Tatuaje “Noellas” or “The Brown Label.”
Once again, I reached into the humidor and found this nicely aged cigar from 12-16-2007. I can only assume I picked it up at Ed’s and forgot about it. These cigars use first generation Cuban seed tobacco grown in Nicaragua, and are rolled in the Cuban tradition in Little Havana Miami, FL. I am pairing this cigar with water, and a small amount of Glenfiddich 18 year scotch.
Wrapper: Nicaragua
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Size: 5 1/8 x 42
Price: $7 – $8.00
Pre-smoke/Construction:
This cigar is firmly packed with no soft spots. The dark oily wrapper shows minimal flaws, and looked well constructed. In pure Cuban style, the triple cap was perfectly placed. The pre light draw had a slight earthy taste, and was too tight for my liking. Luckily, a few pokes with my trusty draw poker loosened it up enough to be acceptable. Sniffing the wrapper and foot had the same earthy notes, with a hint of sweetness. I never had to correct the burn. It stayed straight all the way though. The ash was compact, and took effort when tapping on the ashtray.
Flavor:
The first third had an interesting, sweet earthy/grassy flavor. Nice peppery notes were present as well. There was something more going on, but I couldn’t pin it down.
The second third picked up on the flavors a bit. Very subtle notes of mocha came and went. There was a definite sweet flavor, and it went well with notes of coffee. The pepper remained and could be noticed when passing through the nose, but did mellow out as this third ended.
The coffee flavor increased in the last third. As soon as I would notice mocha flavors, they would go away. A smooth spicy pepper remained when passing through the sinus. I noticed an earthy/grassy flavor, but it didn’t last very long.
Conclusion:
Wow this was a good medium to full bodied cigar. My only complaint was the tight draw. I’ve had this cigar before, and don’t recall having any issues. As I got further into this smoke, the complexities kept my attention. Eventually, I stopped noticing the draw problem, and enjoyed the great flavors and changes this cigar offered. I definitely will continue to smoke these. I suggest you try it.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Cigar Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tom February 24th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Off the top of my head, I can’t recall any particular issues with Tats. The tight draw I had seemed to be an isolated event though. I will definately smoke more of these. Awesome smokes!