stirring the pot local B&M vs big internet

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by SeanGAR

Normally I'm all for cigar testing on boards, but this, to me, is like designing an experiment to show that the earth is round.

The experiment would actually be pretty simple, just a basic double-blind study. Take for example 5 testers testing one vitola. A person independent from the testers would buy 2 boxes with roughly the same date stamps, 1 from a B&M and 1 from an online vendor, label them box A and B and give them to a second independent person (the distributor) without letting them know which is which. That second person would then remove the bands and replace them with blanks labeled to match the boxes they've come out and age them for a predetermined length of time in a known constant environment. Each of the testers would receive 10 cigars, 5 from each box, which they would have to smoke (preferably alternating equally between the 2 stocks) and record their impressions of both the smoke and their mood at the time. Once all 10 cigars have been smoked the tester reports their results back to the distributor. Only once all 5 testers have reported back and the distributor has tabulated which, if either, box was preferred does the first person reveal which was the internet box and which was the B&M.

At the end of all that production you'll almost guaranteed to find that the results are the same for each and the perception of a "better" cigar from a B&M/lounge is purely due to the bias induced by the environment and the fact that we are programed to think a more expensive product = better product.