| Quality Control Items | | | | you cut the head for measurement and you destroy |
| Quality control on cigars concerns the construction, | | | | your cigar too. |
| appearance, taste and suction(draw). Once it is done, | | | | Suction Control(2) |
| it is not finished. Quality control has to be exercised | | | | The second method works with a needle making a |
| on all packaging material and, then, on the full box to | | | | hole in the head for measuring and you repair the |
| check the shading of the cigars before closing it. That | | | | cigar afterward. If the draw is bad, you send back |
| seems simple. In fact, for hand made cigars, it is a | | | | the cigar to the production department to remake it |
| tough problem. Not to do it, but to set up the criteria | | | | or throw it away. You lose at least the wrapper, |
| of acceptance and to respect them. | | | | which is very expensive or you lose the whole cigar. |
| Construction Control | | | | Today, thanks to a new machine, the best way is to |
| A Premium cigar is supposed to have a perfect | | | | check the draw on the bunch before wrapping. If the |
| shape at the proper size (length and ring gauge). The | | | | draw is out of the acceptable range, you can easily |
| body must be straight and, when examined by | | | | remake the bunch, avoiding extra cost on wrapper. |
| feeling, the compactness must be even from one | | | | Appearance Control(1) |
| end to the other, not too soft, not too hard. The | | | | A Premium cigar smoker likes to have a beautiful |
| head must be properly closed. The foot must be cut | | | | product: an even and clean color, and no breakage or |
| straight, perpendicular to the lengthwise axis. All that | | | | hole in the wrapper. But the cigar is hand made |
| does not guarantee that the cigar will smoke | | | | ("errare humanun est"), and the wrapper is a natural |
| correctly because it does not tell you how fillers are | | | | product. Thus, there are many ways to have defects |
| organized inside the bunch (See suction control). | | | | in cigars. Even if these defects do not affect the |
| Suction Control(1) | | | | taste, the consumer does not like to see them. At |
| Traditionally, a hand made cigar with a good | | | | each step of the production process , from the leaf |
| construction was supposed to have a good draw. As | | | | department to the quality control, the undesirable |
| long as there was no suction machine, there was no | | | | wrapper leaves and cigars are rejected. |
| alternative for checking it. In fact, it worked, but not | | | | Appearance Control(2) |
| 100%. Forget the very hard cigar that probably has a | | | | Wrapper leaves are responsible for the cigar's |
| heavy draw. Forget the too soft cigar that has | | | | appearance. Defects are naturally numerous. They |
| probably a too easy draw. A well constructed cigar | | | | are spots, stains, two-tone or three-tone colors, |
| can have twisted fillers inside that obstructs the air | | | | off-color veins, shine. Shine is a sign of a healthy |
| flow. Nobody can feel that before lighting the cigar | | | | wrapper. Off-color veins are a bad sign: tobacco has |
| up. Drawing test machines, running in the | | | | suffered in the field or has been improperly cured. |
| machine-made cigar industry, have been adapted for | | | | Multi-tone colors can just be ugly, some stains too. |
| the handmade cigars manufacturers. To control the | | | | But one green spot on a Cuban wrapper or few small |
| suction on a finished cigar, you can smoke it but then | | | | white spots on a Cameroon one are like a signature: |
| you have destroyed it! There are two kinds of | | | | they show that the wrapper leaf is just right and |
| drawing test machines for finished cigars. With one, | | | | there is no reason to reject the cigar. |