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Hi Everyone, Long time reader, first time poster. I'm a British expat living in Singapore and having spent about year getting into cigars through buying singles, I decided to make the decision to get set up with a humidor of my own and buy in bulk to save on the exorbitant cost of cigars in this fine city state. As many of you will know, Singapore is hot and humid. A normal day is 32 degrees C with humidity levels routinely topping 90%. My house has air conditioning, however I'm not there during the working day, and can't leave my aircon running all the time, particularly not when I'm travelling. I therefore decided to get a nice Vintec 50 bottle wine fridge; for my cigars but also for my wife's wine collection. Instead of turning the entire unit into a "wineador" I elected just to take my Siglo 75 capacity humidor and place the whole thing in the fridge. Prior to doing this, I wiped the whole fridge down with water and baking soda to take away any plastic smell. The maximum temperature I can keep the fridge at is about 18.6 degrees C (65.5 F) so, based on reading a number of the threads on this forum, I went for a higher RH reading (around 74-75%) to factor in lower temperatures. I had about 60 sticks in there (combination of H Upmann Connie As, Partagas No.4, and RYJ Dukes) and they were smoking very nicely, if not just ever so slightly on the moist side to the touch; but tasted great. Now without wanting to ignite the RH/AH/temperature relationship debate, as a newbie I started to doubt myself and took out my humidification unit and the cigar box thin cedar sheets I had in there (humidor is already spansih cedar lined) and took the RH down to a reading of 70%. Since I have done this, the cigars have taken on what I can only describe as a slightly acrid but also slightly plastic taste. I read multiple threads on this fantastic forum that address wineador problems, but didn't read of anyone reporting a plastic taste in their sticks. I checked my humidor and seal is in good working order so I'm not sure it could be the smell of the fridge seeping into the sticks. Obviously I'm fairly concerned as to why my cigars suddenly taste bad so I wanted to get some expert views on what the diagnosis might be? Is the problem: I had too low RH for the temperature and therefore the sticks dried out and tasted bitter and/or the lining of the humidor became too dry and gave the sticks a nasty taste? The smell of my fridge is somehow seeping into the humidor? I removed the cedar cigar box sheets My cigars are going through a part of the ageing process where they don't taste as good? (N.B I smoked a partagas and an upmann and both had a funky taste) Any tips would be greatly appreciated. JK

I'd consider myself a experienced cigar smoker, 20 plus years and a somewhat bigger collector. Been slammed with work and flying this year so haven't had a ton of time to figure out the problem BUT everything I have taste like shit.... I have 3 good size converted wine chiller/coolers and no matter where the stick comes from its very harsh and taste terrible. Yes and I do finish them but its been a big problem the last year. Buddies in my group that are experienced smokers don't see it as much as I do but one of them is a pretty religious Opus smoker so well throw his opinion out. SOOO I think the problem is humidity (to wet...no mold no bloom somewhat spongy.) I bought all new gauges to put in the 3 boxes and they have been steady around 63-68 on the humidity and say 70-74 on temp mainly 73. I know that as temp goes up humidity needs to come down. I have been trying to do some dry boxing with so so results. I got a box of P2's from Rob last month. Let them set a week or 2 and wanted to try a fresh cigar and see how it compared....my god it was great...taste profile was what I remembered.... Revisted that box 2 weeks later and it was shit again.... So that leads me back to humidty. Now I really havnt had much of a burn issue with the problem cigars....(just a FYI) I store everything in original boxes, maybe storing the cigars in those size cabinets (20-30 plus boxes) with that high of RH they never really get a chance to dry out?? That's what I'm telling myself. I found a good deal on a Danielle Marshall humidor (yes I think there overpriced) but got it for about 60 Percent off and there suppose to be one of the best SOO I'm going to get that regulated to about 60 percent humidity and use it for smokable storage. Any input....thoughts...Just me??

After made polls, I found people use different humidity levels and wanted to learn is there taste difference more than %20 at different humidity levels.

I am pretty new to the world of cigars, only been smoking them for just under a year. I was wondering, how long it took people to refine their palete to all the subtle little tastes in a cigar. I definatly can tell the difference when the flavor changes, but I still cant pick out suble flavors and say "thats chocolate!" or "coffee", or "nutty" and so on... Any tips people have on how to identify the little flavors that come out in a cigar whould be awesome.

Hello all, I have recently learned that most cigar smokers retro-hale (blow smoke through the nose directly from the mouth) in order to detect more flavors to a cigar (thanks to the olfactory receptor). This was great news to me because I never was able to taste too many flavors while smoking and was worried that my taste buds are weak . So I've read about retro-haling and watched some "how to" videos and eventually I was able to get some smoke out through my nose but it gave a burning sensation to the back of my throat so I'm wondering if that means I'm inhaling. I've only recently started smoking cigars and never smoked anything else so the sensation of smoke in my lungs isn't familiar to me and I don't want it to be. Is the burning normal when retro-haling? If smoke gets to my lungs, how would I know other than possibly coughing? Please give tips to the newbie Thank you, A K P.S. I will try to add more details of what I feel when blowing smoke through my nose while I'm smoking to give better detail, if necessary.