The Argument for Machine Made Cigars

Cigars can be categorised into two main types depending on their manufacturing process - the traditional hand-made cigars and the more modern machine made cigars. Both hand-made and machine made cigars consist of three parts:

Filler:
The filler consists of clustered leaves and makes up the majority of the cigar. Typically a different blend of tobaccos will be used in this portion of the cigar.

Binder:
The binder is a used to truss the filler. This can either be done with a single tobacco leaf or , as is common with machine made cigars, it can be done using homogenised tobacco leaf (HTL).

Wrapper:
The outer most layer which consists of a single tobacco leaf. Applying the wrapper is the final step in the cigar assembly process. The wrapper contributes approximately 40% to the cigar's overall flavour and aroma.

Traditional Cigar enthusiasts argue that hand-made cigars make for a better final product than machine made cigars. This may certainly have been true in the past where machinery was bulky and clumsy in application and unskilled workers replaced more expensive cigar making masters. Older machinery lacked ways to adequately moisturise the wrappers and binders for the right amount of flexibility and a good 'roll'.

This is no longer a problem using modern cigar production techniques. Cigar manufacturing machinery has been in use since the late 1800's and has since evolved to a level of technological precision that can create flawless quality cigars in bulk quantities.  Homogenised Tobacco Leaf (HTL) used in plenty of machine made cigars and are often touted as an indication of low quality by hand-rolled cigar enthusiasts. HTL consists of blending tobaccos scraps and processing these into flat sheets for the binder.  HTL binders allow a cigar manufacturer to use 30% more of the tobacco leaf and do reduce production costs.  

Regardless of production technique - the quality of the final cigar depends a great deal on the quality of the tobacco itself and the curing and storing processes used. The correct process brings out the flavour, burning and aroma out of the leaf. 

Bringing quality tobaccos together with a carefully executed manufacturing technique will provide a final result to rival today hand-rolled cigars.  The burning issue in the end is that of a difference between perceived taste and actual quality of machine-made cigars versus hand-made cigars. Try out different brands for yourself and choose a cigar brand that tastes good to you. Better yet, challenge yourself or a fellow enthusiast to a blindfold test.

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