Construction issues

[LeafLover]

So, we all know the construction issues that pervade CC's across the board: plugged, flavor inconsistencies within the same box, etc. These issues are why I've been delving back into the NC world. I've always thought that the best of both worlds would be CC tobacco and blenders with NC construction.

I just finished smoking an exquisite Montecristo Especial No. 2 of spot on flavor and draw. As I am smoking, I remember the one I smoked previously out of the same box and it was the exact opposite in those regards. Then I start having a dialogue in my head.

WTF?! Why is this so? Do the rollers care less that they don't care how they roll from one cigar to another? Are they so underpaid that they roll without a care of the consumer's enjoyment? Are the quality control managers drinking? Are CC quality standards in factories less than NC's? Do rollers and managers of factories know what these cigars they are rolling sell for around the world? Do they roll crappy on purpose to spite us? Do they only bring in all of the great rollers in Cuba to roll a high priced cigar to ensure its quality while allowing the noobs roll everything else not caring how they are rolled?

So, what gives? What would be the theories as to why construction is the way it is?

[TankerT]

Well... most companies do have interns...

[Colt45]

If I recall correctly, Rob has mentioned that it's kind of a combination of low pay and little incentive to do well.

Also that it can be financially practical for a group of rollers to get together and pay QC inspectors to look the

other way.....

[canadianbeaver]

While I would not have the experience that many would have here, I have found this to be true over the last two years with a previous favorite line of mine, Arturo Fuente. I use to adore these cigars... Almost any kind from Signatures to WOAMs to rare barber poles. You name it. But then lately some are plugged, stale, inconsistent in construction or just plain lousy. And with only so many smokes in a day, I am very picky and impatient. It is a Davidoff ( which never lets me down) or Opus X for me!

Sometimes this happens with a cc, but more likely it is due to long delays in shipping or my fault in storage. I take responsibility when it is my fault :-)

Lisa

[SCgarman]

The fact of the matter is not all rollers are at the same skill level. And, unlike Padron cigars where one roller rolled all the cigars in the same box, it is mathematically possible for every cigar in a box of Habanos to have been rolled by a different roller from different batches of tobacco. The cigars are sorted only by wrapper color, so in a box inconsistencies are sure to happen such as an plugged cigar, an underfilled cigar and a crappy tasting cigar. Also, many non Cuban brands like Padron pay their rollers very well so there is an incentive to make a quality product. Cuban rollers make on average 20 dollars a month which is probably way below what non Cuban rollers make.

[tinknocker924]

I guess I've had better luck in the last year I've only had one cigar plugged and that was a VR famosos other than that everything I've smoked has been spot on.

[sam]

I often think how great it would be if Cuban cigars were made to the quality levels of ncs. Other than the lack of consistency in flavor, my biggest complaint about cc quality these days is the large number of what I think are under filled cigars. You know - the ones that feel feather light and spongy in your hand. I wonder if that is done to minimize the number of plugged cigars? ----Sam

[kjellfrick]

I often think how great it would be if Cuban cigars were made to the quality levels of ncs. Other than the lack of consistency in flavor, my biggest complaint about cc quality these days is the large number of what I think are under filled cigars. You know - the ones that feel feather light and spongy in your hand. I wonder if that is done to minimize the number of plugged cigars? ----Sam

This is my pet peeve as well.

[Rushman]

I take a slightly different look at this. Yes there are inconsistencies. While not every stick I pick off the shelf is 100% perfect as to draw and construction and not all are dead ringers for the typical flavor profile of that marca and vitola, most are good to very good and a few even transcendent. It's easy to talk about what Padron could do with Cuban tobacco, but I really fear the day when that could happen. As an American, I used to dream about a day without an embargo. But as an American, I know what will happen in a post embargo Cuba......we will eventually litter it with Starbucks and McDonalds. WE will eff it up. I know 23/25 or even 25/25 cigars out of a box SHOULD have a near perfect draw and consistent construction, but that's not the world we live in. I will gladly take our current situation of mostly good, some great and a few very very special cigars along with a few duds then a homogenized version with more consistent but equally dull and "journey-less" cigars.

