I don't get ash

[Da Klugs]

Originally Posted by icurrie

From Cigar Aficionado's web site:

Q: Some cigars have bright white ashes, others are almost a charcoal gray. What determines the color of a cigar's ash?
A: The magnesium content of the tobacco.

High magnesium yields a white--and flaky--ash, low magnesium a grayer one. As for taste, it's generally considered more desirable to have high magnesium, and thus a white ash, but that's by no means a firm rule. Some of Cuba's great cigars often have very dark gray ashes.

So CigarAfic wrote, so it must be... fertilizer. Specific to Cuban cigars there is a wide variation in ash color in their freshly rolled cigars. Light to dark gray, sometimes both. With NC cigars the range seems even broader.. from pure white to black, with the tendency towards a lighter ash vs their Cuban counterparts when fresh. Pure white, how boring is that, no evolution of color over time to contemplate. If you subscribe to MRN's thinking, there are variables which can affect a cigars off the boats ash color. Improper or incomplete curing and fermentation would seem to yield a darker ash. Triple fermentation like in the Cohiba Linea classico series would under this line of thinking start life out lighter. Dunno if there is an easy explanation. Some taste better than others fresh. Others taste better than some after a few years. Still others evolve into something real different after even more time. The ash color does change with age though. Is Magnesium a byproduct of cigar fermentation? Dunno.

We need out friend Seangar to chime in here.

[jjirons69]

I personally think the super-white ashes of Nic cigars are really cool. You know when you have a Nic puro. Plus the added Mg is like smoking a vitamin! As others have stated, the stick seems to burn better when the ash buffers the burn from the environment. You can set it down for longer times and come back to a lit cigar in those cases.

[elderboy02]

Originally Posted by jjirons69

I personally think the super-white ashes of Nic cigars are really cool. You know when you have a Nic puro.

I really notice how white the ash is on an Oliva Serie O

[mosesbotbol]

Well cured tobacco should have a white ash with a definition of the leaves' pattern. The ash should be fairly firm. Some do the technique of resting the cigar upside down on the ash to determine if it is firm or not, but that can be easily seen just looking at the cigar. This tells a lot about cigar. A dark ash means a lot of stuff didn't burn clean, like impurities within the tobacco or not cured fully.

I find the that non-Cuban cigars tend to have better cured tobacco from the start, but many box age Habanos long enough to correct this.