Learn

Learn: Start Here

Updated 2026-09-04 · by Eric

Learn is the reference shelf of Would Smoke Again... plain-English pages for every term the reviews lean on, with no scores. Where I've got a personal take, it's marked as mine.

When a review mentions a Habano wrapper, a tight draw, or a cigar that canoes, this is where those words get explained. Every page here is definitional: what a term means, where a leaf grows, what a shape changes about the smoke. Nothing here is a review. Verdicts live on the reviews, my opinions and the rules this site runs on live at From the Deck, and the verdict scale itself is decoded at how to read a WSA review.

Looking for one thing? Type it in the box below, or jump straight to a section. Brand new to cigars? Start with the eight pages in order.

New here? Start in this order

How to buy cigars: buy a few singles, not a box.
How to cut a cigar: open the head without wrecking it.
How to light a cigar: toast the foot, take your time.
Do you inhale cigars?: no... here's what to do instead.
How to taste a cigar: what to actually pay attention to.
Which size when: match the cigar to the time you have.
How long cigars last: storage starts here.
How to read a WSA review: then go read verdicts.

Reference

Cigar glossary: every term in plain English, A to Z, each linked to its full page.
Anatomy of a cigar: wrapper, binder, filler, cap, head, foot, and band... which end you cut and which you light.
How a cigar is made: seed beds to curing barns to pilones to rolling to the box.
How to read a WSA review: the verdict-first format, the four-tier scale, street price, and source badges.
Cigar troubleshooting: something wrong mid-smoke? the symptom index.

Smoking basics

Smoking basics hub: the technique shelf in one page, with the five-page first lesson in order.
How to cut a cigar: where the cut goes, why less is more, and how the guillotine, punch, and V-cut compare.
How to light a cigar: toasting the foot, torch vs soft flame vs matches, and what never to light one with.
Do you inhale cigars?: no... what to do instead, and why the nicotine still finds you.
Purging, pace, and the hot, harsh cigar: what purging does and doesn't fix, and the one-puff-a-minute pace that prevents the problem.
Relighting and saving a cigar: the purge, the relight, the three-hour window, and why the humidor is off-limits.
Cigar glue and field repairs: cracked wrappers, unraveling seams, and the saves that work.
Refilling and bleeding a torch lighter: bleed the tank first, fill upside down, wait ten minutes... plus the sputter and clogged-jet fixes.
Cold weather cigars: dry winter air is the real threat, plus the wind, the butane, and the acclimation step.
How to blow smoke rings: the vortex-ring physics, the O, the throat pop, and why cigar smoke is the right smoke for it.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle hub: where to smoke, the smell, guests, drinks, gifts, and the local shop, grouped.
Cigar lounge etiquette: what the unwritten rules actually are, minus the gatekeeping.
Beginner cigar kit: the short list of gear worth buying first, and what to skip.
Cigar accessories you actually need: the three-item need list, what gets earned later, and the wall you can skip.
Celebration and wedding cigars: buying for a crowd... quantities, budgets, and handing them out right.
Cigars as gifts: buying for someone else... samplers, gift cards, and what to avoid.
Hosting a cigar night: headcount math, the staging table, and guests who don't smoke.
How to get cigar smell off you: why it sorbs into skin, hair and beard, and what actually takes it back off.
Getting cigar smoke out of clothes: airing, the right wash additive, and why the dryer is the mistake.
Getting cigar smell out of your car: the cabin filter step nobody does, and where ozone actually fits.
How often is too often?: what the mortality studies show about frequency, and the three markers that tell you where your line is.
Keeping a cigar journal: what to write down, and why "that was a good cigar" is worth nothing later.
Smoking cigars at home: picking the spot, budgeting the time, and what the smell does and doesn't do outdoors.
Cigar etiquette at other people's houses: the don't-bring-it default, and the awkward cases ruled on.
Smoking cigars on work travel: the always-packed bag, the hotel-patio recon, and the skip-it discipline.
What a local cigar shop is for: what a B&M's markup actually buys, and when online wins anyway.
Limited edition cigars: genuinely scarce or just a badge, and why the buying window closes before you know.
What to drink with a cigar: what a drink actually changes, the case for water, and pairing without the charts.
Coffee and cigars: a home-roasting coffee nerd on why he still doesn't pair, and what happens when the two meet.
Beer and cigars: carbonation is the whole mechanism, style by style, and why the IPA habit is the wrong one.
Rum and cigars: the pairing lives or dies on sugar, the categories straight, and why the label won't tell you.
The guest humidor: stocking flavored and infused cigars you'll never smoke, and why they get their own container.

