Has anyone ever seen this ?

[SethG]

Important to know the lighting method. I would think too it's really high temperature bubbling the tar out

..... or it's a contaminant.

[Wil]

I recently noticed the same effect on a Partagas 898. Definitely a by-product of overheating with a jet torch, not poor quality tobacco.

[bunburyist]

same with me - if you hold a gas torch for more than a second or two on the cigar the tobacco starts to 'bubble' like this. Had always assumed it was to do with heat rather than the leaf itself.

[Cubanface]

My Nicaraguan and Dominican smokes do this far more often than my Cubans. I'm still pretty sure it's tar. If it were oils, the outside of the ash would have bubbles instead of the bubbles being where the filler was.

[Ellery]

Yeah, Ive seen this when I torched the **** out of the cigar. But Ive only seen it on the outer leaf, nothing on the inside.