Not every day is filled with perfect smokes, but on most days I truly enjoy the cigars I smoke and every few days I am mesmerized at what man and nature came together to create AND THAT IS AN EMOTION I DON'T RECALL WHILE SMOKING ANYHING OTHER THAN A HABANOS!

¡Feliz dia de amor y la amistad mis amigos!

---

I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=20.631741,-87.070653

[Dbone]

Thats all part of the cuban cigar game, brother. I hate it too, but all we can do is hope for the best.

In some ways the millions of cigars Habanos puts out, doesn't really put them in the same league as some of the NC companies. Smaller production is going to yield less defects, fact. But still that's no excuse, and the standard should be much higher in my opinion. Like yourself Arnold, I've had cigars out of a box which blow my mind, literally knock me off my feet and make me sit my ass down and relish what a great cuban cigar can and should be. Others, get tossed after half way through. It's very disappointing.

Yes, I would agree part of the ingredient to the poor cigars are construction. The blend has to be perfect, which it usually is not. So the master blender has to try and get it as close as he or she can. And the variance from there when moved to the production floor doesn't help matters. Some of the popular cigars are rolled year round, with good tobacco or not... they're rolling them. I wont buy a Behike, but I guess that's as close as ones going to get to a production cigar rolled near perfect every time. While expensive, it's not to far off from some of the premium NC's. Along those lines, I find the value in some cuban cigars to be just right. For $8 or $10 I feel like I'm getting my moneys worth. If they were $20 or $25 a cigar with those standards I'd feel ripped off.

Out of a box of 25, usually the reject count is around 10%, maybe 2 per box, maybe. Most others are on par or tad below mark, handful are outstanding. This is why I really don't save my "special occasion" cigar, because I had and expectations are rarely met. It's similar to my golf game, a few awesome shots keep me coming back for more.

[Smallclub]

In-fact I sort of resent having to hand over money to a communist nation.

Cuba is not a communist "nation", it's a country ruled by a communist regime… As for your money I wonder if you have the same scruples when you buy Chinese products…

[CanuckSARTech]

....Not every day is filled with perfect smokes, but on most days I truly enjoy the cigars I smoke and every few days I am mesmerized at what man and nature came together to create AND THAT IS AN EMOTION I DON'T RECALL WHILE SMOKING ANYHING OTHER THAN A HABANOS!

¡Feliz dia de amor y la amistad mis amigos!

Very well put, Rushman. Very bueno. Well said - kudos.

[Puros Y Vino]

Low pay and little incentive for the rollers and QC people. Thats the reason I can think of.

QC? You mean I can blame the Quebecois for subpar CC's?

[PigFish]

This is a two pronged issue, management of course, and customer apathy as well.

If you have a taste for CC you have nowhere else to go. You are forced to buy overpriced pieces with shoddy workmanship based a "threshold of pain."

H SA et al does not care if they make a good product or not. They care if they make the consumers threshold of pain, whereas he will continue to pay for their product until that threshold is exceeded. As such, they will continue to expand the threshold; meaning less models, higher prices, more EL's, until such time the consumer tells them FU. Until such time that there is no monopoly on what is considered a Cuban cigar profile, this problem will exist. Familiarity with their customer has bred contempt for us. The Cuban tobacco monopoly has protected them thus far, but they are shortsighted and will lose this battle, likely to the ex-pats who still are striving to make excellent cigars.

I have not bought a box of Cuban cigars in years now. Not because I don't want to, but because they have exceeded my personal threshold of pain. I won't pay premium prices for less than premium cigars.

Cuban cigars were worth the risk of some duds when they were priced more reasonably and you could narrow the field by purchasing lesser production number models. This time has passed. Now you are compelled to purchase fewer models which make the higher production cuts. I believe this is a model for failure and it cheats the consumer. H SA et al does not care! They think poorly of their consumers, just as they think poorly of their own employees and are likely laughing at what they sell us and at the prices that they demand.

If they are not at least getting a good laugh, they are too stupid to see the doors of their factories shutting on their own fingers! -the Pig

[perfectform]

I have said this before, but when I see topics such as this I can only shake my head in bewilderment. I must be the luckiest guy on earth when it somes to quality cuban cigars. I'm guessing that less than 1% of my cigars over the last 5 years have had to be pitched pre-maturely because of construction/draw issues. In fact, I went for a change of pace the other day with a 2009 LG chisel and it was plugged beyond belief. Go figure.

