As many here know, I've been smoking cigars regularly for over forty years. My taste for strength in a cigar seems to be cyclical. As a young man, I smoked the mildest of habanos and clear havanas, usually with claro or candela wrappers. As the years passed, my tastes moved to stronger and stronger cigars, then jumped back a notch or two as I began exploring medium strength cigars with sweet chocolatey maduro wrappers.
In the last few years, I've enjoyed cigars wrapped with cameroon, criollo, corojo, a refined H2000, sungrowns in a number of leafs, Connecticut shade wrappers, some Javas, Brazilian Mata fina, Costa Rican JF maduro, and many others. The variety for the palate has been just amazing. Had there never been the embargo of 1961, I really doubt that such variety would have evolved.
Oddly, I'm beginning to really appreciate the mildest of cigars once again. A few weeks ago, as I was digging through a humidor, I came across a Leon Jimenes Connecticut Shade robusto. It was morning, and I thought a mild cigar would be nice. The cigar was simply spectacular. The draw was perfect and the ash held so hard that I had to break it off. The cigar had flavor and complexity and there never was that feeling that, maybe, I'd better put this cigar down.
Later in the day, I glanced at CBid to see if Leon Jimenes cigars were offered. I'd never looked for them before. Son-of-a-gun...there they were: Leon Jimenes #3, 6.5 x 42; not my favorite size, but certainly worth bidding for a couple of 5-packs. Six days later they arrived at La Casa del Estaban; ten identical cigars. I had never seen wrappers so smooth and color matched. I have one cigar left from that ten pack. On Tuesday, CBid tells me that twenty maduro Leon Jimenes robustos will arrive at my door. I cannot imagine that they will be any less enjoyable than their sisters in Connecticut Shade...just different.
So for a couple of days, I shall put aside my Antano 1970s, Diplomas, Machitos, and Chisels and enjoy a nice mild cigar.
