A tale of two D4's

[El Presidente]

Yesterday I came across a very nice mastercase of D4 MAE DIC14

I often talk about that the average mastercase follows the line of a bell curve with quality to the right of the curve, average to good in the middle of the curve and crap to the left. This mastercase was skewed right on the bell curve. Far more good and great that average and poor.

A HQ from the box

And now lets look at the other end of the spectrum....the far left of the curve.

Same mastercase, same box code.

[skalls]

Baby Jesus cried when he saw the bottom one

[chongl]

Please put up some D4s for 24:24 tonight!

[HarveyBoulevard]

Wow! That is truly amazing the difference in those two boxes. Thank 'insert favorite deity here' we have someone looking out for us so we don't get that second box. I bet it tastes like it looks...

[SmittyinAZ]

That's why we appreciate you sneaking a peak in on them for us!

[airtrade]

That is the perfect example of why not to buy blind!

And thank you sir for doing what you do so well!

[Hoepssa]

Everyone is crying when seeing the difference lol

[finecigar]

Ouch! That bottom box is gross. Such lifeless wrappers...

[kcmontie]

wow green

[airtrade]

You should put this into the PSP hq PE explained thread. Great info. Picture help some of us slower folk immensely. :-)

[ToroRph]

No thanks to candela D4's. Many thanks to El Prez!

[MC4]

Rob, does pale looking wrapper color always translates to poorer taste?

[joeboxer]

You should put this into the PSP hq PE explained thread. Great info. Picture help some of us slower folk immensely. :-)

Amen to that. A picture is worth a thousand words!

[Jeremy Festa]

Great to see the contrast! Really interesting.

[Smallclub]

Yellowish paper thin wrappers ornated with large veins and water stains, my favorites! Duty free quality!

[charlesod]

My Lord. Illustrates the dangers of buying blind. Thanks for all you do prez!

[Imjonesy]

Just when you think you're beginning to grasp the realm of cuban cigars, new info like this pop up. Thanks for schoolin' me Prez.

Eyes wide open now ....

[El Presidente]

Rob, does pale looking wrapper color always translates to poorer taste?

You find that freak race horse that defies its physical limitations to become a champion. Normally however they are a fail.

If this the second box of cigars were a racehorse....I would put it down.

[samuelsmithbeer]

I've had some light colored D4's and they left a ton to be desired. They basically had no flavor.

[TheFullMontecristo]

that first box of D4's looks good enough to eat while the 2nd box looks like what goes out the other end.

[CaptainQuintero]

With 25 count boxes do you ever come across such differences between the top and bottom layer? Or are both layers always the same quality?

[maxcjs0101]

Hey, I'll still smoke those if they're offered at a reasonable price..

[Habana Mike]

With 25 count boxes do you ever come across such differences between the top and bottom layer? Or are both layers always the same quality?

I think what we see here is the result of extremes in wrapper color matching. Each box should have very consistent colors with perhaps a slight variation from left to right, top to bottom.

You should expect the second layer to closely resemble the first in that regard.

I will say that I have had some pretty spectacular cigars with anemic looking wrappers so you can't always tell a book by its cover......

[TypicalSituation]

Not to derail any of this, but the wrapper only makes up a portion of the flavor, so why do horrible wrappers seem to equate to an exponentially bad smoke?

Say a wrapper is 20 percent of the flavor... Does a pale wrapper taste 20 percent worse that a rich dark wrapper? From the comments I get the feeling a pale wrapper essentially makes it a poor smoke

[Smallclub]

Rob, does pale looking wrapper color always translates to poorer taste?

There are some nice pale brown wrappers (Quai d'Orsay, ERDM). What you don't want is greenish, yellowish sand paper devoid of any oil.