Foundation The Tabernacle Havana Seed CT No. 142 Toro Review

2026-07-14  Box Buy · 4/4 My Money

Verdict: Box Buy (4/4)... an easy, easy box buy, and the next order will be exactly that. Phenomenal start to finish, with more going on in it than I have the vocabulary for. It dips a little in the final third like almost everything does... and even in the dip it's still a phenomenal cigar. I've had several of these now and I haven't hit a bad one yet.

The Setup

• Cigar: Foundation The Tabernacle Havana Seed CT No. 142, Toro (6 x 52)
• Blend: Havana Seed CT No. 142 wrapper (that's the Connecticut-grown Havana-seed leaf the line is named for), Mexican San Andrés binder, Nicaraguan fillers
• Street price: around $14.50-15.50 for a single... boxes of 24 run about $318, which brings a stick down near $13.25
• What I paid: right around retail at a local B&M... my local shops don't really do discounts, so figure the $15 range. My own money, nobody sent me this
• Storage: from my humidor stock, 69% Boveda
• When/where: lit at 8:25pm, done at 10:10... 82° and 70% humidity on the back deck
• Food beforehand: dinner around 6:30... lemon/lime grilled chicken, baked potato with butter, and a little tomato bisque
• Pairing: water

Before the Light

It looks like a double cap, and the wrapper is a very nice leaf... not toothy at all, with slight color variations. No cellophane, which is the usual trade: it looks fantastic in the tray, and it makes me a little nervous in transit. Sure enough, mine had a little damage around the foot... the pros and cons of naked cigars in one stick. Since the foot is the first thing to burn, I wasn't worried, and it never mattered.

Cold draw: a nice tobacco sweetness with a little spice if you retrohale it, and a perfect draw. Not "pretty good." Perfect.

First Third

The first few puffs put a lot on the table at once: milk chocolate, baking spice through the retro, creamy smoke, a slight almond nuttiness, and a long sweet finish with the spice lingering on the palate. Right from light-up I was looking forward to the rest of this one.

Halfway through the third, the milk chocolate pulls its signature move... it's there for a fraction of a moment, then gone, leaving baking spice and nuttiness behind. The spice does something I had to reach for a snack analogy to describe: it puts a little bite on your palate, like the vinegar tingle off a salt & vinegar chip... nowhere near that strength, but that idea. Retro it and it's sweet, light baking spice... and then a bunch of other stuff I flat couldn't place. I'll say this more than once: there is more going on in this cigar than I managed to describe.

Smoke production: excellent. Draw: still perfect. The burn ran a touch wavy all night, and the fix was never a lighter... rotate the slow side down and it sorts itself. The ash held to the end of the third, tight overall with a few loose pieces sticking out, and tapped off almost completely in one piece. And right after I ashed it, that chocolate note came way forward. No bitterness anywhere, single puff or double.

Second Third

Here's the cigar's party trick: the baking spice is fully retro-dependent. Full retro and you get a lot of it. Light retro and it nearly disappears, letting a sweet nuttiness take the front. Maybe clove in there too? I don't know... there's definitely more that I can't pinpoint and describe properly. What I can describe is the linger: a super-sweet nuttiness over sweet tobacco that just holds on and on between puffs, with that faint salt-&-vinegar bite on the sides of the tongue slowly fading out. Milk chocolate keeps doing its flash-appearance thing... a hit, then gone.

Some flyers came off the side of the ash midway through, and when I went to tap them the whole ash came off clean... after which the burn tightened up to nearly razor sharp. Still zero bitterness. Straight baking spice on the retro, no pepper yet.

Near the end of the third, two oddball notes wandered in: every once in a while, a light chlorine-water flavor... weird, I know, like the smell when you walk into an over-chlorinated public pool, in and out fast... and just a touch of dustiness with it. The retro started picking up a little pepper, the sweetness toned down, and the tongue-bite finished fading. The ash ran flaky all night, so I kept giving it light taps over the tray rather than donating it to my lap.

Final Third

Started with a big hit of chocolate... gone quick, and darker now, more dark chocolate than milk. The spice moved from baking spice to a genuine pepper, and still, the retro stayed comfortable no matter how much smoke I ran through it. On the exhale there's a little of that dustiness, then a long lingering sweetness. The nuttiness mostly stepped out... and in its place I finally placed a note that had been hiding all night because I kept hunting for food flavors: leather. It's on the finish, not the whole way through, but it's absolutely there. Midway through the third it turned into dark chocolate that lingers, plus a roasted nuttiness, and it got more drying on the palate... I was taking a couple sips of water every three or four puffs.

Then the one strange moment of the night: right at the end of the third it basically went out on me. No warning... it had been burning great with zero touch-ups all night, and I can only figure I talked too long between puffs. It had been so good that I tapped the ash, relit the last quarter inch, and kept going. More pepper now, a little bitterness, a strong dark-coffee note, leather, that odd chlorine note flickering in and out... and then, past where I'd even call the final third, the sweetness bounced back, with dark chocolate, a little earth, and quick returns of roasted nuttiness. Final thirds fade... they don't rally. This one rallied. I nubbed it and only put it down because there wasn't enough leaf left to draw without it getting hot on my lips.

Construction

• Wrapper: beautiful smooth leaf, slight color variation, minor foot damage from shipping naked (no cellophane)... zero impact
• Draw: perfect, start to finish. Not a note I get to write often
• Burn: a touch wavy the whole way, but zero touch-ups... rotation alone kept it honest for an hour and forty-five minutes. One surprise near-out at the very end, one relight
• Ash: solid core, flaky edges... held well in thirds, needed light taps for the flakes
• Smoke output: excellent, the entire smoke

Bottom Line

This is the cigar where I most feel the limits of my own palate... baking spice, milk chocolate flashing to dark, almond, clove-maybe, leather, dark coffee, that weird little pool note, and a sweet nutty linger that won't quit... and I'm certain I missed half of what it was doing. Medium-plus most of the way, full by the end, complex enough to keep you leaning in for nearly two hours, and built well enough to do it without a single touch-up. The final-third dip is real and it's mild... and then it apologized for it with a sweetness rally after the relight.

Would I smoke it again? Box Buy, easily. At $14.50-15.50 a single... and consistently available at those numbers online... this is exactly what that tier is for. This smoke put me down to my last one in the humidor, and that's a problem I intend to fix with a box, not a five-pack. Several of these in, I haven't had a bad one.

Best for: the evening you actually have two hours and want the cigar to be the entertainment. This is not background smoke... it keeps talking the whole time, and you'll want to listen. Keep water handy for the last third.

My rating scale, one question only... would I spend my own money on this again? 4 Box Buy (box on hand, always) / 3 Five-Pack (yes, a few live in the humidor) / 2 Hand-Me-One (wouldn't buy it, wouldn't turn one down) / 1 Not Even Free (I'd rather smoke nothing).

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