It’s Friday and it’s time for another slightly belated edition of Ask halfwheel, our weekly segment where we answer a question from readers. Today’s question comes from David: How exactly does the wrapper to filler ratio work? I feel like I know quite a bit about cigars, but have a hard time articulating why smaller ring guage cigars tend to have more flavor. Or even why exactly the wrapper is contributing more to the profile. It seems like it would be proportional, as you use more filler you still will need more wrapper. I’m confusing myself writing this. The truth is, it doesn’t really work, or at least I don’t think it does. I’ve read and been told countless times over the years that smaller ring gauge cigars have “more flavor.” That statement, along with ones like “the wrapper is 70 percent of the flavor” are simply not true. The debate within the industry about this seems to be all over the place. Patrick tells me in Cuba, you’ll be told that the wrapper is primarily decorative and doesn’t contribute much in the way of flavor. Meanwhile, in the U.S., I hear cigar manufacturers routinely using descriptors ranging from “key part of the flavor” to numbers ...
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