How to Find Flavor Notes and Follow What They Do
I haven’t avoided writing about this subject so much as chosen not to cover ground that’s already been walked on. There are lots of “how-to-taste” articles out there, so I just assumed that it was a subject that didn’t need anyone else adding to the pile.
But I was wrong.
After a brief exchange with one of my readers last night about this very subject, and after reading lots of forum posts where people admit they can’t or don’t know how to identify flavors, I did some research. I wanted to find out what those articles weren’t teaching.
I was amazed by what I didn’t discover.
While all the articles were excellent, they mostly covered the process of tasting cigars and seemed to skirt around the issue of how to detect flavors in the first place.
So that’s what this article is about.
How to actually detect flavors.
It’s Not Rocket Science
I want to start out by setting your mind at ease. Tasting flavors and developing your palate is not rocket science. There’s no secret method to learn. There’s no jumping through mental hoops involved. There’s no scientific methodology that you have to learn.
All you need are your taste buds and your imagination.
When you hear or read the phrase, “everyone’s palate is different,” it doesn’t mean that our taste buds are different. Our imaginations are. Two people will taste something and sometimes come up with wildly different flavors. Those differences aren’t purely mechanical. They’re differences in imagination. Ultimately, they’re differences in what we name in our imaginations.
Developing a Vocabulary
This is where a lot of people get stuck.
They taste something. They know something is there. They can tell it’s familiar, but they can’t name it. So they assume they aren’t tasting it correctly.
They are.
They don’t have a word for it. Yet.
That’s the part of palate development that doesn’t get talked about enough. It’s not about improving your taste buds. It’s about building the vocabulary you use to identify what your taste buds, nose, and memory are already telling you.
Tasting notes are nothing more than matching a word to a flavor.
All we have to do is learn how to match.
Letting the Cigar Speak to You
The most important thing in tasting cigars is to start with a clean mental slate. Specifically, don’t go in expecting to taste specific flavors like coffee, black pepper, or cedar. The problem with expecting to detect specific flavors is that it’ll get frustrating fast, especially when you don’t detect a flavor.
So, ignore what you’ve read about the cigar. Ignore what you think the flavors might be based on the blend sheet. Ignore previous conversations about it. The only thing to focus on is the here and now.
Let the cigar speak to you on its own terms.
Start with a Neutral Palate
One of the things I learned from reviewing wine several years ago was to have some plain water crackers always on hand. Eating a couple of these, then washing them down with water, will help cleanse and neutralize the pH in your mouth to give you the best chance of detecting flavors.
I specifically say “neutralize,” not “clean,” because the last thing you should do is brush your teeth or gargle with mouthwash! That’ll surely wreck your palate. You’ll be able to taste the bolder flavors, but you will miss any nuance.
Actually Detecting Flavor Notes
With a clear mind and a neutral palate, now it’s time to taste.
Especially when you’re starting out, it’s useful to have a flavor wheel on hand. A good one is The Cigar Guys Flavor Wheel. It’s not cheating. It can help you put a name to what you imagine you taste.
If you already have a cigar lit, no problem. At this point, where you’re at is less important than what’s there. But I will say that it’s generally better to start this exercise before you reach the second half because most cigar profiles will be more open in the first half.
Now, take a puff.
Let the smoke slowly exit your mouth. Then ask yourself these questions:
Did I notice anything?
Did anything stick out?
What does it remind me of?
If you can’t find the word, refer to the flavor wheel. You may not find an exact match, but pick something close.
For instance, let’s say something reminds you of coffee. Coffee has several degrees of expression: light coffee, black coffee, espresso, ristretto, Turkish coffee. Did it have milk or cream in it?
To sum it up, first pick a name, then see if you can narrow down what kind of flavor it is.
It sounds simple, and it is. But I’m not going to lie to you. It takes practice. And most importantly, remember this:
Tasting notes aren’t a test. You’re not going to be graded. They’re for your use. You can certainly share them, but no one is standing over your shoulder with a red pen.
What you taste and eventually name is not wrong.
We all carry this unreasonable fear of feeling stupid. As I mentioned above, there are no wrong answers when it comes to tasting.
Let me say that again.
There are no wrong answers.
Eventually, your vocabulary will become more refined, and you will be able to detect more and more flavors. But the point of this exercise is to open yourself up to discovery. To let yourself find what the cigar is offering you at this specific moment.
Again, you’re not looking for specific flavors. You’re simply trying to see what’s there.
Taking It a Step Further
I was going to save this for a follow-up piece, but I think it’s important to discuss because a cigar experience is far more than just an inventory of flavor notes, burn lines, and construction. And it’s certainly more than thirds.
Unfortunately, we’ve all been programmed to think in those terms. But a cigar is a complete, crafted system, and each cigar has a story to tell.
Don’t get me wrong. Being able to detect flavors after not being able to previously is a huge accomplishment. And I realize that for many, that’s enough. But for those who are interested in understanding why they like or don’t like a particular cigar, we have to flex some different mental muscles.
When you identify a particular flavor note, ask yourself:
How strong is the flavor?
How did it appear? As a flash? As a flow? As a pulse?
Where did it end up in my mouth?
Does it feel like it’s doing anything? Or is it just passively sitting there?
Is it interacting with the profile in any way? Does it feel like it’s pulling? Or driving?
Does it feel like it’s anchoring the profile?
As with detecting flavor notes, detecting behavior takes practice. It also means stepping out of our purely analytical mind and into the grey area of our creative mind.
Dealing with Transitions and More Macro Behavior
Once you start noticing what a flavor is doing, the next step is to zoom out.
A cigar isn’t just a collection of individual flavor notes. It’s a system. Coffee may show up. Pepper may show up. Cream may show up. But the bigger question is what happens when they start interacting with each other.
Does the coffee stay in one place, or does it move from the tongue to the finish?
Does the pepper sit on the lips, or does it move backwards?
Does the cream soften the edges, or does it become the floor everything else walks on?
Does the profile feel organized?
Is there a core or base, and what flavors form it?
That’s where transitions come in.
A transition doesn’t have to mean the cigar suddenly changes from one thing to another. Sometimes it does. But more often, a transition is a shift in emphasis. A flavor gets louder. Another one moves into the background. The texture changes. The finish gets longer. The body gets heavier. The cigar starts pressing forward instead of floating. Or it opens up after feeling tight.
This is where you stop asking, “What do I taste?”
And you start asking, “What is the cigar doing?”
That question changes everything.
A cigar might start bright and active, then settle into something darker and more grounded. It might begin soft and creamy, then gradually thicken until the final third becomes dense and muscular. It might never make a dramatic turn at all, but instead keep tightening around the same core idea until the whole experience feels more focused.
None of those are just flavor changes.
The cigar is showing you how it moves and whether it has somewhere to go. That’s the part that gets lost when we only talk about first third, second third, and final third. Those markers are useful, but they’re not the story.
The story is what happens over the course of the smoke.
Wrapping It Up
So yes, finding the coffee is a big deal.
But once you find it, don’t stop there.
Ask where it is. Ask what kind of coffee it is. Ask whether it moves, deepens, sharpens, softens, anchors, or disappears. Ask what happens around it. Ask whether the cigar keeps giving you something to follow.
That’s when tasting stops being a guessing game, and the cigar becomes an experience.
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