Your First Ten Cigars
A deliberate plan for your first ten cigars that teaches you your own palate quickly, plus what to spend, where to buy, and what to write down.
Buy singles, not boxes
The most expensive mistake a new smoker makes is committing to twenty-five of something they have smoked once. Buy singles. Buy them from a shop with a working humidor and staff who will talk to you, or from an online retailer with real turnover. Ten singles from ten different makers across a couple of months will teach you more than any amount of reading. Budget somewhere in the region of ten to twenty dollars each in current retail terms; below that range construction gets inconsistent, and above it you are paying for scarcity and finish that you cannot yet perceive.
Structure the ten
Do not choose randomly. Spend the first three on mild to medium Connecticut-shade-wrapped cigars from Dominican or Honduran makers, which establishes your baseline for what smooth and creamy means. Spend the next three on medium Ecuadorian Habano or Sumatra wrappers, which introduces spice and sweetness. Spend three on fuller Nicaraguan blends, ideally including one San Andres or Broadleaf maduro, so you meet pepper, earth and dark sweetness. Save the tenth for a Cuban if you can get one legally where you live, or for the best-regarded cigar your shop stocks. Smoke them in that order.
Control the variables
Smoke on an empty-ish stomach only if you want to feel unwell; eat something first. Have water, and ideally something with a little sugar, within reach. Nicotine on an untrained system causes sweating, nausea and a spinning head, and the fix is sugar and time. Pick a size in the robusto range, roughly five inches by fifty ring gauge, for most of the ten, because it is long enough to develop and short enough to finish in about an hour. Smoke in the same place at the same time of day when you can. You are testing cigars, so hold everything else steady.
Take notes that are actually useful
Write four things after every cigar: the full name and size, the date, three flavor words in plain English, and one sentence on whether you would buy it again. Do not try to write like a reviewer. Bread, cocoa, black pepper, hay, leather, coffee and cedar are honest words. Also note the draw and whether it burned straight, because construction problems are the most common reason a beginner dislikes a cigar that is actually good. After ten entries you will see a pattern in your own preferences that no recommendation could have given you.
What you will get wrong, and that is fine
Expect two of the ten to be disappointing for reasons that have nothing to do with the blend: a plugged draw, a cigar stored at the wrong humidity, or a night when you were tired. Do not write off a maker on one bad stick. Expect to overrate strength early, because intensity is the easiest thing to perceive and the last thing you learn to weigh properly. And do not buy a humidor first. A sealed plastic bag with a calibrated two-way humidity pack will hold ten cigars perfectly well for the couple of months this takes.