59-60% RH in humidor and sudden loss of taste/flavour

[Bijan]

At the end of May/beginning of June I switched my desktop humidors to 65% Boveda. Everything was ok until some time this week, and now I can't taste much of anything when smoking the cigars. As recently as this Tuesday the cigars smoked fine. Yesterday was pretty bland. Not sure exactly when the switch happened, I'm guessing somewhere between those two days. Hygrometer reads 60% RH in one humidor, 59% in the other but it seems stable. Boveda packs are still moist. Cigars burn ok, just very little flavour. It wasn't gradual it kind of went off a cliff. Temperature of humidors in basement varies between 70F during the day, and 68F at night. A lot of people here swear by 60%RH at 70F, so I wonder what's wrong.

Three theories I can come up with:

1) Humidity of cigars hit some level that is below my threshold. Kind of hard to accept as some cigars were there since the beginning but others I received in beginning of July so would they have hit the same humidity level at the same time?

2) Something changed with the humidity outside, I'm smoking 100% outside. Humidity outside has varied between 50% and 80%. Temperature 72F to 90F. Didn't really pay attention to humidity levels before this week.

3) Something wrong with my taste buds.

Anyone experienced something like this or have any ideas?

[Xavier_Dredo]

4) Covid


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[Bijan]

4 minutes ago, Xavier_Dredo said:

4) Covid


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That's a pretty good theory at this point. I still seem to be able to taste food, but maybe it's just my sense of smell... I have some cigars coming in on Monday I can smoke a couple and hopefully test this theory.

[Rupe]

5 minutes ago, Xavier_Dredo said:

4) Covid


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This was my first thought as well. I sure hope that's not the case

[BoliDan]

Whenever I have flavor loss, it is me and not the cigars.  Sometimes can last upwards of two months. Tends to be when there are big weather changes and sets off my sinuses. Or I probably got sick and had no symptoms. It sucks, because as you say I can taste my whiskeys and my food. Cigars go blank for some reason. But then I rally, and the cigars out of the same box are very flavorful again.

[Kongelunden]

5 hours ago, BoliDan said:

Whenever I have flavor loss, it is me and not the cigars.  Sometimes can last upwards of two months. Tends to be when there are big weather changes and sets off my sinuses. Or I probably got sick and had no symptoms. It sucks, because as you say I can taste my whiskeys and my food. Cigars go blank for some reason. But then I rally, and the cigars out of the same box are very flavorful again.

During the covid lockdown, I experienced a complete flavor loss when smoking cigars - and as outlined by BoliDan I ended up attributing this to me and not the cigars. I had no symptoms of any illness, while the flavor loss vent so far that when smoking a BBF it tasted like nothing at all. Food still tasted fine. In the end I realized that during the lockdown I started smoking more cigars than usually, and spenting some time away from smoking did reset the sinuses and flavor came back.

[CaptainQuintero]

  Illness/anti histamine Medicine etc aside, it might be that they haven't adjusted yet. For a swing like that you're still probably looking at 3 months for them to adjust. Desktops can be notoriously inconsistent with keeping rh too, might be a bit of both.

[earthson]

How many cigars have you been smoking?  If it's an option, take 3-7 days off, then smoke one of the offending sticks.  Usually, I lose flavor if I've been reaching into the humidor a wee bit too much.

[bbguardsp]

Is flavor lost as well with a good retrohale?

[Bijan]

9 minutes ago, bbguardsp said:

Is flavor lost as well with a good retrohale?

Yes, pretty much.

[Bijan]

15 minutes ago, earthson said:

How many cigars have you been smoking?  If it's an option, take 3-7 days off, then smoke one of the offending sticks.  Usually, I lose flavor if I've been reaching into the humidor a wee bit too much.

I'll try taking a week off. Been smoking about 2 a day, sometimes 3. Much more than usual given the ongoing work from home situation here.

[bbguardsp]

4 hours ago, Bijan said:

Yes, pretty much.

Two days is pretty short for cigars to lose enough humidity even if you removed all humidification in a sealed environment.  It's possible the ones you've smoked recently are just the bad luck 'off" cigars that comes with cuban quality control lol.  I've yet to have a box of 25 in which 100% are equal in the flavor department.  Usually 3-5 on average a box for me are "off".

[CaptainQuintero]

52 minutes ago, Bijan said:

I'll try taking a week off. Been smoking about 2 a day, sometimes 3. Much more than usual given the ongoing work from home situation here.

 That might just be it. Everyone is different but I can't smoke one a day and taste anything. I can do one every other day and still taste everything fine but bump that to one a day and nada, zip, no bueno

[Cairo]

If my palate is off for a day or two, my cure is to have a smoke first thing in the morning with coffee and no food--has not failed me yet.

[PigFish]

It is you, or a bad run on cigars. Smoke your way through it...!

The Pig

[Bijan]

Smoked one of the new cigars and same thing. Seems the problem is me. Oh well. I'll take a week off and see if that fixes things.

[Bijan]

I think I'm slowly getting over the slump, after taking a bit of a break for a week. Can taste the cigars much better now, retrohale is still a bit weird, but getting better too.

[Bijan]

On 7/19/2020 at 5:50 AM, CaptainQuintero said:

  Illness/anti histamine Medicine etc aside, it might be that they haven't adjusted yet. For a swing like that you're still probably looking at 3 months for them to adjust. Desktops can be notoriously inconsistent with keeping rh too, might be a bit of both.

I think you are right and it was too big a swing, and I smoked them too early. And this in addition to my blocked sinuses. Now that I can taste again I can tell there's a definite off-ness to the taste of the ones that have been there 2 weeks or so vs fresh cigars ROTT. The ones that have been there almost 2 months are starting to be ok again.

In the meanwhile I've set up a coolidor for longer term storage and hopefully that'll solve the issue with desktops and inconsistent RH.