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Spanish Cedar, Explained

Updated 2026-08-22 · by Eric

Spanish cedar is a moisture buffer with a nice smell and a reputation for scaring off beetles... useful, not magic, and a plastic tub without a splinter of it stores cigars just fine.

Neither Spanish nor cedar

The wood is Cedrela odorata, a tropical hardwood in the mahogany family, grown in Central and South America and on plantations elsewhere. It isn't from Spain and it isn't a true cedar... the name stuck because it smells like one and Spanish traders moved it. It became the humidor wood for practical reasons: it thrives in humid climates, so a box lined with it doesn't warp at the 65 to 70 percent RH cigars live at, and it was the crate wood the Cuban trade already shipped tobacco in.

What it actually does

Buffers moisture. This is the real job. The wood is porous and absorbs water when the box runs wet, then gives it back when the box runs dry. It smooths out the swings from opening the lid... it does not create humidity. A cedar-lined box with no humidity source is just a pretty box full of drying cigars, which is why seasoning exists: unseasoned cedar starts out thirsty and will pull moisture from the cigars themselves.

Smells good. The aroma is faint and, over long storage, some of it reaches the cigars. Whether that improves them is taste, not fact. It's a background note, not a flavoring.

Deters beetles, maybe. The wood's oils have a long-standing reputation for repelling tobacco beetles. Treat that as a deterrent at best, not protection... beetle eggs arrive inside the cigars, and the thing that actually stops a hatch is keeping storage under about 72°F. Nobody should feel safe because of the lining.

What marketing oversells

Humidor copy tends to promote cedar from "helpful liner" to "essential aging chamber." The aging that matters happens inside the leaf... it's fermentation and time, and it proceeds the same in any container that holds stable RH. Cedar sleeves and tubes on individual cigars are mostly the same story: the sleeve protects the wrapper in transit and lends a little aroma, and the tube is packaging with shelf appeal. Neither is a reason to pay more for the cigar inside.

One real caution: quality matters more than quantity. Cheap boxes sometimes use poorly kiln-dried cedar that weeps sticky resin in heat, and that sap can ruin wrappers. A thin lining of well-dried cedar beats a thick lining of bad cedar.

The tupperdor question

A sealed plastic tub with two-way packs holds RH more reliably than most desktop humidors, cedar or no cedar... the same logic behind the humidor bag reviewed here. No cedar required. Where a few cedar sheets or an empty cigar-box tray inside the tub earn their space: they add buffering mass in a large container, they lift cigars off plastic for airflow, and they bring the aroma if that's wanted. Toss them in if they're handy. Nobody needs to buy furniture to store cigars well... the argument the whole first humidor page makes.

Keep reading

From the humidor I don't add Spanish cedar to my tupperdors. My impression is that stuffing cedar into your storage is a fairly recent habit... go back thirty or forty years and nobody was doing it. The one spot I do use it: I've got a big 450-count case humidor I really like that came with three Spanish cedar trays, and I use it because the trays keep the cigars from stacking and pressing on each other, not for the wood. Nearly everything in there is still in cellophane anyway, so I doubt the cedar is doing much. I've heard several cigar makers say added cedar is unnecessary, and that over time a cigar will start to pick up that cedar note whether the blender wanted it there or not... so you can end up with something other than what the maker built. The exception is a cigar that ships in a thin cedar sleeve or a tubo with a sleeve inside: there the maker meant for it to pick that up, so it belongs. For me the real rule before anything goes in a tub is simpler than cedar: make sure the cigar has no smell coming off it at all, no plastic, nothing, so what I taste is what the roller intended.