Wrappers

Wrappers hub: what the wrapper adds, the candela-to-oscuro color scale, and shade vs sun.
Maduro, the process: extended fermentation, which leaves go dark, and why darker isn't stronger.
Connecticut Shade: the thin, mild, golden leaf grown under cloth in the US and cloud in Ecuador.
Connecticut Broadleaf: the thick, toothy, stalk-cut leaf behind the classic American maduro.
Habano: the Cuban-seed workhorse, grown mostly in Ecuador and Nicaragua today.
Corojo: Cuban-born seed with a pepper-and-cedar reputation, now mainly Honduran.
Criollo: Cuba's old native seed line and the story of Criollo 98.
San Andrés: the dark Mexican leaf grown almost entirely for maduro.
Cameroon: Africa's delicate, toothy, chronically scarce wrapper.
Sumatra: Indonesian seed, now often Ecuadorian, earthy and gently sweet.
Brazilian wrappers: Mata Fina and Arapiraca, dark leaves with built-in sweetness.
Pennsylvania Broadleaf: the thick, rustic American leaf with real strength.
Candela: why some cigars are green, and how green once ruled the US market.
Oscuro: the darkest wrapper class, a step past maduro.
Natural, claro, colorado: the light and middle shades where most cigars live.
Corojo vs Habano: how the two Cuban-seed lineages split, and how they compare.
Does the wrapper make the flavor?: why every percentage you've heard is a guess, and how ring gauge changes the answer.

Origins

Origins hub: how soil and climate shape flavor, and all nine growing countries at a glance.
Nicaragua: the modern powerhouse... Estelí, Condega, Jalapa, and Ometepe.
Dominican Republic: the Cibao Valley, Santiago's factories, and the classic smooth profile.
Honduras: bold, earthy tobacco from the Jamastran Valley and the factory town of Danlí.
Cuba: where the premium cigar was born, and what the mystique gets right and wrong.
Fake Cuban cigars: the tells, the glass-top box, and the only reliable buying rule.
The two Cohibas: the Cuban original vs the Dominican Red Dot, and the trademark split behind them.
Ecuador: the wrapper capital of the world, growing leaf under natural cloud cover.
Mexico: the San Andrés Valley and the dark Negro leaf behind the maduro boom.
United States: Connecticut shade and broadleaf, Pennsylvania, and what's left of the rolling trade.
Brazil: Bahia's Mata Fina, Alagoas's Arapiraca, dark and naturally sweet-leaning.
Cameroon, Africa: the scarce, prized wrapper and its supply story.
Terroir: what soil, climate, and altitude do to the leaf, and where the marketing takes over.
Origins compared: Nicaragua vs the Dominican Republic vs Honduras... what each does best, and which to try first.

Fundamentals

Fundamentals hub: what's inside a cigar and what it costs, grouped: blend, buying, shipping law, health.
How to buy cigars: the shop, online, and auctions... samplers, bundles, and what a cigar should cost.
Buying cigars on vacation: tourist traps, duty-free math, and what customs actually allows home.
What cigars actually cost: MSRP vs street vs sale, what is inside the number, and why price is not evidence.
State tobacco taxes: the federal cap, the three state structures, and why the same box costs different money.
Where cigars can and can't be shipped: the three layers, the states worth naming, and the retailer's longer list.
Why your online cigar order was canceled: age verification, carrier rules, payment, and what the PACT Act actually does.
Cigar box splits: the group-buy math, the trust problem, and the cigars that arrive dry.
Ligero, seco, viso: primings... where a leaf sat on the plant, and what that does to strength.
What is a puro: one-country cigars, and why most cigars aren't.
Long vs short filler: whole leaves vs chopped pieces, and where the Cuban sandwich fits.
Handmade vs machine-made: the all-tobacco line, and why this site stays on the handmade side of it.
Strength vs body vs flavor: three different dials, and they move independently.
Nicotine, without the sick: why cigars hit hard, and how to keep a strong one from ruining a night.
Fermentation and aging: what happens in the pile vs what happens in the box.
Cigars vs cigarettes: what the health evidence actually says about two products wearing one label, cited so you can check it.
Are cigars addictive?: the warnings run on cigarette data... what studies of nicotine without the cigarette found.
The FDA and premium cigars: the court rulings that carved premium handmades out of the deeming rule, and the eight-part definition.
Are cigar of the month clubs worth it?: what a club really costs, the MSRP trick behind "retail value", and when a self-built sampler wins.
Gray market cigars: what an authorized dealer is, where sideways stock comes from, and which cheap deals to walk past.
How many cigars come in a box?: 20 to 25, an 1865 tax law, and why the 5-pack is usually the smarter buy.
Gauging strength before you buy: the blend copy, the country, and the line name predict the nicotine... wrapper color lies.
Cigar vs cigarillo vs little cigar: whole leaf, a pressed sheet, or a cigarette in costume... the three questions that sort them.

