapper-to-filler balance by geometry alone. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: Ring Gauge, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
R
Red Dot. The nickname for General Cigar's Dominican-made Cohiba sold legally in the US... named for the dot in its logo, and a different cigar entirely from the Cuban Cohiba. Full page: The Two Cohibas. See also: Fake Cuban Cigars.
Relative Humidity (RH). How much moisture the air is holding compared to the most it could hold at that temperature, written as a percent. Cigars generally live in a 65 to 70 percent band, kept below about 70°F. Full page: Humidity and RH. See also: Storage Basics.
Relight. Re-toasting a cigar that went out. Normal and fine... purge first to clear stale smoke, expect a couple of rough puffs, and carry on. WSA reviews count relights in the construction notes. Full page: Burn Issues. See also: How to Read a WSA Review, The Nub.
Resting. Leaving newly arrived cigars in stable humidity for a week or two before smoking them. Shipping shocks tobacco with heat, cold, and swinging humidity; a cigar judged the day it lands is often being blamed for the delivery van. Full page: How Long Cigars Last. See also: Humidity and RH.
Retrohale. Pushing cigar smoke out through the nose without inhaling. The nose reads aroma far better than the tongue, so this is where most of a cigar's detail shows up... and it takes practice to do without coughing. Full page: The Retrohale. See also: How to Taste a Cigar, Flavor and Aroma Vocabulary.
Ring Gauge. A cigar's diameter in 64ths of an inch... a 50 ring gauge is 50/64 of an inch thick. That's the whole mystery. Thicker rings burn cooler and slower and shrink the wrapper's share of each puff. Full page: Ring Gauge. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes, Which Size, When.
Robusto. One of the two modern default parejos: about 5 × 50, roughly an hour of smoking time. The everyday size much of the market reaches for first. Nearly every modern line includes one. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Which Size, When, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Runner. A single line of fire racing up one seam or heavy vein ahead of the burn line, sometimes splitting the wrapper as it goes. Heavy veins, dry wrapper, and wind are the usual suspects. Full page: Burn Issues. See also: Reading the Wrapper, The Draw.
S
Salomon. The showpiece figurado... a large perfecto-style vitola with both ends worked, often finishing in a small nipple at the foot. Rolling one is a test piece for a factory's most experienced hands. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Salt test. The classic hygrometer check: a saturated salt slurry in a sealed container holds the air at roughly 75% RH... whatever the gauge reads instead is its offset. Full page: Calibrating a Hygrometer. See also: Your First Humidor.
Sampler. A mixed pack of different cigars sold together. The most efficient way to find out what you like... one purchase covers several brands, wrappers, and strengths without committing to a box of anything. Full page: How to Buy Cigars. See also: How to Buy Cigars.
San Andrés. A Mexican wrapper leaf from the San Andrés Valley in Veracruz, grown almost entirely to become dark maduro... which is where its cocoa, coffee, and earth reputation comes from. It also does quiet work as a binder in many blends. Full page: San Andrés Wrapper. See also: Mexico, Maduro Is a Process, Not a Leaf.
Seasoning. Letting a new humidor's raw cedar take on moisture until the wood equilibrates. Until that happens, the dry wood quietly pulls moisture out of every cigar sharing the box... seasoning first protects the cigars. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Humidity and RH.
Seco. The middle priming... thinner, milder leaf that carries a big share of a cigar's aroma. The balance to ligero's power in a filler recipe, and it ferments faster than the thick top leaves. Full page: Ligero, Seco, Viso. See also: Long vs Short Filler, Fermentation & Aging.
Seconds. Cigars sold unbanded or under a house name because of a cosmetic flaw, an overrun, or a factory's discretion agreement. Same tobacco, lower price, no guarantee about which brand it is... the whole point is that nobody will tell you. Full page: How to Buy Cigars. See also: Contract vs Owned Brands.
Shade-grown. Tobacco raised under cloth tents (or Ecuador's natural cloud cover), starved of direct sun so the leaf grows thin, elastic, smooth, and mild... the method behind Connecticut Shade. The opposite of sun-grown. Full page: Cigar Wrappers. See also: Connecticut Shade Wrapper, Ecuador.
Short-filler. Chopped leaf, often the trimmings from long-filler production... the standard for machine-made and bargain cigars. It burns faster and hotter, flakes its ash, and blurs the blend into one note. The Cuban sandwich splits the difference by wrapping long-filler leaves around it. Full page: Long vs Short Filler. See also: How a Cigar Is Made.