Personally, I understand the reasons behind so-called poor quality (construction wise) cuban cigars i.e. low pay for rollers, no competition etc etc, but just have not experienced it since I got into cigars 5 years ago. To me, I do not see an overall construction/draw issue with CC's.

[winelover]

I long for the equivalent of Dunhill's "signed" range where each roller signs off his or her box. It is a shame that the rollers are exploited, one of the ironies of their "communist" system.

However like Rushman I wouldn't be too enthused by the prospect of a post-embargo cuban cigar market place. I like the lineage and history of the current brands and I'd truly hate to see more EL type cigars with extra large (and multiple) bands. In fact HSA has put me off quite a few sticks already by covering them in unnecessary bands - e.g. The Mag46 Epi2 to mention a couple.

[dB69]

I have a spreadsheet which includes all of my cigars from 2005.

Based on that list I am able to say that plugged cigars do exist outside Cuba as well. Here are my statistics:

CCs 0.65% plugged

NCs 2.27% plugged

Ok, I have not smoked very many NCs, so the stats may lie a little, but it's still my real stats.

During the last two years I have had three plugged CCs. One was fixed by cutting two inches away - yes that's quite nasty, but it goes. Two other cigars were smokable after drying them a little. I wouldn't call that a problem as I have smoked well over five hundred CCs in the mentioned period of time.

Another issue is "wind-tunnels". To me it seems this is how NC smokers like their cigars. Is this true - I don't know, it just seems like it.

How I hate those too open cigars! However, it's a question of choosing your cigar. I've clearly noticed that 50(+) rg cigars are very often too open, so I don't buy them. Thinner cigars also taste better, but that's another story because they've been suffering from massive deletions.

After all, there sure are differences in construction, but it is kind of like life. I wouldn't like living if every day were the same, brought to you by McStandards.

[CaptainQuintero]

For me construction issues are very rare with anything post 2005. It's probably a combination of using great vendors like Rob and Cuba producing better products. They knew they had issues at the turn of 2000 and it will have taken a long time to get real results hitting the consumer no matter what action they took. I think the five years it took from 2000 for construction issues to stop appearing is about right; extra training and high CQ being introduced etc.

Another point may be this: the grey market. I only trust a handfull of places to get me the best products. The vast majority of US cuban cigars smokers don't use these vendors (two don't even ship to the US). It's probably safe to assume that most genuine cigars entering the US are not from vendors who overly care about their US customers (Who are they going to complain to?) and there are thousands of fakes in the US. Add both these issues up and there is quite a big falsehood about CC quality being built up by a huge section of cigar smokers (The US market).

I know that if I open a box from Rob or my other regular stores that I will be lighting a cigar that will have a tiny chance of having a defect (I would say even a smaller chance than getting one from a NC box). I would think that can't be said about the vast majority of sources that ship to the US.

[lemmycaution]

I've been very lucky with construction these past few years. Most of my boxes have performed well. Here and there I've had some problems, but it's not a huge issue to me. I think inconsistency in flavor is a bigger problem these days. I don't have a great palate, but many times cigars taste different within each box.

[Wil]

Cuba is not a communist "nation", it's a country ruled by a communist regime… As for your money I wonder if you have the same scruples when you buy Chinese products…

Actually, like it or not, the Republic of Cuba is a Communist state.

[Smallclub]

Actually, like it or not, the Republic of Cuba is a Communist state.

That's exactly what I said. Like it or not, "state" is not synonym of "nation"…

[Wil]

That's exactly what I said. Like it or not, "state" is not synonym of "nation"…

then we agree

[Habanos2000]

I suppose I've been pretty lucky as well in terms of a "higher quality' cigar. I can't really complain about the number of plugged CC's I've experienced. As far as blend and flavor profile is concerned I understand that the product itself is subject to variability considering the raw material used, and I'm also blessed with a less than perfect palate.

But really, in the end, what in life is perfect or consistant? If we didn't have something to complain about it would be a very quiet world.