Learn: Start Here
Learn is the reference shelf of Would Smoke Again... plain-English pages for every term the reviews lean on, with no scores and no opinions.
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, ratings, and personal takes live on the main site, and the rating system itself is decoded at how to read a WSA review.
New to cigars? Three good doors: the glossary for fast definitions, anatomy of a cigar for the parts, and how a cigar is made for the whole assembly line. Or browse the full map below.
Start here
- Start here: this page... the full map of the Learn section.
- 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.
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.
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.
- 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.
Fundamentals
- 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.
- 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.
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.
- 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.
Reading a cigar
- 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.
Storage
- 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.
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.