Shoulder. Where the head's curve flattens into the straight body of the cigar. The cut goes above it... cutting below the shoulder removes the cap's anchor and invites the wrapper to unravel. Aiming a cutter at or below it is the classic way wrappers get ruined. Full page: Anatomy of a Cigar. See also: The Draw.
Sick period. The window when a young or travel-shocked cigar smells faintly of ammonia at the foot and smokes sharp and muddled. It is a calendar problem, not a bad blend... two weeks of rest in stable storage fixes most of it. Full page: The Sick Period. See also: Fermentation & Aging, How Long Cigars Last.
Soft flame. A conventional butane lighter flame, cooler and gentler than a torch. Slower to light with, easier to scorch nothing, useless in wind. The classic choice for small ring gauges and calm evenings. Full page: How to Light a Cigar.
Spanish cedar. The traditional humidor lining wood... absorbs and releases moisture, resists warping, and lends the aroma cigar boxes are known for. Trays and drawers in wineadors use it too. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Your First Humidor.
Stalk-cut. A harvest method where the whole plant is chopped at the base and hung upside down to cure with every leaf attached, instead of picking leaf by leaf in primings. Standard for broadleaf tobaccos headed for maduro. Full page: Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper. See also: Pennsylvania Broadleaf Wrapper, How a Cigar Is Made.
Standing exception. A WSA review note recording that a discount changes the buying answer... 'at 20-25% off this jumps a tier'... without ever moving the official verdict, which is always judged at street price. Full page: When a Sale Changes the Math. See also: How to Read a WSA Review.
Street price. What a cigar actually sells for online today, not its MSRP and not a sale price. Every verdict on this site is judged at street... a cigar that's only worth it on a deal isn't worth it. Full page: How to Buy Cigars. See also: How to Read a WSA Review.
Strength vs Body. Two dials people conflate. Strength is the nicotine and the physical punch; body is how heavy the smoke feels on the palate; flavor is a third dial again. They move independently... a cigar can be full-bodied and gentle, or mild-tasting and strong. Full page: Strength vs Body vs Flavor. See also: Nicotine, and Not Getting Sick, Ligero, Seco, Viso.
Sugar tip. A sweetened cap... sugar applied to the head of a cigar so the first thing you taste is sweet on the lips, before any smoke. A signature of the ACID line, applied after the cigar is finished rather than during flavoring. It sweetens the mouthfeel without changing what's burning. Full page: Sweet vs Sweetened. See also: How Flavoring Works, Anatomy of a Cigar.
Sumatra. A wrapper seed from Indonesia that now grows around the world... earthy and gently sweet at home, oilier and spicier when raised in Ecuador and sold as Ecuador Sumatra. Ecuador Sumatra is the version on most current blends that use the seed. Full page: Sumatra Wrapper. See also: Ecuador, Cigar Wrappers.
Sun-grown. Tobacco ripened in full, direct sun, which builds thicker, darker, stronger leaf... the colorado-and-darker end of the wrapper spectrum. The opposite of shade-grown. On a band, sun grown usually predicts a reddish-brown wrapper with some muscle. Full page: Cigar Wrappers. See also: Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper, Natural, Claro, and Colorado Wrappers.
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Toasting. Warming the foot of a cigar with the flame held just off the leaf, rotating, until it glows on its own... before the first puff. Skipping it is why a cigar starts out tasting like fuel and burning crooked. Full page: How to Light a Cigar.
Tobacco beetle. Lasioderma serricorne. Its eggs sit dormant in tobacco and hatch when it gets warm... most sources put the trigger around 72°F. Signs are pinholes and fine dust. The fix is a controlled freeze; the prevention is temperature discipline. Full page: Tobacco Beetles & Freezing. See also: Humidity and RH, Storage Basics.
Tobacconist. A shop that actually specializes in tobacco... humidified room, staff who smoke, stock that turns over. The word that separates a cigar shop from a rack of souvenirs. Full page: Buying Cigars on Vacation. See also: How to Buy Cigars.
Tooth. Fine raised bumps on a leaf's surface, like very fine sandpaper... little pockets of oil natural to certain leaf types. Cameroon is the classic toothy wrapper. Texture, not a flaw. Full page: Reading the Wrapper. See also: Cameroon Wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf Wrapper.
Torch lighter. A pressurized butane jet, hotter and wind-resistant. Fast on big ring gauges, and easy to scorch the wrapper with if the flame touches the leaf. Banned in both carry-on and checked bags under current TSA rules. Full page: How to Light a Cigar. See also: Traveling with Cigars.
