Eric
05-18-2007, 03:49 AM
Author: Electric Sheep
Category: General
Ask any serious cigar smoker who’s smoked cigarettes before, they’ll all tell you the same thing: cigars and cigarettes are two radically different products. Yes, they’re both made from the leaves of a tobacco plant, and yes both are consumed by burning, but beyond that, there’s terribly little in common with the two.
I smoked cigarettes for 15 years, in college and all throughout my twenties. I finally quit when I was 33, and it was truly the most difficult thing I’d ever done. The combination of mental and physical addiction was nearly impossible to overcome. I mean, I really didn’t even enjoy smoking–cigarettes themselves aren’t particularly pleasant. They’re rather tasteless and bland, are chocked-full of harmful chemicals, and in today’s world you’re practically ostracized by society if you smoke.
Smoking premium handmade cigars, on the other hand, is an entirely different experience–far more akin to drinking a glass of fine wine than sucking down a dry-cured, machine-made, chemical-filled, paper-wrapped, homogenized-tobacco cigarette. Unfortunately, most people today don’t understand the difference between the two. We’re all indoctrinated to the fact that smoking cigarettes is an unhealthy, cancer causing, addictive habit. Ask a non-smoker what they think of cigarettes and they’ll answer, “Yuk.” Ask them about cigars and they’ll most likely provide the same answer because they can’t appreciate the difference.
But cigar smokers understand.
First and foremost, premium handmade cigars are constructed of pure, unprocessed natural tobacco leaves. No chemical additives, no homogenized chopped-and-mixed tobacco, no paper, no chemically processed cellulose filer.
But even beyond the physical makeup, the big difference in cigars versus cigarettes is consumption. For the most part, cigar smokers don’t inhale the smoke, and typically cigars are consumed at a fraction of the rate of cigarettes. A typical cigarette smoker will suck down 20 or more per day, but a typical cigar smoker smokes only a few sticks per week. Granted, there’s a lot more tobacco in a single cigar than in a whole stack of cigarettes, but there’s no added chemicals and (again, for the most part) cigars aren’t inhaled into the lungs. Because of that, cigar smokers are subject to significantly fewer harmful toxins than cigarette smokers.
But even more important than any of that is the cigar smoking experience itself. Unlike a cigarette, smoking a cigar isn’t about the delivery of nicotine–just like drinking a fine wine isn’t about the consumption of alcohol. Smoking a cigar is about the symphony of flavors, the admiration of the fine construction, the appreciation of the aroma, the use of the accessories, the hobby of collecting, and possibly most important of all, the camaraderie of enjoying one with a group of fellow cigar smokers.
It is a sort of brotherhood.
And we are Brothers of the Leaf.
Category: General
Ask any serious cigar smoker who’s smoked cigarettes before, they’ll all tell you the same thing: cigars and cigarettes are two radically different products. Yes, they’re both made from the leaves of a tobacco plant, and yes both are consumed by burning, but beyond that, there’s terribly little in common with the two.
I smoked cigarettes for 15 years, in college and all throughout my twenties. I finally quit when I was 33, and it was truly the most difficult thing I’d ever done. The combination of mental and physical addiction was nearly impossible to overcome. I mean, I really didn’t even enjoy smoking–cigarettes themselves aren’t particularly pleasant. They’re rather tasteless and bland, are chocked-full of harmful chemicals, and in today’s world you’re practically ostracized by society if you smoke.
Smoking premium handmade cigars, on the other hand, is an entirely different experience–far more akin to drinking a glass of fine wine than sucking down a dry-cured, machine-made, chemical-filled, paper-wrapped, homogenized-tobacco cigarette. Unfortunately, most people today don’t understand the difference between the two. We’re all indoctrinated to the fact that smoking cigarettes is an unhealthy, cancer causing, addictive habit. Ask a non-smoker what they think of cigarettes and they’ll answer, “Yuk.” Ask them about cigars and they’ll most likely provide the same answer because they can’t appreciate the difference.
But cigar smokers understand.
First and foremost, premium handmade cigars are constructed of pure, unprocessed natural tobacco leaves. No chemical additives, no homogenized chopped-and-mixed tobacco, no paper, no chemically processed cellulose filer.
But even beyond the physical makeup, the big difference in cigars versus cigarettes is consumption. For the most part, cigar smokers don’t inhale the smoke, and typically cigars are consumed at a fraction of the rate of cigarettes. A typical cigarette smoker will suck down 20 or more per day, but a typical cigar smoker smokes only a few sticks per week. Granted, there’s a lot more tobacco in a single cigar than in a whole stack of cigarettes, but there’s no added chemicals and (again, for the most part) cigars aren’t inhaled into the lungs. Because of that, cigar smokers are subject to significantly fewer harmful toxins than cigarette smokers.
But even more important than any of that is the cigar smoking experience itself. Unlike a cigarette, smoking a cigar isn’t about the delivery of nicotine–just like drinking a fine wine isn’t about the consumption of alcohol. Smoking a cigar is about the symphony of flavors, the admiration of the fine construction, the appreciation of the aroma, the use of the accessories, the hobby of collecting, and possibly most important of all, the camaraderie of enjoying one with a group of fellow cigar smokers.
It is a sort of brotherhood.
And we are Brothers of the Leaf.