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I don't participate much in email forums. However, I thought cigar comrades may find this information about UPS interesting. If it's old news...ignor it. I'm from the Little Rock metro area where actual temperatures are presently reaching the upper 90 degrees during the daytime. Furthermore, we have a UPS shipping system in my business and ship thousands of packages annually. So, we see UPS drivers on a daily basis. I stopped the evening pickup driver today to chat with him. I asked him if their trucks or warehouses are climate controlled. He laughed...then explained that only 40% of UPS delivery trucks have power steering and that none have air conditioning. Said UPS won't spare the expense for such luxuries. Same goes for the warehouses...no AC. Guess this explains why our cigars are so dry upon arrival. They rest outside the humidor in hot trucks and warehouses until they reach their destination 5-7 days later. Oh well, guess I'll have to be a little more patient during our summer months for my sticks to re-humidify. A question for those of you who live in cooler climates. Are your smokes extrememly dry after life on a UPS truck?

air conditioning wouldn't matter, for that can dry out cigars as quickly as the heat, that is one of the many reasons never to store cigars in refrigerators. My beef with UPS is their handling of packages, I get damaged boxes almost daily, and often the contents which are books, are damaged as well, and that means I have to spend time on the phone getting replacements. And all phone calls to UPS about the problem went nowhere, at least they were honest enough to tell me there was nothing they could do about it. I avoid this company like the plague if I can. If I ever get big, UPS will be sorry for the manner they have treated me, yea right, I can dream can't I?

To the last poster, you will find idiots like your friend in every company, unfortunately. I work for UPS and they won't be there long. That's automatic termination when caught, and I hope they do soon. If it was their package they would handle it different. That's how I treat my packages, as if they were mine so see, we're not all like that. We work our butts off at UPS and are on a VERY strict time schedule, so sometimes our handling isn't perfect. I blame mangement for the time allowances they give me. If they would give us more time to do our job, less packages would get damaged. Do you ever see a UPS dribver loafing, if so they won't be around long either (or they are kissin up to someone).

The back of ALL delivery companies trucks are hot. In the summer the first thing I do is pop my cigars in the freezer as a precaution against tobacco beetles. If done properly it doesn't affect the cigars at all.

Sorry Macdaddy for the slander but almost every guy I saw loading and unloading was throwing the pkgs. like a mad man against walls, the floor, and laughing about it. I know there are bad apples and I commend those who do their job correctly....but management needs to drop in on the unload and load dock more often.

macdaddy may be the exception rather than the rule. Try calling customer service about it on the 800 number, they would not lift a finger, and as I said, told me nothing could be done. When my driver pulls up, he finishes off the job. I can hear him inside my shop, tossing the boxes from the shelves to the front of the truck, and often I get heavy boxes, and the noise is quite a racket. Forget about seeing how hard boxes can be tossed without being broken open, often I get boxes that are broken open, completely, and someone does a make shift tape job, or the driver just brings in the box holding it together with his arms, and sits it down, and the box falls apart. No Macdaddy, you may have a different work ethic, but I stay away from UPS whenever possible.

American Tourister.....oh well, I knew it was someone with a sense of humor.

O.K. this time I'll type something..... I never have a problem with CB packages, perhaps I've been lucky. My question is, can cigars really dry out when packaged in Zip Loc type bags? (or wrapped in cellophane) I realize heat is an enemy also however....

Actually, in realistic shipping environments, a package goes through many environments with varying moisture content, and these changes can be devastating to cigars. Relative humidity is, of course, temperature dependent: 100%RH @60F = 70%RH @70F = 20%RH @110F in terms of the actual amount of water in the air. At high temperatures (Big Brown Truck in the sun, cargo plane on the tarmac, etc.), the air sucks the moisture out of the cigars.

1. If the package is perfectly airtight, the moisture will rapidly leave the cigar (think of it as 'baking out), but is only slowly absorbed, as we all know from experience, so the cigar will be dry when the package is opened (and the escaping air will be moist)


2. if the package is not quite airtight:
   
   
   
   • air (and moisture) will leave the package when it is heated due to expansion
   
   
   • when the package cools, that moisture is generally not replaced, because the cooler incoming air usually contains less moisture than the air that escaped
   
   
   • even if the moisture were replaced, it takes time to resorb into the cigars. (see above)
   
   
   • if a package doesn't puff up when stored in a hot environment for 20 minutes, it isn't airtight.