Q & A: A look into a cigar's ash
Q.
Some cigars have a crisp white ash and others are gray, why is this and is one more desirable than the other?
3/05/07 | by WN of Elkhorn, NE
A.
A cigars ash is a lot like its DNA. It can tell you many things about what you are smoking. For instance, the texture of the ash can indicate the strength or heartiness of the leaf. Its integrity can tell you if it was made with long, short or mixed fillers. Its length can indicate how well constructed the cigar is. Its draw lines can tell you how it was smoked. By looking at the ash of a cigar we can almost completely reconstruct it. Unlike the things mentioned above, the color of a cigar’s ash has less to do with the physical attributes of a cigar and more to do with the chemical composition of the tobacco and the nutrients present in the soil where it was grown. Tobacco stemming from soil with high magnesium content yields a very crisp white ash and tobacco grown in soil where iron is more prevalent yields a darker ash. Contrary to popular belief, no color is more or less desirable than another. It is simply a matter of preference and has no bearing on the flavor of the tobacco.
by Dave