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Box-Pressed Cigars

Updated 2026-09-02 · by Eric

A box-pressed cigar is a regular cigar pressed into a squared profile after rolling... same tobacco, same blend, flat sides. It isn't a different shape family and it isn't a gimmick with no history. It's a finishing step, and it changes less than the arguments about it suggest.

Where the square came from

The story usually told starts in Cuba: cigars packed tightly into boxes without cellophane, stacked cheek to cheek, took on a square set during shipping and storage. Smokers got used to the look and some makers started pressing on purpose. That deliberate version picked up the name trunk-pressed... after the shipping trunks... and today that term usually signals the harder, crisper-edged press.

Modern pressing happens two ways. Some factories pack freshly rolled cigars snugly in pressing boxes so the sides flatten as they settle; others use molds that square the cigar more aggressively. The result runs a spectrum: a soft press keeps rounded shoulders and just hints at flat sides, while a sharp press has edges you can feel with your thumb... CAO's Flathead line takes that end about as far as it goes.

What it changes... and what it doesn't

The proven list is short. The flat sides change how the cigar sits in your fingers and against your lip, it won't roll off the table, and the pressed profile packs the same tobacco into a slightly different cross-section. Smokers commonly credit the press with a slower, cooler burn and a touch more concentrated draw. Treat those as folklore with plausible physics rather than settled fact... nobody is running lab trials, and the makers themselves mostly talk about feel and looks.

What it does not change: the blend. A pressed cigar is not stronger, sweeter, or "smoother" because of its corners. If a box-pressed cigar tastes different from its round sibling, something else in the blend or the batch is doing the work.

Pressed is not a shape

The press is a finish, not a vitola. A box-pressed toro is still a toro; a box-pressed torpedo is still a figurado. Any shape with straight enough sides can take a press, which is why you'll see pressed robustos, toros, and torpedos from the same lines that sell round ones.

Beyond four sides

Once a maker accepts that a cigar doesn't have to be round, four sides is just the start. The best-known example is Plasencia's Alma Fuerte Sixto... a 6×60 pressed into a hexagon, six flat sides instead of four, sold in hexagonal boxes to match. It's a showpiece of what a press can do, and proof the technique is a choice about geometry, not a shortcut.

On the site

• The My Father Flor de las Antillas Toro is a box-pressed Nicaraguan puro... landed a Hand-Me-One (2/4) on a night the burn wouldn't behave.
• The My Father Le Bijou 1922 Torpedo is a box-pressed figurado... landed a Five-Pack (3/4), just over the line on an off stick from a box that usually smokes better.

Keep reading

• Parejo shapes
• Figurado shapes
• Vitolas: the hub
• Ring gauge, explained

Reviewed at WSA since this page was written

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