Guide
How to build your cigar flavor profile: the 12 flavor families
8 min read
Most cigar smokers can tell you whether they liked a cigar. Far fewer can say why, and that is the part that helps you choose the next one. A flavor profile is simply a record of which flavors you keep enjoying. This guide gives you a vocabulary of twelve flavor families and a way to build the profile from your own smokes.
Why a profile beats a list of favourites
A list of favourite cigars only helps you rebuy them. A profile helps you choose cigars you have never tried. If you know you keep rating cigars high when they show cedar, cream and a little sweetness, and low when black pepper dominates, you can read any cigar's description and make a good guess. That works in a shop, in a lounge and when a friend offers you something unfamiliar.
Flavor descriptions in cigar reviews can feel endless: graham cracker, barnyard, cedar, white pepper, espresso, dried fig. The trick is to group them. Nearly every note you will read or taste belongs to one of a dozen families, and it is the families, not the individual words, that make a useful profile.
The 12 flavor families
| Family | Notes you will meet | Often found in |
|---|---|---|
| Wood | Cedar, oak, sawdust, pencil shavings | Most cigars; very common with Connecticut and Dominican blends |
| Soil | Earth, minerals, damp forest, barnyard | Maduro wrappers, Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco |
| Leather | Leather, saddle, tanned hide | Fuller Nicaraguan and Cuban-style blends |
| Toast | Toast, bread crust, roasted, smoky, charred | Well-aged tobacco, many Dominican puros |
| Coffee | Espresso, coffee bean, roasted grain | Maduro and Broadleaf wrappers |
| Chocolate | Cocoa, dark chocolate, milk chocolate | Maduro and San Andrés wrappers |
| Nut | Almond, peanut, cashew, walnut | Connecticut Shade and Cameroon wrappers |
| Sweet | Honey, caramel, vanilla, molasses, raisin sugar | Cameroon, Broadleaf, well-aged Cuban tobacco |
| Cream | Cream, butter, milky smoothness | Connecticut Shade and Ecuadorian wrappers |
| Fruit | Citrus, dried fruit, berries, floral notes | Cuban tobacco, Cameroon, some Habano wrappers |
| Grass | Hay, herbs, green tea, vegetal | Younger tobacco, Candela wrappers |
| Pepper | Black and white pepper, spice, cinnamon, clove | Habano, Corojo and Nicaraguan ligero |
Wood
- Notes you will meet
- Cedar, oak, sawdust, pencil shavings
- Often found in
- Most cigars; very common with Connecticut and Dominican blends
Soil
- Notes you will meet
- Earth, minerals, damp forest, barnyard
- Often found in
- Maduro wrappers, Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco
Leather
- Notes you will meet
- Leather, saddle, tanned hide
- Often found in
- Fuller Nicaraguan and Cuban-style blends
Toast
- Notes you will meet
- Toast, bread crust, roasted, smoky, charred
- Often found in
- Well-aged tobacco, many Dominican puros
Coffee
- Notes you will meet
- Espresso, coffee bean, roasted grain
- Often found in
- Maduro and Broadleaf wrappers
Chocolate
- Notes you will meet
- Cocoa, dark chocolate, milk chocolate
- Often found in
- Maduro and San Andrés wrappers
Nut
- Notes you will meet
- Almond, peanut, cashew, walnut
- Often found in
- Connecticut Shade and Cameroon wrappers
Sweet
- Notes you will meet
- Honey, caramel, vanilla, molasses, raisin sugar
- Often found in
- Cameroon, Broadleaf, well-aged Cuban tobacco
Cream
- Notes you will meet
- Cream, butter, milky smoothness
- Often found in
- Connecticut Shade and Ecuadorian wrappers
Fruit
- Notes you will meet
- Citrus, dried fruit, berries, floral notes
- Often found in
- Cuban tobacco, Cameroon, some Habano wrappers
Grass
- Notes you will meet
- Hay, herbs, green tea, vegetal
- Often found in
- Younger tobacco, Candela wrappers
Pepper
- Notes you will meet
- Black and white pepper, spice, cinnamon, clove
- Often found in
- Habano, Corojo and Nicaraguan ligero
The third column is a tendency, not a rule. Blending, fermentation and age change everything, which is exactly why your own notes matter more than any chart.
How to taste flavors you cannot yet name
- Taste before you light. Draw air through the cut cigar (a cold draw). Hay, raisin, cocoa or spice often show up here first and give you a starting vocabulary.
- Slow down. One draw every 45 to 60 seconds keeps the burn cool. A hot cigar tastes bitter and hides everything else.
- Use your palate and your nose separately. Hold the smoke in your mouth for a few seconds: that gives you sweet, bitter, salt and body. Then let a little smoke out through the nose (a retrohale): that is where most of the aroma lives, especially pepper, wood and fruit.
- Name the family first, then the note. “Something woody” is a good note. Cedar or oak can come later.
- Write down two or three, not ten. The two strongest families per third are enough to build a profile. Long lists are mostly noise.
- Clear your palate. Sparkling water or plain water between draws helps more than you would expect.
From notes to a profile
A profile appears once you have rated around ten cigars. The method is simple enough to do on paper:
- After each cigar, give it an overall rating and mark the flavor families you clearly noticed.
- For each family, look at the average rating of the cigars where it appeared.
- Families that keep appearing in your high-rated cigars are your core; families that show up in your low-rated ones are the ones to steer away from.
- Re-check after every five cigars. Palates change with experience, and so will the profile.
You will usually find two or three families that drive your enjoyment. That is the useful result: a short sentence such as “I like cream, nut and wood, and I do not like heavy pepper” is enough to guide most purchases.
For a quick first picture before you have rated anything, take the cigar flavor quiz.
How aficio does this for you
aficio uses these same twelve families. While you smoke, you tap the flavors you notice; when you finish, you rate the cigar. Each rating updates a twelve-axis flavor radar, and cigars in the catalog of 5,000+ verified cigars get a match % against it. After a few smokes, the app can tell you which cigar in your humidor suits you tonight and how close an unfamiliar cigar on a shop shelf is to your taste.
Whether you use an app or a notebook, the habit is the same: notice, name the family, rate. The profile takes care of itself.
Questions
- How many cigars do I need to rate before a flavor profile is useful?
- Around ten rated cigars is usually enough to see two or three flavor families that drive your enjoyment. The profile keeps sharpening after that.
- What is a retrohale?
- Letting a small amount of smoke out through your nose. Much of a cigar's aroma, especially pepper, wood and fruit, is only noticeable this way. Start with very little smoke; it can sting.
- Do flavor notes mean flavors were added to the cigar?
- No. In a traditional premium cigar the notes come from the tobacco itself: the seed, the soil, the curing, the fermentation and the aging. Flavored or infused cigars are a separate category.