Tatuaje cigars are actually made at El Rey de los Habanos in Miami, Florida, and are Nicaraguan puros (wrapper, binder and filler all from Nicaragua). The wrapper is a dark corojo leaf called a Colorado Maduro, and is grown from Havana seed tobacco plants. The size I smoked for this review was the Toro, which is 6 ½ “ in length with a 52 ring gauge.
Flavor and Aroma
This was a big disappointment in both flavor and aroma. I smoked three to be sure, but although there was lots of smoke, the cigar was so mild that there was almost no flavor at all. Aroma??? I don’t know what happened to the aroma, but I could not smell this cigar even when I stuck my nose right into the smoke. Overall, I would say very boring. The final cigar of the three that I tried was smoked with black coffee that had a double shot of espresso in it. I needed to get flavor and aroma from somewhere, so I figured it might as well be from the coffee.
Draw and Construction
I will first talk about the draw. The cigar gets high marks on the draw, but that is where it ends. These cigars were very fragile, which was probably the reason the draw was so light. Damage was the overpowering negative on this pricey smoke. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the damage, but it was hard to see until after I lit the cigar because the wrapper was so dark. There were tiny holes in the side near the head, and hairline cracks at the foot. The first cigar I smoked literally blew up on me after 5 minutes, and completely unraveled.
On the second cigar, the very, very, very thin wrapper just broke apart an inch from the head, but I was able to continue smoking it. The third cigar held together better, but still cracked about half way through. I decided to take the last cigar apart near the end, and found of course, an extremely thin wrapper and lots of large stems throughout the entire cigar, and on all the leaves. The one cigar that did smoke all the way through lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes down to 1 ½ “, with the ash falling off after 25 minutes and 1” of smoking.
On the second cigar, the very, very, very thin wrapper just broke apart an inch from the head, but I was able to continue smoking it. The third cigar held together better, but still cracked about half way through. I decided to take the last cigar apart near the end, and found of course, an extremely thin wrapper and lots of large stems throughout the entire cigar, and on all the leaves. The one cigar that did smoke all the way through lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes down to 1 ½ “, with the ash falling off after 25 minutes and 1” of smoking.
Value
I am sorry, but I expect much more from a cigar that cost $12. A resounding ‘NO’ on the value of this smoke. Other than the fact that it smoked for nearly 2 hours, I would not take my chances on such a thin wrapper.
