Burn line indicates quality

[PigFish]

2 hours ago, ayepatz said:

However, I don’t think you should expect a completely balanced response on a website called Friends of Habanos. ?

Hear, hear!

-tP

[rcarlson]

Come on now.  How many times have I heard about "plume" from "knowledgeable" cigar guys. . . including many pretentious mofos right here?

This hobby is filled with disinformation from well-intentioned BOTL.  It's just that at FOH we tend to cut through it collectively. --  'cause it's like a sport to call b.s. around here.   

With that said, anyone that says NC's are as good or superior to CC's is a moron that should be promptly euthanised.  

[zeedubbya]

In reference to the OPs question I had a friend of mine who was an expert cigar smoker and a true aficionado—he would grab the cigar up by the burn line and feel if it was burning hot or not. He never said anything about why he did it but I assume it had something to do with quality/age of the cigar. I’ve seen other people do this as well. I don’t recall anyone ever saying the way the burn line looks equates to quality of leaf.

And now to jump in the fire. It’s not an unknown (most) NCs are light years ahead of Cubans in terms of quality. Rob even mentioned the Padrón’s and Fuentes the other day on 24:24. Taste is another thing altogether, but taste is extremely subjective. Guy I work with smokes about 10 Black and Milds a day. He clearly enjoys them and that strange ritual of taking out that pesky piece of plastic or whatever it is. I have given him many cigars and he’s always very gracious and tells me he enjoys them. Last week I asked him if he wanted me to get a humidor started so he could start smoking some better cigars more regularly. He said he would rather not. He just loves Black and Milds. So I smoked one with him a couple days back, and wouldn’t you know—it was actually decent, and to top it all off—the burn line was about as perfect as I’ve ever seen!


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[Wilzc]

I do believe that an even burn really helps get the best taste profile of the cigar! 

And therefore sometimes a well burning Warped or Illusione is preferred over a quintero burning only on one side and somehow having little half-burned black creases on the other side.

 

 

[Fugu]

Folks, just to get this right, we are not discussing a poor, uneven, wonky, or lopsided burn, a canoeing or hollow burn, here. Of course that IS a quality token! But, as I understood the OP, the topic we are discussing here is about the width of the burn line (so. correct me if I am wrong). This particular feature is telling nothing, zero, zilch about the quality of a cigar. Neither of its construction nor of its tobacco quality.

[joeypots]

 

If your cigar can't compete with the flavor of a Cuban cigar I can understand why you'd nit pick some stupid issue like the quality of a burn line.  I'll take a  Cuban cigar that's ready to smoke, our host often tells us how long a particular cigar needs to age in the 24/24 threads, with a little wonkey burn any day over even the best  non Cuban cigar. I smoked a five year old HURR yesterday that was infinitely better than any non Cuban I've smoked. And I had to touch up the burn just a bit.

[BinBin]

was told an even burn line means good contruction but a thin mascara burn line means well fremented tobacco

[Freddo]

Not to troll the subject, just for my understanding between NC vs CC.  Is it in general NC has consistent construction and CC is more on the other side? 

Therefore, you get what you expect for NC.  On the other hand, when you score a good construction CC is like winning the lotto?

[Wilzc]

Folks, just to get this right, we are not discussing a poor, uneven, wonky, or lopsided burn, a canoeing or hollow burn, here. Of course that IS a quality token! But, as I understood the OP, the topic we are discussing here is about the width of the burn line (so. correct me if I am wrong). This particular feature is telling nothing, zero, zilch about the quality of a cigar. Neither of its construction nor of its tobacco quality.

Lol I was trolling around previously.

Thickness of the burn line should have a linear relationship with the thickness of the binder and wrapper no?

A silky smooth & shiny Colorado wrapper from San Juan on a Siglo 2 would burn rather thinly and evenly while some of those dark Maduro shaded wrappers on EL’s would burn with thickkkk lines.


Similarly Connecticut shade wrappers and most Cameroon wrappers normally burn really really thin, due to the fact that the wrappers are really physically thin and delicate. On the other end of that NC spectrum, a Connecticut broadleaf wrapped cigar with a Brazilian binder would leave 1/6th of an inch thick burn line!

US Conn. Broadleaf cigars are my very favorite ‘new world’ stuff due to their incredibly full flavor. Lately I’m also very very into Brazilian Arapiraca and Mata fina tobacco. Only an idiot would think they’re ‘less quality’, yet they will most definitely leave very thick char lines.






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[fitzy]

8 hours ago, Fugu said:

Folks, just to get this right, we are not discussing a poor, uneven, wonky, or lopsided burn, a canoeing or hollow burn, here. Of course that IS a quality token! But, as I understood the OP, the topic we are discussing here is about the width of the burn line (so. correct me if I am wrong). This particular feature is telling nothing, zero, zilch about the quality of a cigar. Neither of its construction nor of its tobacco quality.

My understanding is it's the width of the burn line. 

We can speculate all we want but do we REALLY know? I don't know. I've heard plenty of times that Cuba doesn't necessarily ferment their tobacco long enough due to them having a hard time keep up with demand. I'm not saying that's accurate but maybe there's something to it but maybe their isn't. Do a bunch of awesome CC smoking guys on a forum that aren't in the business of growing/fermenting tobacco on a commercial basis really know the answer? I would say we do NOT have a definitive answer.

[mt1]

In the Ultimate Cigar Book by Richard Carleton Hacker, he mentions that a thin dark and clean burn line shows that the wrapper tobacco was properly fermented, and that tobacco that is fermented too long, too short, too quickly, too slowly, or whatever would not burn with a nice clean burn line.  However, the author doesn't give any basis or support this, although his book is otherwise impressively cited for a subject that is surrounded by lore and tales.  I'm willing to bet that's what this guy is parroting, he read one book and is now the self-proclaimed expert.

That being said, I will also jump into the fire and say that I believe the roll quality and consistency of the cigars are better in NCs, but you can't beat the flavor of a Cuban (for me, many of my cigar smoking buddies actually prefer many non-cubans over cubans).

[PapaDisco]

It would not surprise me that you could deduce a little bit from the burn line about the cigar, its construction and current conditions; but I seriously doubt you could extrapolate that to an entire country or industry.

One of the absolute worst, fat-burn-line, smoldering dog rockets I ever smoked was Jay Z's "Comador" cigar (they couldn't even spell it right . . .) damn thing smoked like a bad pile of tires on fire with a fat, sooty ring around the business end; harsh, acrid and expensive.

In Saigon, when I take a dry cigar out into the heat and humidity it will often burn the filler faster than the wrapper, leading to a bit of a black line leading the burn as the wrapper humidified faster than the interior and now struggles to keep up.

But mostly I get mascara on my burn line cause I torched the sucker in my desperate need to get it lit    If I do a light and purge (the best way to even out a burn IMHO) the char line goes away.  So I guess the original comment about NC's vs. CC's is not applicable nor based in any kind of objective analysis.