CC's or NC's?
 

It seems to me the more people smoke (years) they tend to lean toward CC's as better than NC's. Any truth to this? I can't seem to figure out why? I have smoked about 10 CC's, premium brands mostly when out of the US, bought at an LCD. I have not found CC's to taste better than NC's. What am I missing? :sh

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

smoke what you like, like what you smoke. Doesn't matter what the others say, matters what you like.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

If you've tried them and don't like them you're not missing anything.

Also, what Mark said.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I've generally found that Nicaraguan cigars suit my pallet best. CC's are good for a change of pace but are generally milder than what I enjoy. So, yeah, what Mark said.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

What make said. Some people prefer NCs, others CCs.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

BMW. Or Audi ....Starbucks or coffee bean....titleist or taylormade....big booty or big knockers...whatever floats your boat man.

For me it is Volvo, good black coffee, whatever makes makes be a better golfer, hot women, and yummy cigars.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

How long have you been smoking cigars?
I've been smoking cigars for less than a year, April will be my one year mark. There are cigars that I really liked and enjoyed then that I don't even smoke anymore. I smoke cigars on both sides of your question.
Your palate will change and you will move on to another brand or even vitola of the same brand. So you didn't like/enjoy those CCs, could be your palate is more predisposed to NCs, for now. It could change then again it might not.

Of course it always comes down to this...



Enjoy!!

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I've heard that most CC's can't hold a candle to a certain vendor's sun growns in blind taste tests and that Cuba is actually net importer of tobacco so they're mostly NC anyways, :r ;s

Personally I smoke Cuban's almost exclusively, the only NC's I've found worth a second try are Padron's, Alec Bradley's and the Oliva V and O series. All the rest I've tried just don't appeal to my palate.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I love, love the Cubans I've tried. Bolivar, Partegas, Monte, Cohiba... I've enjoyed some of the best smokes of my life from these marcas. But they could never turn me away from Liga Privada No 9's.

Sometimes you want chocolate cake, sometimes you want vanilla. Sometimes you want a porter, sometimes you want a IPA. No reason one has to be thought of as better than the other, they're just different.

The important thing, as was already stated, is smoke what ya like!

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Well said brother!

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Has anyone said "Smoke what you like, like what you smoke" yet?

Smoke what you like, like what you smoke. I prefer Cuban, but there are lots of great NCs out there if that's your taste.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Like what you smoke, and smoke what you like. That's all i have to say about this.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

The CCs I prefer actually are cheaper than most of the NCs I prefer. While I can't get CCs at the corner B&M, convenience is nice for NCs. To solve that, buy CCs in boxes or cabs. In the long run I come out cheaper and I get smokes that fit my palate the majority of the time. I do enjoy maduros from time to time and without breaking the bank, NCs are my only go to.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I like them both. :tu

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Nothing.
Why would you think you were missing something?
Do you like the cigars you smoke?

Also to all concerned.
A PALATE is something you taste with,
a PALLET is something you stack $hi+ on and
a PALETTE is something you smear paint on.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Have been smoking cigars since 1980. I smoke some CCs, but predominantly NCs. I like both, but I'd say the majority of my rotation is made up of NCs.

All you need to do though, it make your palate happy, so smoke what you like.

If you're going to be a band smoker (someone smoking cigars so that everybody else will see the band and know what your smoking), all you'll ever be is miserable. And that is true for anything in life that you do to impress or look good to others.

Be yourself. Smoke/eat/drink/wear/drive what you like, and enjoy it.

Peace of the Lord be with you.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I love CCs because they have so many wonderful small ring gauges available for a great price. I have been smoking strickly CCs for the last few weeks and am loving what I am finding. I will always be sucked back to NCs for great sticks like the L40 & FFP though. I prefer CCs most of the time as I do not feel the need to eat a large meal before hand like I do for many strong NCs.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

in my experience the people that "only smoke Cubans" are full of it. after about 30 seconds of cigar discussion they show that they know virtually ZERO about cigars, let alone Cuban cigars.



...and their source is almost always "a friend of a friend who has family in Cuba"

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Smoke what you like, like what you smoke.
Realize that our tastes change as we go through life, and variety is the spice.
I'm smoking LOTS of cc's right now and vastly enjoying them. So much so that I've excluded everything else, but I'm also not smoking much. I have plenty of nc's on hand that I truly love, and when I'm ready for them, they'll be ready for me.
You're not missing a thing.
I do tell guys that when they're new to cc's, it's important to ease up on the strong, heavy nic puros, etc. before giving them a shot. It allows the palette to recover and enjoy the milder cc's. That's not to say that cc's aren't strong, but on average, they're not as brutal as nic puros and dominican puros strength-wise.
If you've been smoking lots of real strong nc's as I've guessed you have, I've found that in my experience it's best to taper down that strength or take a break before launching a fair cc trial. I found that out via a bad head/chest cold that lasted forever and didn't allow me to smoke. When I was ready to pick up a cigar, I had a very nice fiver someone had shared with me and I wanted to give cc's another shot.
That threw a hook in me. Still, I didn't really get involved with cc's for a couple more years, at least.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I smoke mainly Cubans, but like some NCs as well. So I guess I'm only partially full of it. :cool:

