Robusto, 5" x 54 ring, approx. $6It is hard to know what to write about a cigar company that has been in business since 1997 and hands out stogies nearly every year at the Big Smoke...and yet you have never seen them for sale in a tobacco store...not to mention that the people who work in your local store have never heard of them at all. On paper, this La Caya Brasil should be a great cigar: it features filler made of Piloto Cubano, Nicaraguan and Dominican tobaccos, along with a Criollo 98 binder and a Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper.
The reality starts breaking down when you look closely at the wrapper--I honestly have never seen a wrapper this toothy before. You could almost use this cigar as a sanding tool or a new method of peeling zest off a lemon! It is oily, too, though...in fact, after sitting for a year since last year's Big Smoke, this stick was still oily and aromatic. The wrapper gave off coffee and classic humidor aromas while the foot was more chocolatey. Other than the rough toothiness, the wrapper was nice-looking, lightly mottled medium-to-dark brown, with relatively small veins.
The cold draw was easy and had notes of dried fruit and cocoa powder. In the first puffs after lighting, I could taste wood and coffee. The first third turned out to be woody, bitter and somewhat sour. I thought about doing the unthinkable: pitching the stick. But in the end I decided to give it a chance to improve.
Around the time the second third started, the unpleasantness went away, leaving a very average cigar flavor. There was a little coffee and a tiny maduro sweetness, but mostly it was just like any other medium-bodied, mid-priced, hand-rolled cigar: Partagas, Romeo y Julieta, Macanudo. Not bad, but definitely nothing to brag about.
The last third had some spice and coffee flavors but there was still an underlying dullness to the cigar. For half the going rate (if you can find it "going" anywhere, that is), I could see purchasing these as lawn-mowing cigars, but at full-price, it would have to be pretty slim-pickings before I would opt for one of these again.
Body: 5/10
Strength: 5/10
Complexity: 4/10
AFP Scale:
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 2/2
Value: 0/1
Total: 6/10
0 comments:
Post a Comment