Toro. The other modern default parejo: about 6 × 50-52. The extra length over a robusto buys a slower arc and more time in each third. Alongside the robusto, it's where most new blends debut. Full page: Parejo Shapes. See also: Which Size, When, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Torpedo. A figurado with a longer, sharper taper to a real point at the head. The cut sets the draw... take a little off the point, test, and take more only if it's tight. Used near-interchangeably with belicoso. Full page: Figurado Shapes. See also: The Draw, Cigar Sizes & Shapes.
Touch-up. A spot fix with the edge of a flame to bring a lagging side of the burn line back in step, without relighting the whole foot. WSA reviews count touch-ups in the construction notes. Full page: Burn Issues. See also: How to Read a WSA Review, Reading the Ash.
Travel humidor. A crushproof case with foam cradles inside, sized from a couple of cigars to forty. Herf-a-dor is the brand name that became the generic. Ignore any foam humidifier in the lid... drop in a two-way pack instead. Full page: Traveling with Cigars. See also: Humidity Packs, Gel, and Beads.
Trunk-pressed. The harder, crisper-edged version of the box press... named for cigars that took a square set packed tight in shipping trunks. Full page: Box-Pressed Cigars. See also: Box-Pressed Cigars.
Tubo. A single cigar sold in its own sealed tube, usually aluminum with a screw or push cap and often lined with a thin sheet of cedar. The tube is crush protection and gift packaging; it slows drying but adds no moisture back. Full page: Cigar Tubos, Explained. See also: Cellophane: On or Off?, Traveling with Cigars.
Tunneling/Canoeing. The two classic burn failures. Tunneling: the filler burns down the middle while the wrapper stays unlit, boring a hole up the center. Canoeing: one side burns fast while the other barely burns, hollowing the cigar out like a canoe. Overhumidified cigars are the classic factory for both. Full page: Burn Issues. See also: Humidity and RH, The Draw.
Tupperdor. An airtight food container plus a two-way humidity pack. No wood to season, and the seal is the whole trick... airtight plastic holds a humidity band with very little drift. Real storage, not a stopgap. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Humidity and RH.
Two-way humidity pack. A sealed pouch holding a salt solution that both releases and absorbs moisture to hold the RH printed on the pack. Two-way is the point... it corrects wet as well as dry. Spent packs go rigid. Full page: Storage Basics. See also: Humidity and RH.
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V-cut. A notched blade that takes a wedge out of the cap rather than slicing it off. Reaches deep without crossing the shoulder, which makes it forgiving on big ring gauges. Full page: How to Cut a Cigar. See also: Box-Pressed Cigars, The Draw.
Viso. The upper-middle priming... oily, flavorful leaf with real strength of its own, splitting the difference between ligero's power and seco's ease. Blenders lean on it for combustion plus flavor. On the stalk it sits between seco and ligero. Full page: Ligero, Seco, Viso. See also: Fermentation & Aging, Long vs Short Filler.
Vitola. A cigar's size-and-shape designation: its length, its ring gauge, and whether the sides run straight or taper. Robusto and toro are vitolas, not brands... one blend usually comes in several. Full page: Cigar Sizes & Shapes. See also: Parejo Shapes, Figurado Shapes.
Volado. The bottom priming, from the shaded ground floor of the plant. Mild to the point of invisible, but it burns beautifully, and plenty of blends quietly depend on volado to stay lit. Full page: Ligero, Seco, Viso. See also: Long vs Short Filler.
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Warranty seal. The Republic of Cuba seal on legitimate Cuban boxes, carrying a hologram and barcode in its modern form. Counterfeiters copy it, and genuine boxes get refilled... a seal alone proves little. Full page: Fake Cuban Cigars. See also: Cuba.
Wineador. A thermoelectric wine fridge converted to cigar storage... cedar drawers, two-way packs, and the real feature: active temperature control that keeps tobacco-beetle territory off the table. Full page: Wineadors and Cigar Coolers. See also: Tobacco Beetles & Freezing, Humidity Packs, Gel, and Beads.
Wrapper. The single, seamless leaf rolled around the outside of a cigar... the most expensive leaf on the plant and a big part of what you taste. Wrapper names like Connecticut, Habano, and San Andrés describe this one leaf, not the whole blend. Full page: Cigar Wrappers. See also: Anatomy of a Cigar, Reading the Wrapper.