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I totally agree!!


hehe

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

If you don't like CC's, that's awesome. More for me. :D

My palate prefers the subtleties, the nutmeggy cinnamon from an 04 HdM DC, the tea like flavors from my box of 00 LGC MdO 3's, and oh, the sweet caramel from a 2005 PLPC. :dr

A lot of the mainstream NC's I've smoked seem to concentrate more on pepper and strength, not to mention large ring guage. I really feel it takes a very skilled torcedor to roll a smaller, longer cigar, and the blend has to be more precise, given the lesser amount of leaves in the filler. Something about a lancero/palmas/and other long skinny CC's that just strike me as a work of art.

And of course, the obligatory "smoke what you like, like what you smoke."

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I only smoke Cubans.

Of course, YES, I AM full of it, ask anyone. But I only smoke cubans, nonetheless.


Now YES, I DO have a blog where I have smoked some NC cigars, but people gave them to me and I felt like
there was no better way to thank them and to prove it got smoked than to blog about it. But I do not buy
them, I do not encourage people to give them to me, and a lot of times when they force me to take them
anyway, they end up in Iraq of Afghanistan. It was said somewhere above this that the modern day NC seems
to be in a struggle to be the strongest or pepperiest. Neither of these are enjoyable to me. And unless you
are Fuente or Padron, you seem to have trouble making an interesting cigar that is also mild to medium. So
when it comes down to it, I do not smoke NCs because they do not taste good to me.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

It's the French wine Vs. Californian wine debate all over again, so really, smoke what you like. There are good and bad examples of both.
I for one gravitate toward the milder CCs, but I enjoy an occasional Padron or Pepin. I would point out that they're blended to completely different palletes, with NCs mostly marketed toward mouth-smokers that want big, bold & chewy flavors with a rich mouthfeel, and with CCs mostly marketed toward nose-smokers that want complex and subtle aromas that don't rip into your sinus.
If there is any truth to the idea that people gravitate toward CCs in the long run (I certainly have) it's because it generally takes people a while to switch to the retroexhale and to learn how to pick up the more subtle flavors other than "burning tobacco smoke." IMO, if you've just smoked a few CCs and you didn't retroexhale, you've completely missed out on 90% of what is good about them, and should revisit them later, in that context.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

VERY good point. :tu

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

My tastes are definitely NC for now... I haven't had enough CC's to make a good judgement of yet. The CC's I had were all great sticks in their own right, just not to my prefered tastes.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

No you don't.;)

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Knowing a lot about cigars hardly precludes one's subjective taste preferences from being perfectly legitimate. After several years in the hobby, I still consider myself a noob when it comes to knowing about cigars, both in terms of the industry and the science, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to determine a good cigar from a bad one.

Your personal experience with people who only smoke Cubans is vastly different than mine. Nearly every BOTL I know who exclusively smokes Cubans has smoked a ton of cigars over the years and has decided on their preference after a lot of experience, and at that point, they've been around long enough to have established good connections and reliable vendors.

I'm going to assume your interactions must be with snobby, rich people who smoke to look cool, not people who smoke because they actually enjoy the experience, and I don't see how they could smoke Cubans regularly without a reliable vendor. Most BOTLS I know who exclusively smoke Cubans can only do so because they have a reliable network of vendors.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I'm wondering if over time that may happen to me as well. I retrohale with nearly all my cigars now. My initial thought about CCs was that they were nice, but generally for warm summer days only. Over the past year, I've gotten to the point where I want a Liga Privada about 50% of the time, and the other 50% of the time I'm wishing I had a Partegas or a Bolivar, or a Monte to smoke.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Funny how here at Cigar Asylum, the people who only (or mostly) smoke Cubans tell everyone to "smoke what you like" and don't judge, but this apparently NC only smoker comes in and insults the Cuban smokers for their tastes, basically calling them liars, stupid, and idiots.

If that's the way things are in the circles you run in, so be it. Here at CA, you're barking up the wrong tree. Without knowing you, I am willing to bet that many of my Cuban smoking friends here have forgotten more about cigars than you'll ever know. Sorry to be insulting, but you have insulted my friends.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Leave it to a newer BOTL here to say it more eloquently than I did. :tu :lr

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

So sorry to hear about your experience.

Pretty broad generalization, IMO. I have quite the opposite experience.
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Re: CC's or NC's?
 

:tu well said sir

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Im very impressed by the amount of replys to all posts on this site, great job guys!

