Trinidad Media Luna rest time

[Enduin]

Gotcha, thank you for the data! I just got back in from smoking the 9g Media Luna and this was a completely different experience! It had flaws for sure (canoeing, touch ups, the most fragile ashes I've ever seen, tendency to die) BUT the flavors in the first and second third were AWESOME! All in all I thoroughly enjoyed it and now I get what Trinidads are about! I'm gonna write a review with some pics to detail this challenging yet satisfying smoking session, since that is off topic from this thread I started.

I feel pretty confident about drawing some conclusions at this point though. 

I don't think the main issue with this box is inadequate aging (meaning from when the cigars were rolled) nor resting (from when I got the box). If one cigar from this box can show wonderful flavors and others from the same box don't, it means that a good Media Luna CAN show a fantastic flavor profile even with just two months of resting and one year of age. Does that mean that they don't need more aging/resting? Of course not! I'm firmly convinced that the specimen I smoked would have been better with say 1 extra year or more of resting/aging. It's very possible that the burning issues I experienced would have been solved by a better moisture redistribution thanks to more aging at a stable RH. At the same time good Media Lunas form the 12/20 vintage can be eminently enjoyable even when young, which reflects the experience from Bijan and others. 

I believe, also seeing the fairly wide spread of weights in my box, that I happened to get one of the more inconsistent/crappy boxes of Media Luna around. Obviously I'm not gonna throw it out or anything, but at least now I know that if I smoke another from this box and it's bland/crappy/plugged, it's not indicative of the marca/vitola, just a crappier box. My next experiment will be to get the heaviest one (12.45g), test it for draw and if tight, dry box the hell out of it until the draw is good. And then age the rest. At least now I have a good data point to understand what a good Media Luna should taste like!

 

[Bijan]

39 minutes ago, Enduin said:

I believe, also seeing the fairly wide spread of weights in my box, that I happened to get one of the more inconsistent/crappy boxes of Media Luna around.

I just weighed mine for comparison:

10.286g

11.768g

10.790g

13.121g

10.753g

9.96g

12.218g

12.278g

12.529g

12.433g

I've attached a picture of the foot of the heavy 13+g to show the bunching.

Edit: The other two that I smoked were 11.5 and I believe 11.9

[Enduin]

Wow you got me beat! 13.12g now that's a fatty. Curious to know how that one will smoke!

[JZBdano]

I'm just finishing my first Media Luna I got in a trade.  I believe it's a TLU ABR 20 as well.  Nice firm draw, straight cut, great construction and burn.  Good cigar, young but really good.  Very nice room note as well.  

[Mickey D]

Great read, but a bit technical for me. I do enjoy what you all are doing though. 

[Enduin]

Three months later and 3 more cigars later I wanted to give an update. After the last cigar smoked in March, when I thought I got it, I smoked 3 more that convinced me I actually don't get it when it comes to Media Lunas. All 3 cigars had flawless construction, good draw, perfect burn line, etc. And all 3 I found rather boring and didn't particularly care for the flavor profile. At this point I think it's not the cigars but it's me. Maybe Media Lunas are not for me. 

I'm also convinced at this point that the first 2 I smoked were just too high in moisture, likely due to shipping and living in Florida. So, while for other people 60 days of rest time is plenty, I think in my case 90 days or more might be necessary to allow for the extra moisture the cigars picked up to settle down to a normal level. I don't believe it was a coincidence that all the Media Lunas I had after the 4 and 5 months mark had no issues in terms of draw and burning. 

So, the lesson I learned is that I might still try a cigar after 60 days to see how it is, but if it's plugged/muted, I'm not going to waste more cigars thinking that I just picked a bad cigar out of the box, but rather I'll wait at least 60 more days before I try a second one. 

And as far as the Trinidad Media Lunas, I think I'll be in the minority of those who "don't get it". The flavor profile just doesn't seem to do it for me, and the numbers don't lie: one good experience vs three underwhelming ones (not counting the first two which were my fault for not waiting longer) paint a pretty clear picture. 

[Cairo]

On 3/17/2021 at 1:37 PM, Enduin said:

wasting an equal if not worse amount of money on NCs in the past 2 years, where I would either get a cigar that was flavorful but "peppery" which would go straight in the garbage,

I have had great success with long-term (five year plus) aging on "peppery" NCs.     It helps smooth out the rough edges and gives the maximum flavors.   One of my favorite NCs is El Rico Habano.    These are totally unsmokable off the truck, barely tolerable with a year of age, and just wonderful at the ten year mark.  Patience can really be your friend with this hobby.

[teamrandr]

😃

[Enduin]

On 6/20/2021 at 2:06 AM, Cairo said:

I have had great success with long-term (five year plus) aging on "peppery" NCs.     It helps smooth out the rough edges and gives the maximum flavors.   One of my favorite NCs is El Rico Habano.    These are totally unsmokable off the truck, barely tolerable with a year of age, and just wonderful at the ten year mark.  Patience can really be your friend with this hobby.

I’ve had very inconsistent success aging NCs… Kind of off topic but basically while I agree that aging can greatly mitigate the obnoxious “pepper”, I found that several NCs lost flavors when aged and became very boring. I would go as far as saying that more often than not when I aged NCs I’ve been disappointed. YMMV. 

 

Back on the Media Lunas, I’ve seen recently several threads by the Prez about “getting” a specific cigar, and for the majority the opinions were split fairly evenly. With Trinidads, though, I don’t remember reading of people “not getting it”. I seem to always read praise. I’d be curious to see, is anybody else “not getting” recent production Media Lunas? Or is it just me 😅