Fuente Fuente Opus X Robusto (VVRW#1)

[RichG]

This afternoon my wife went out to grab her first dose of the vaccine and left me with the rugrats, so I figured I would take an hour off from work, and make good use of the time while they played in the backyard.

Beautiful 60 degree sunny, Long Island NY day, and I decided to try this Opus X. I only started getting into cigars in September 2020, and in the beginning I had no knowledge of Cubans. Online I discovered a smattering of info about the elusive Opus X, so I was very happy when I found these couple of singles in December from an online US retailer. 

The appearance of the cigar is medium brown with a nice oily sheen (not so apparent in the picture) with delicate veins. I gave it a punch cut and the draw was reasonable. The prelight draw gave notes of dark fruit, prunes, raisins and tobacco. 

Upon lighting, the character was dark fruit and leather and lots of spice on the retrohale. This spicy character was joined by cedar moving into the first third, which grew to be accompanied by a pleasant saltiness shortly after. The dark fruit flavors soon faded into an undertone. Halfway through the first third I applied the Perfecdraw to blade depth to slightly open it up. 

Going into the second third a sweetness once again became prevalent on the draw, but all fruit character had subsided in favor of burnt sugar. As the second third progressed the burnt sweetness gave way to a cleaner more refined sugar. A light tannin/fuel quality became present on the retrohale. 

Going into the final third all spice had completely faded away from the retrohale and only light cedar and sweetness remained. 

I do not know if it is due to my lack of palate, but at the end of the day I felt that while this was an enjoyable smoke, I can't help but feel that I smoked a cigar that was losing something the whole way through. I was chasing a flavor the whole time that simply decreased.

In hindsight I regret using the draw tool, as it made the final third too hot. 

Since I have gotten more heavily into Cubans in the last four months or so, I find that while I appreciate the wistful toymaker qualities of Carlito's cigars I dislike the fanfare, demand, pricing and cult of personality surrounding them, and prefer the simplistic classic approach of Cubans, which at the end of the day remind me of a more simple time. 

One hour smoking time, and while I definitely enjoyed this enough to nub it, I am going to give it a 7.5/10.

Happy Smokes Gents.

[prshah25]

I usually age my opus X’s for 2 years before smoking.. the difference is night and day! Try it.