Ofcourse I will only smoke what I like. The point I am making is in my experiences talking to many life long smokers it seems like when people start smoking CC's thier is often a point of no return to NC's. They just stick with CC's ans almost rate NC's as second hand smokes. Although it doesn't seem that way by this group's responses.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

A very broad statement... it's pretty obvious you have never met anyone from this board
go to a herf you may learn a thing or two....:2

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Thanks for sharing your experience and advice! :banger

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

As i live in England i smoke mostly cubans but i also have a few dozen NCs i keep in rotation (DPG black label,padron ambassador maduro,A Fuente sun grown robusto) that i like and tbh the flavour between the two is so different they shouldn't be compared to each other.

Just smoke what you like because both CC and NC can come up with some dire crap sometimes COUGH MONTIE OPENS COUGH

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

It's like comparing chocolate milk to raw milk. I enjoy both, but they're really two entirely different things.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I think this is probably a product of the development of the palate- specifically, the ability to pick up some of the more understated flavors in a cigar. There are some subtle flavors available in many CCs that are much less common in NCs. If one 'tunes in' to these flavors, there's an additional 'language' of flavors going on that, in my experience, is close to 'unspoken' in non-ISOM products. If the art of this particular language means anything to you (ie. if you care about those particular flavors and the interplay between them), there's really only one place you can go. For many smokers, it takes a fair amount of experience to begin noticing these flavors, so that may explain the tendency for smokers to lean toward Cuba as their experience expands.

:2

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

You probably meet a lot of local people in B&M's. I've heard a lot of wild stories there as well. "I went to costa rica and for $5 I could smoke all the cubans I wanted". Or "I got this glass top box of cohibas are they real?".

Just because people smoke nothing but Cuban Cigars doesn't mean they are experts in the cigar world or know more than someone else. They just have a different cigar preference, that's all.

The CA community as a whole is much different. Plenty of people here smoke nothing but CC's, I don't find anyone here to be particularly elitist or having a poor attitude because of it. To think so would be a mistake.

:2

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Damn fine bit of reasoning there. Initially this forum was almost entirely made up of people who would rather have the CCs.
It MIGHT be drifting the other way now, but the CC love and knowledge here is still awfully strong.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Wow! So you basically are saying for an experienced smoker you believe more flavors can be generated from certain CC's that can not be found in NC's?

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

From what I've watched over the years, lots of brothers do just as you said, ending up and stopping at cc's with seldom a look back.
There's another thing that happens, too...
Generally speaking, they've tried everything along the way. They've learned who makes good, solid nc's that have done it for years without a hitch. They've learned how to smell a "gimmick" or a cigar producer who's just in it for the coin. They've learned that it's not necessary to jump on every limited edition cigar, and know how to find a good value smoke.
I'd even go so far as saying that most all-cc or mostly-cc smokers tend to veer away from cc LE's and RE's, waiting until a buzz develops from seasoned, trusted botl's before they'll even consider jumping on something "new and improved".
That's the polar opposite of what a large (or at least vocal) portion of nc smokers do.
It's really a whole metamorphisis, and it's just plain fun. The whole trip.
Somewhere along the way the cigars teach a respectful tolerance of each other's desires (smoke what you like/live and let live), and that seems to spread out in all facets of their life. It's cool how the love of the leaf turns into a deep love of our brothers. :tu

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Different ones that you can only get from cc's. Some really incredible ones, at that. Probably a lot more from cc's than all the nuances of all the nc's together, actually. But completely different.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Nothing. I prefer Nicaraguan tobacco. It's all about personal preference.

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Yes. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that CCs necessarily display more flavors than NCs, but that there are particular flavors in many CCs that aren't common in NCs. As some have said earlier in the thread, CCs and NCs simply inhabit different regions of the flavor spectrum and the more subtle levels of flavor you're able to detect, the more prominent this difference can become. Pick your analogy:

Horror movies vs. musicals

Country music vs. classic rock

Mexican food vs. Japanese food

etc.

Some people like country music, but not classic rock. Some people like both. Until you have a firm idea what you do and don't find interesting, why limit yourself? -(P

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

Let's Put It This Way: I've Never Gotten My Favorite Caramel Flavor From A NC, Although I Smoke & Enjoy Both! :tu

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

I've gotten caramel from My Father. Delicious graham cracker, caramelly goodness!

Re: CC's or NC's?
 

This is exactly my take on it too. There are a lot of NC's that I've never tried but most those that I have tend to be very one dimensional. There's no subtlety or nuance, it's like going to a Thai restaurant where they are so intent on making the food hot and spicy that they loose the flavours of the food itself.

Like everyone else said, smoke whatever appeals to your individual tastes but for mine money that's going to be a Cuban 9 or 10 times.... and my "source" is not a 'friend of a friend with family in Cuba' :rolleyes: