Queen of aromas

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			Queen of aromas “The cigar is the queen of aromas,” says Willy Alvero, a great connoisseur of cigars and also general representative of the Habanos S.A. company in Russia. And he validates his claim in strictly scientific terms. What is aroma and taste? Two of the five senses, i.e., smell and taste, are the result of chemical reactions, which take place when this or that substance comes into contact respectively with the nose’s mucous membrane or the tongue’s taste receptors. It has long been established that smells are felt much sharper than any taste. Man is capable of perceiving a great number of various aromas – hundreds and even thousands. As for taste, the human receptors can only identify four major ones: bitter, sweet, salty and sour. Each of them can be stronger or weaker; they can combine in different proportions; these are what we call flavours. Bitterness and sweetness in a cigar are indicators of its good taste; saltiness or sourness is evidence of bad taste and inferior tobacco. A curious fact: wine, cheese, and tobacco have an identical set of aromatics. The difference is only in the percentages. It was French winemakers who first attempted to classify all such aromas. They divided them into ten basic families, and nowadays this classification is applied to wines, spirits, and cigars alike. The cigar specialists ventured further and classified aromas in terms of their origin by dividing them into primary, secondary and tertiary. The primary aromas are vegetative. They are the first to appear when the tobacco leaf is just beginning to mature, their data being imbedded in the plant genes. The most typical of them are the aromas of flowers, herbs and fruit. The chemists call the group of compounds that produce vegetative aromas terpenes. The secondary aromas are fermentative; they only appear in the tobacco, as their name implies, during fermentation, a distinct chemical process whereby certain substances evaporate from the tobacco leaf, while others, including aromatics, appear in it. It is fermentation that is responsible for expanding many-fold the range of aromatics present in tobacco. How impressive and expressive the secondary aromas will be depends not only on the length of fermentation but also on the tobacco leaf sugar content. The higher it is, the more “impressive” are the aromas. The major aromas are those of bread, oil, and bitter chocolate. There are also so-called tertiary aromas. They appear when first the tobacco, and then the ready cigars are aged. During aging, the tertiary aromas blend with the primary and secondary ones. This is the way a cigar’s bouquet is born. However, for this bouquet to come out, another condition is indispensible, i.e., high temperature. At 800-1,000 degrees (this is the temperature of cigar burning), the as-yet “dormant” aromas come into full swing. The word perfume is derived from the Latin per fumum, i.e., by smoke. People have long known that smoke is much better suited for communicating aromas than any other medium. How exactly do we perceive the taste and aroma of a cigar? The first gustatory sensations from a cigar are produced when we put it, as yet unlit, into the mouth. The wrapper leaf becomes moist and releases its volatile oils, which come into contact with the tongue’s taste buds. The buds are stimulated and we feel taste. Volatile oils first of all act on the receptors that are located on the tip of the tongue and at its root and are primarily responsible for sweetness and bitterness. The taste intensifies many-fold when we light the cigar. The high temperature makes the aromatic particles “take off”, and the smoke enriched with them ends up in the mouth. As the smoke travels from the foot of the cigar to its head, its temperature drops and the aromatics, when they get to the tongue, are already cooled down, yet on coming into contact with the receptors they do produce a powerful sensation of taste. Here we should note that the feeling of stickiness in the mouth produced by certain cigars is neither taste nor aroma. It is the result of a specific chemical reaction, which takes places when tannins come into contact with the tongue. In a similar manner, the ammonia in the tobacco leaves can produce a sensation of tickling when coming into contact with the tongue’s surface. When the aromatic particles cool down and settle on the tongue, we perceive them as taste. Yet the same particles, when they end up in the nasal cavity, come into contact with the mucous membrane, and we feel their aroma. It would be relatively easy to understand the essence of the physical and chemical processes that take place at the moment when we feel taste and aroma if it were not for one simple “but”. The thing is that in a majority of cases the olfactory and gustatory sensations blend together, and we cannot separate them. On the one hand, this is due to the way our nervous system is organized: the brain receives olfactory and gustatory data from the receptors of the tongue and mucous membrane of the nose for all intents and purposes at the same time and at the same rate. But there is also another reason. It all boils down to just how exactly it is that the various chemical reactions proceed in the oral and nasal cavities. It is indeed true that rarely, if ever, does man perceive taste and aroma separately – they invariably supplement each other. When the cigar smoke gets into the mouth, some aromatics settle down on the tongue and produce a sensation of taste. Another part of the aromatic substances is carried on with the smoke deeper into the nasal pharynx and reaches the nose mucous membrane, thus producing an olfactory sensation. The brain receives signals from both organs at once; however, it interprets the sensations mostly in terms of purely gustatory data. The reverse is also true. By breathing in smoke through the nose, we first of all feel its aroma. But far from all particles are caught by the mucosa: quite a few of them fly right past it and reach the oral cavity through the nasal pharynx. There they come into contact with the tongue receptors and produce a sensation of taste. Again, the information about aroma and taste reaches the brain at the same time. This time round the aromas are supplemented with taste – sweetness or bitterness, saltiness or sourness. Apropos: What bearing does all this have on the practical side of things? Read on: the taste of nuts or chocolate, which is felt during cigar smoking, is in fact not taste as such but a misinterpreted aroma. How the aroma of a cigar is brought out The taste of the cigar is quite a simple matter. But the world of aromas is much more sophisticated and from now on it is these that we shall be dealing with. We all know that the cigar aroma does not come out all at once. After we start smoking, we need several minutes to find our way around all the nuances of the aroma and grasp all its shades and undertones. Why does it have to happen this way rather than otherwise? When we inhale tobacco smoke, aromatic substances reach the nasal mucosa. There are so many of them, however, that our receptors and nerve endings fail to process them right away. That is why specialists talk of three phases of cigar aroma perception. During the first phase we feel the “body”, the intensity of the smoke that the cigar produces. As the first wave of sensations passes, the receptors settle down to some extent, and we come to the second phase, during which we perceive the aromatic richness of the cigar, become able to gauge the spectrum of aromas. The third phase kicks in when the receptors that have become accustomed to the smoke are in a position to analyze all the aromas present in the smoke in terms of individual tones and shades. This stage may produce some negative sensations, some harsh smells. This may happen if the cigar has been rolled using inferior tobacco. It is not until we pass through the three phases that we can produce an opinion on the cigar quality. Good cigars, as compared to bad ones, have a “body”, a rich and complex spectrum of aromas, and a rich bouquet. Why does the taste and aroma of a cigar change during smoking? Each aromatic compound has its weight. That is why different compounds require a different temperature for a transition to a gaseous state (smoke). Under the action of such temperatures the aromatics become segregated into fractions. The most volatile and fragrant substances are esters. These are followed by aldehydes and alkaloids. The heaviest are aromatic acids. Heavy aromatic compounds require a higher temperature to “take off”; lighter ones, a lower temperature. The cigar foot has the highest temperature, approximately 1,000 degrees. It can “launch” even the heaviest compounds. But in going through the cigar, the smoke cools down, with the heavier substances being deposited on the filler leaves, and only the lightest aromas reaching the mouth. As it burns, the cigar becomes shorter, and the smoke does not have enough time to cool down as much as before. It becomes hotter, so the mouth now receives heavier aromatic compounds. In this way, the aromatics in the tobacco smoke reach their highest concentration towards the end of smoking, when the receptors start receiving both the lightest and the heaviest aromatics. It is true, though, that it is not at all always possible to appreciate such riches. The lit end of the cigar when it gets too close to the lips begins to scorch them, the smoke becomes too hot, and instead of a wealth of tastes and aromas we only get unpleasant burning. The heavier particles will stay on mucous and moist surfaces far longer than lighter ones. This is the reason why stronger cigars, with their higher content of heavier compounds, also have a longer aftertaste; in other words, the taste and aroma linger in the mouth and on the nasal mucosa for quite a long time. The aftertaste duration is directly related to the body of smoke, the weight of its gustatory and olfactory components. Bouquet is the crown of cigar aromatics Many producers let fermented tobacco age for some time before using it for rolling cigars. But aging continues even after the rolling. The cigar boxes are stored at the factory, they are transported overseas, and they are kept for weeks on end on shop shelves – with the aging process taking place all that time. Some smokers continue the aging in their humidors at home. Why is this necessary, some will ask. The answer is simple: each new month gives the cigar fresh (tertiary) aromas, improves the balance of its taste, creates and refines its unique and inimitable bouquet. Why is that? Because the aging process causes many organic substances to transform; part of them will turn into new aromatic compounds. Aging can be oxidizing or reducing depending on its conditions. A simple chemical law applies: the less air, the slower the oxidation process. If you keep two or three cigars in a big humidor, with the rest of the space occupied by air, you will have oxidizing aging. If you stock your humidor with cigars chock-full, with hardly a couple of inches of free air space available, you will have reducing aging. The type of aging will determine the tertiary aromas. Oxidizing produces aromas of sherry, almond, some other nuts and even fruit. Reducing aging produces aromas of mushrooms, vanilla, and tender creamy tones. The tobacco tannins degrade, and this adds aromas of the forest undergrowth. When aging starts (irrespective of its type), quite a few secondary aromas generated as a result of fermentation become weaker as they evaporate. But those that remain become many times stronger. Botanical aromas, on the other hand, are suppressed. In this way, aging results in fermentative aromas beginning to dominate the botanical ones. With aging continued further, the primary, secondary, and newly-generated tertiary aromas mix, and the cigar taste becomes more harmonious and better balanced. The cigar has a rounded body and an elegant aroma; this is what they say about aged cigars. Quite a few people are surely worried by the question: how long can a cigar be aged? A year’s aging is almost a must for any cigar. The cigar will also improve with the next five years: it will develop new aromas, with the old ones becoming more subtle and refined. A ten-year hurdle, on the other hand, can be cleared by only a few cigars. At a certain point in time the gustatory and olfactory characteristics of the tobacco will start to deteriorate. There will be no new aromas arising, and the old ones will start to fade away, with the cigar eventually becoming stale. The time of potential aging directly depends on the amount of tannins (astringent substances) in the tobacco. The higher the tannin content, the longer the process of transformation of organic substances will go on, but it will still come to an end sooner or later – nothing lasts forever. As a result of aging, the tobacco develops a bouquet: a subtle and well-matched set of aromas. The bouquet is a blend of the various aromatics that appeared in tobacco at different points in time, but which have endured and intermixed in perfect proportions. The cigar bouquet is what gives us the greatest thrill. Material prepared by ELDAR TUZMUKHAMEDOV