WRAPPER: Mexican San Andres
BINDER: Cameroon
FILLER: Dominican, Nicaraguan
FORMAT: Robusto box-press
ORIGIN: Tabacalera El Artista, Dominican Republic
INTENSITY: Medium
NOTES:
Leather | Hickory | Worcestershire sauce
All that and an in&out and wobbly-so espresso. Leather is thick, hidey, and wraps around wood, cushioning and adding savoriness to (attempted) structure. Said wood is a hickory/mesquite sort of thing. Smokey bits emanate from there and influence an underneath baking chocolate note in a neat way. Through the retro-hale and onto the olfactory is a Worcestershire back-end. Finishes long and quite cleanly. Black peppercorn drives but never races. Also, chicory.
Smoke is quite smooth and of moderate weight but feels lighter in its fine bone china delivery. Notes lack a certain delineation and all sort of fall into themselves, then into a compost pile. Manure. Balance is achieved but it's no hard task given the mainly-flat profile. Some subtle complexities do exist in the leather/wood and Worcestershire additions. Larger than average nuance and depth of notes, particularly in the sneaky cocoa. There is a transition of sorts at the closing of the 2/3, where pumpernickel bread toasts in the earthy components.
Smokes ::: very ::: fast, most likely due to being under-stuffed in order to attain a super-flat format. Feels a bit like holding a wafer in your lips. Draws all well & good, perhaps a tick toward too open for my tastes. Burn happens on a slight wave but needs no redirecting. Ash is dark, flaky-powdery, and splits at least once. Smoke out-put is moderate but lacks weight and leads to a wispy room-note of far-away peppered beef jerky in a paper bag. You eventually do taste that.
TASTE: B+
DRAW: B+
BURN: B
BUILD: B+
FINAL GRADE: B+
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
::: very :::