In our view, body refers to the depth of flavor of a cigar and how thick or dense its smoke is on your palate. You will hear us use terms like light, soft, thin, mild, medium, and full when describing a cigar’s flavor. You may hear us use a term like light/grassy when describing the body of a mild cigar like a Davidoff Special R or thick and very rich when describing a cigar like a Prensado Gran Toro.
Strength on the other hand is our method of telling customers how much nicotine a cigar has. While many of the same descriptors are used – mild, medium, strong, etc., we get that it can be confusing to understand those subtle differences between a cigar’s body and strength. For example, the Oliva Serie V Double Robusto is, in our view, a medium-body, full-strength cigar – a medium amount of smoke, and lots of nicotine. The Ashton VSG Robusto on the other hand is full body, full strength. At the other end of the spectrum, the Macanudo Hyde Park is a mild/smooth body, and light-strength cigar owing to its blend.
So when we chat with you about some of these descriptors, know they come from how we taste cigars and how our own palates find these cigars. Also know that personal tolerance varies from customer to customer and what may be too strong for one will be fine for another. That’s also why our staff will recommend you try a simple taste test on your own to see if you can taste/sense some of these differences. For example, try one of the new Royal Caminos in the same size but in 2 different wrappers or the CS House Dominican Robustos and pair it with a CS House Honduran Robusto.