Sizes and shapes

Vitolas hub: what a vitola is, and how size changes the smoke.
Parejo shapes: robusto, toro, Churchill, and the other straight-sided standards, with dimensions.
Figurado shapes: belicoso, torpedo, pyramid, perfecto... and what the taper actually changes.
Box-pressed cigars: why some cigars are square, what the press changes, and the six-sided oddballs.
Ring gauge: a cigar's diameter in 64ths of an inch, and what the number changes.
Which size when: matching the vitola to the time you actually have.
How long it takes to smoke a cigar: burn time by size, what stretches the clock, and working backwards from the time you have.

Taste and burn

Taste and burn hub: tasting, the draw, burn problems, the ash, and what the wrapper, band, and box tell you first.
How to taste a cigar: building a palate from scratch, in thirds, with the retrohale.
The retrohale: tasting smoke through the nose, and how to start without coughing.
The draw: tight, loose, and plugged, what causes each, and the standard fixes.
Burn issues glossary: canoeing, tunneling, runners, touch-ups, relights, and purges.
Reading the ash: what color and stack say about soil and storage... and don't say about quality.
Reading the wrapper: tooth, veins, oil, color evenness, and telling plume from mold.
Flavor vocabulary: the note families, and why notes are resemblances, not ingredients.
The nub: why cigars turn bitter at the end, and when putting one down is the right call.
Fixing a tight draw: re-cuts, massage, the draw tool, and when to give up.
Ash management: when to tap, when to let it ride, and how to ash without killing the ember.
Reading a cigar box: date stamps, factory marks, and what the box can't tell you.
Cigar bands: what a band tells you, what a second band means, and when to take one off.
Why does my cigar taste bitter?: the usual causes, from pace to storage, and the fix for each.

Storage

Storage hub: the whole subject in one page: the RH band, the first humidor, the threats, and the rescues.
Humidity and RH: what relative humidity is, and the 65-70 percent band cigars live in.
Storage basics: humidors, seasoning, two-way packs, beads, and the tupperdor.
How to calibrate a hygrometer: the salt test, the one-step kit, and when not to bother.
Rescuing dried-out cigars: the slow-rehydration protocol, and the tricks that ruin cigars.
Wineadors and cigar coolers: when temperature control earns its plug, and when a closet still wins.
Your first humidor: what to buy, what it costs, and why a tupperdor is a fine answer.
Two-way humidity packs: packs vs gel vs beads, the RH numbers, and why recharging is a bad idea.
How long cigars last: days on a table, weeks in cello, years humidified... and why mail-order cigars need a rest.
Cellophane: on or off?: the short answer, the aging exception, and why yellowing isn't damage.
Traveling with cigars: the zip-bag method, travel cases, current TSA rules, and the car problem.
Tobacco beetles and freezing: what hatches, at what temperature, how to spot it, and the freeze protocol.
Mold vs. plume: what the white stuff on a cigar is, the wipe test, and why the plume story is mostly wishful thinking.
My storage setup: a few hundred cigars in gasket totes and a cooler, the rules, and the one real risk.
Summer heat: beetles, over-humidification, and why a hygrometer can read right and still be wrong.
Spanish cedar, explained: what the wood actually does for moisture, beetles, and aroma... and when a tupperdor needs none of it.
The sick period: the ammonia edge on a new cigar, what travel shock does, and how long to rest it before judging.
Cigar tubos, explained: where the aluminum tube came from, what it really protects against, and whether cigars age better inside one.

Flavored & infused

Flavored and infused cigars: what each term means, how they differ, and why the category sells so well.
How infusion works: aroma rooms... tobacco absorbing scent from botanicals, with nothing sprayed on.
How flavoring works: essences applied to the leaf, the rest that settles them, and the sugar-dipped tip.
Sweet vs sweetened: natural leaf sweetness versus a sugar-dipped tip, and how to tell them apart.
Ghosting: why infused cigars get their own container, and what happens when they don't.

Factories

Factories hub: a verified, filterable table of who is publicly known to make what.
Contract vs owned brands: why one factory's name shows up on ten different brands.