Making a Recovery

I was down to my last few sticks of Martinez NYC Blend Queens cigars, so I moved them from their box where I had a Boveda 72 into my “ready” box, which is an 8L electric humidor that I have set for about 65% rH. Those sticks did not like that at all. In fact, they became spongy and practically unsmokeable because they wouldn’t stay lit! Also, they lost their draw tension and puffs became too loose! Ugh!

I was little puzzled as to why they became like that because I keep the rH lower in that box than in my long-term storage. But even still, they became over-humidified.

After a bit of thought, there were a couple of things I realized:

• First, my ready box has active air circulation via a small fan at the back of the unit. This ensures that the humidity is constant in the box.
• Second, with no wrapper meant that it would absorb moisture much more quickly than one wrapped with cellophane and with the active circulation, that would speed up the process.
• Third, it’s a small gauge stick so moisture penetration would be a lot easier compared to a thicker ring gauge cigar.

So, I moved the sticks to one of my tupperdores and let them sit in that passive environment for a week. This morning I checked the sticks, and they were nice and solid again. Whew! The only “bad” thing was that when they got over-humidified, the wrappers lost their smoothness as they sunk into the nooks and crannies of the binders.

But I was excited because I just adore these cigars! So I lit one up and am smoking it while I write this. The burn is not as straight as before, but at least it’s even. And, more importantly, the stick has recovered its draw tension. I’m a happy man!

The lesson I’ve learned from this is that I will, from now on, store all my uncovered sticks in a passive environment. Thank goodness I did that for the box of Oliva Serie V Melanio got a couple of weeks ago! I checked them this morning and they’re as smooth and solid as can be. I’m saving those for post-Thanksgiving Dinner!