Something could be preventing you from tapping into those juicy notes in your cigars. The villain? Humidity fluctuations. When RH yo-yos in a humidor, it can strip away your cigars’ flavors. Not experiencing the coffee? The pepper? The caramel? The graham cracker? Get those premium profiles you invested in—stabilize your RH level. Do it soon, before you miss anything else.
1. Humidity fluctuations cause cigars to lose essential oils and flavors.
Like fine wine, cigars are natural products that live, breathe and age. Natural oils and sugars provide a cigar’s character and flavor. The wrapper. The binder. The filler. The oils and sugars in each harmoniously marry to create the whole cigar smoking experience. Aging a cigar matures those oils and sugars. And develops a cigar’s “bloom.” And that, my cigar smoking friend, is reason enough to invest in a premium smoke.
Successfully aging cigars requires two things: proper storage and stable humidity control. Store a cigar in a humidor with a fluctuating RH level, and you’ll never enjoy that cigar the way the cigar master intended.
Tobacco is “hygroscopic.” That means a cigar can emit moisture as well as draw in moisture from surrounding environments. These moisture fluctuations make it difficult to maintain the natural oils and sugars in a cigar’s blend.
A too low or too high RH level in your humidor can ruin a fine cigar fast.
What happens when a cigar is too wet?
- Tobacco leaves swell
- Cigar is hard to light
- Difficult to draw smoke through the tobacco
- Perfect environment for mold, mildew and cigar beetles (yuck)
What happens when a cigar is too dry?
- Oils and sugars from the filler, binder and wrapper never marry (sad)
- Flavor is stale
- Cigar burns too hot, too fast
2. Leaking humidor & refilling/ rewetting a device causes RH to bounce around.
Neglecting to store cigars in a proper environment is a mistake. (Don’t compound a mistake with another mistake.)
2 enemies of premium cigars:
- Inferior storage environment (leaky humidor, backseat of your car, rolling around loose in a golf bag, tackle box or boat’s glovebox)
- Inferior humidification product that can’t control the fluctuating environment surrounding your cigars (sponges, PG solutions, gels, beads, etc.)
Humidity fluctuations arise with normal changes in ambient temperature and humidity inside a humidor. If you use refillable humidification device—like a sponge or oasis—cycles in humidity are more dramatic.
HOW WET SPONGES AND THEIR LIKE CAUSE YOUR RH LEVEL TO FLUCTUATE
- Humidity inside your humidor spikes when you add water to a refillable device. (This jolt also creates an environment ripe for mold, mildew and bacteria.)
- As the water evaporates, humidity drops steadily. During these cycles, some of the natural oils and sugars within your cigar’s blend dissipates right along with the moisture. This robs your cigar of its character, flavor and its foundation to improve with age.
- And can cause off-flavors in your cigars.
3. Eliminating humidity fluctuations to properly age your cigars.
- Store cigars in an airtight environment, such as an acrylic humidor, Boveda Humidor Bag or Tupperdor
- Season a wooden humidor before adding cigars. Boveda for Seasoning is easy, safe, precise and just one step
- Use Boveda in any and all humidors (What Boveda RH is right for your humidor?)
HOW BOVEDA STABILIZES THE RH LEVEL IN YOUR HUMIDOR
Boveda’s 2-way humidity control:
- Continually responds to a humidor’s environment to maintain a stable and precise RH level
- Slowly adds or absorbs water vapor as needed
- Stops moisture spikes and nosedives in your humidor
- Prevents the loss of the natural oils, sugars and flavor in aging cigars
