I was browsing the web a few weeks ago, and came upon a web site for cigars from Costa Rica. The interesting thing about these is that they are all grown from original Pre-Castro seeds. All the tobacco used in these cigars is grown on the one farm. If you are interested, the website is here.
Not having heard anything about these, I decided to take one for the team, order some up and review them here. The top of the line is the Cumbres de Puriscal. It comes in three “colors”, gold, silver and green. I purchased the green in the robusto (5x50) size. The purchase was fine, a basic secure web transaction. I was informed on receipt of order and shipping by email, and the cigars arrived from Costa Rica in 5 days…a very smooth transaction.
The cigar itself was very nice looking, a bit lighter in shade then EMS and with a perfect looking wrapper. It had minimal veins and a nice cap. On lighting, it had a very pronounced taste of paper and straw. Thankfully, this was gone after a few puffs and what emerged was a nice overtone of spices. This cigar was fairly mild (as advertised), but I was surprised (and pleased) that it was not one-dimensional. I got nice flavors of tobacco, spice, hints of sweetness and a very clean aftertaste. Burn was right on the money with no problems to speak of. Kind of an interesting cigar and I think it would benefit from a little more age. I can’t speak to the fact that it tastes like a pre-embargo Cuban (never having tasted one) and it does not taste like current Cubans. In fact, the taste was fairly different from everything else I have tried. I would give this cigar a solid “B”, and it might score a bit higher with some ageing.
Not having heard anything about these, I decided to take one for the team, order some up and review them here. The top of the line is the Cumbres de Puriscal. It comes in three “colors”, gold, silver and green. I purchased the green in the robusto (5x50) size. The purchase was fine, a basic secure web transaction. I was informed on receipt of order and shipping by email, and the cigars arrived from Costa Rica in 5 days…a very smooth transaction.
The cigar itself was very nice looking, a bit lighter in shade then EMS and with a perfect looking wrapper. It had minimal veins and a nice cap. On lighting, it had a very pronounced taste of paper and straw. Thankfully, this was gone after a few puffs and what emerged was a nice overtone of spices. This cigar was fairly mild (as advertised), but I was surprised (and pleased) that it was not one-dimensional. I got nice flavors of tobacco, spice, hints of sweetness and a very clean aftertaste. Burn was right on the money with no problems to speak of. Kind of an interesting cigar and I think it would benefit from a little more age. I can’t speak to the fact that it tastes like a pre-embargo Cuban (never having tasted one) and it does not taste like current Cubans. In fact, the taste was fairly different from everything else I have tried. I would give this cigar a solid “B”, and it might score a bit higher with some ageing.
