On Sat 12th August, myself and a friend headed to Sautter Cigar's Knightsbridge shop to have a morning of cigar training.
The course runs throughout the year on a Saturday once a month and aims to provide an insight into everything cigars.
We were in a group of 5 which was nice, sitting around Sautters great big table, Magaly of Sautter ran the session.
We were welcomed with some lovely coffee and pastries before getting into the morning.
We started off with a breif history of cigars and how they Cuba became the centre of the world for cigars, how and where different types of tobacco are grown in the country, we then moved onto the plants and the process of growing, storing, drying, fermenting and eventually final processing of leafs to becoming a handrolled cigar.
Having no real knowledge of this whole process it was very interesting for me - while we were having all this explain we were handed out a H.Upman half corona to smoke, this was a lovely light easy going cigar that felt just right in the setting we were in listening about the cigar industry.
We were also very lucky to have a lady called Ana Lopez join us, she works for Hunters and Frankau and previously was in marketing and product development for Habanos in Cuba so she was able to provide great insight into the industry and when asking questions was great to get answers from someone so well connected to the industry.
We finished off the sessions discussing the wide variety if sizes, gauges and brands and how the factories work at producing everything. I left the session having learned a lot and had a very enjoyable morning and coming away with a stash of things to enjoy at home.
We got a bag of vaious habanos materials about the whole process of making cigars from seed to rolling, a lovely note book to write down our cigar experiences, a lighter, a cutter and a lovely selection of cigars to take home.
6 in total - 7 if you didn't smoke the half corona in the session.
- Hoya Petit Robusto
- Rafael Gonzalez Petit Corona
- Sancho Panza Belicosos
- H.Upman Mangnum 46 (2005)
- R&J Short Churchill
- El Rey Del Mundo Choix Supreme
In all I had a great morning and came away with a great stash of sticks to add to my small but growing collection - just need to smoke them now!
As the sessions is only a few hours I decided to have day of cigar shops in London so visited Davidoff and JJ Fox which was great fun, I picked up a Davidoff Grand Cru 5 to try and if i'd had time would have bought something to sample in the lounge at JJ Fox.
Some photos below for you.
Dave
sautter 1.jpgsautter 2.jpgcigar 2.jpg
cigar 3.jpgcigars 1.jpg
The course runs throughout the year on a Saturday once a month and aims to provide an insight into everything cigars.
We were in a group of 5 which was nice, sitting around Sautters great big table, Magaly of Sautter ran the session.
We were welcomed with some lovely coffee and pastries before getting into the morning.
We started off with a breif history of cigars and how they Cuba became the centre of the world for cigars, how and where different types of tobacco are grown in the country, we then moved onto the plants and the process of growing, storing, drying, fermenting and eventually final processing of leafs to becoming a handrolled cigar.
Having no real knowledge of this whole process it was very interesting for me - while we were having all this explain we were handed out a H.Upman half corona to smoke, this was a lovely light easy going cigar that felt just right in the setting we were in listening about the cigar industry.
We were also very lucky to have a lady called Ana Lopez join us, she works for Hunters and Frankau and previously was in marketing and product development for Habanos in Cuba so she was able to provide great insight into the industry and when asking questions was great to get answers from someone so well connected to the industry.
We finished off the sessions discussing the wide variety if sizes, gauges and brands and how the factories work at producing everything. I left the session having learned a lot and had a very enjoyable morning and coming away with a stash of things to enjoy at home.
We got a bag of vaious habanos materials about the whole process of making cigars from seed to rolling, a lovely note book to write down our cigar experiences, a lighter, a cutter and a lovely selection of cigars to take home.
6 in total - 7 if you didn't smoke the half corona in the session.
- Hoya Petit Robusto
- Rafael Gonzalez Petit Corona
- Sancho Panza Belicosos
- H.Upman Mangnum 46 (2005)
- R&J Short Churchill
- El Rey Del Mundo Choix Supreme
In all I had a great morning and came away with a great stash of sticks to add to my small but growing collection - just need to smoke them now!
As the sessions is only a few hours I decided to have day of cigar shops in London so visited Davidoff and JJ Fox which was great fun, I picked up a Davidoff Grand Cru 5 to try and if i'd had time would have bought something to sample in the lounge at JJ Fox.
Some photos below for you.
Dave
sautter 1.jpgsautter 2.jpgcigar 2.jpg
cigar 3.jpgcigars 1.jpg
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