Welcome to CigarPass. Your post and seemingly simple questions touched upon a whole host of issues. Issues that have been fertile ground for discussion over the years. The responses thus far have good for you, I hope.
Let me unpack your post and make the topics a bit more explicit.
I am just wondering if Cuban cigars are that much different than others or
Different in what ways? Growing, processing, rolling, marketing, packaging, smoking? Interpreted literally, your question would speak to all the ways Cubans could be different from any other cigar of non-Cuban origin. But I'm thinking that this is perhaps just another way of asking whether Cuban cigars taste differently from non-Cubans. In other words, is there such a thing as the "Cuban twang?" Do a search on taste tests carried out by Moki and you'll find the best
empirical answer out there.
My hypothesis based on experience and readings of blind and non-blind taste tests suggests the following to me: At the heart of things, a cigar tastes of tobacco. Above the base tobacco are characteristics such as distinctive flavor notes, nicotine, etc. The overall "flavor space" spanned by all the non-Cuban cigars (which include puros as well as cigars containing tobacco from several different national origins) is much broader than that spanned by Cuban cigars, which by definition, are all puros. Some of the Cuban flavor space overlaps some of the NC flavor space, thus resulting in a subset of C and NC cigars that taste quite similar (e.g., the Cabaiguan WDC that Seth referred to and I'm assuming that he finds similar to particular C cigars). So for example, let's say for sake of argument, that the H. Upmann Magnum 46 is one such Cuban in this intersecting flavor space. By my hypothesis, a Cabby WCD would be essentially indistinguishable from a Mag46 even for a trained and sensitive palate. Other cigars, Rocky Patel Vintage 1992 and an El Rey del Mundo Lunch Club, for example, might be located in non-overlapping regions of flavor space and thus would be easily distinguishable (but not necessarily identifiable). Let me be clear that this hypothesis does not say there is such a thing as the "Cuban twang" or an isolatable characteristic defined as "Cuban-ness." It just says that cigars taste like tobacco and that certain cigars taste like others and unlike yet others.
In a recent blind test in which I participated, the majority of smokers correctly identified the Mag46 as a Magnum 46 and then by default, as Cuban. I find this to be a distinctive cigar and I picked it with high confidence. However, that does not meant that if you gave me a Cabby WCD and that I called it a Mag46 that I would be wrong, per se. I would be wrong about the identity, but accurate about the flavor.
is it more of a "can't have so you want" thing.
This speaks to the "forbidden fruit" phenomenon. A powerful psychological factor that cannot be discounted.
I would think with ability to crossbreed other types of tobacco and advancements in industry techniques, a superior smoke could be made outside Cuba.
Who can say what the result of hybridization might be. One fellow in my lab had cantaloupes accidentally cross-pollinate some watermelons. He said the resulting fruit looked like a cantaloupe on the outside, a watermelon on the inside, and tasted crappy, like neither nor even a blend of the two. The fact is, excellent tobacco is being grown in central America and the Caribbean using hybridized and pure strains of all sorts of tobaccos. There's even an outfit in Costa Rica that purports to grow pure strains of pre-embargo tobacco. The basics of tobacco processing don't vary all that much. Hygiene, quality control, and consistency seem to very important. At least as important as the actual techniques used.
Or is there something about the environment in Cuba that can't be reproduced outside of the island?
All the parenthetical evidence and parallel examples from other types of agriculture suggest that
terroir as "environment" interacts significantly with the genetics of the plant resulting in distinctiveness. Not better or worse, but distinctiveness.
OK, if I got seeds from a Cuban plant, and grew them in Iowa, would they be Cuban or Iowan.
You'd have Iowan tobacco grown from Cuban seed.
Wilkey
Enjoy the ride!
