Evolution of your cigar journey

[LordAnubis]

There's a topic about "top ten boxes to start a collection". My personal cigar journey has been big mix of things. Maybe it's just me, maybe as ive had quite significant changes in circumstances over the 15 years ive been into cigars, maybe it happens to everyone.

If you think back to how you started, or even how you started "seriosuly" into cigars, have your habits changed? What i did and liked when i first started is nowhere near where i am today. I went from petite coroans and perlas and LEs to now liking robusto and corona gorda more and more. Ive moved to totally regular production now aswell. I also have been liking the lower end of the habanos line up for more every day smokes. 

My collection, and this kind of goes with the well known rule of buy double what you think you will need, started with a 20ct desktop humidor, and is currently a 3000cigar storage fridge, with plans drawn up and money ready to drop on a walk in humidor. its all relative ofcourse, but theres a poll.

How has your journey progressed? What im curious to find out is has anyone stayed exactly with what they were doing from the start? Also, has anyone managed to go backwards? Moved from 1000 cigars down to holding only 50? Anyone gone from a range of 20 cigars in their humidro down to only holding 2 different cigars?

[Chibearsv]

Well, my cigar journey started with White Owls or Dutch Masters that I swiped from the grocery store I worked at just before I turned 16.  Now, I've got around 3000 Cuban cigars in a widely diverse inventory both in Marca and Vitola.  And I've paid for all of them.  That's a big change but it has been a journey that's simply progressed over more than 40 years based on lifestyle and spendable income.  I simply have more time and money than ever before so I'm enjoying better cigars more often than ever before.  

[gustavehenne]

Totally changed. Used to smoke 90% NCs (mainly Davidoff) and 10% CC skinnies (Cohiba Lanceros, Fundies etc).

Today, 70/30 in favour of Cubans (DCs, Churchills mostly then Corona Gordas and Robusto Extras).

I love variety but have some notable things I used to smoke I just don’t touch regularly anymore (Dip 2, Upmann 2, etc)

[Paladin865]

I had smoked a couple of cigar while I was in the Army back in the 80's. A couple around 2001 with a few friends. My current journey began two years ago, while vacationing in Cancun. I never smoke a Cuban cigar. I started with a Cohiba Pantanella . I bought my first box, Montecristo #4. During the height of the pandemic. I researched vendors, bought humidors, cutters, lighters and all that goes with this journey. I make the rounds to the shops and lounges. Better than the bars and nightclubs

[Juliano88]

Used to smoke only nc’s. Then I started smoking Cubans. Now I have 40 boxes of Cubans and 18 boxes of non Cubans which I’m selling to buy more Cubans lol. My palate doesn’t agree with the new world blends anymore unfortunately. Total of 950-1000 cigars and 3 wine fridges and an igloo cooler. I said when I started all I need is a travel humidor, will probably never have more than 15 on hand 😂

[benfica_77]

Bought cheaply a box of a RYJ tubos No.2 off a colleague and I didn't properly humidify them and they subsequently didn't taste great. But I enjoyed very much the overall experience, it forced me to slow down be present and take an hour to myself. 

Joined R/cigars on reddit and started purchasing NCs sprinkled in with a couple cubans that were gifted or muled from Cuba. I tried well over 50 different NCs and some multiple times and after a fairly large sample size the CC were far ahead the more pleasant smoke. I HATEEE pepper and that's the predominant note in 95% of NCs. bleh. 

After a big row on r/cigars and the community started to fall apart I decided to start looking for other forums and found FOH. Been here ever since...bought quarter boxes to see what I liked and didn't like. After confirming what I liked I graduated to full boxes. I learned I like mostly Robustos/Petite Coronas/Robusto Extras. They make 85% of my stock remaining 15% is longer formats like Fundies, Cola, Sir Winnies etc. Currently have 589 cigars in my inventory, I plan to add no more than 60 during next year. I purchased an Avallo humidor that will be arriving sometime in Feb/March. 

I will keep an eye on new regular production lines of CCs but the bulk of what I enjoy has been refined. Whole process from the beginning to now was roughly 8 years. 

[Meklown]

Started in my student days and did not have a lot to spend so mainly bought 1-2 boxes at a time and smoked once/week. Mostly robustos. Would almost always buy a different box to try the next time. Also always bought a box of each EL and those went into my "collection". 

Now that I have more money, I'm still trying and learning as much as I can. Able to start a bit of a collection now of regular prods beyond those I'll smoke in the near future. 50/50 on PCs and robustos, with some other sizes too. Smoke about once/day now. Still always buy a box of each EL to go into my "collection". 

Tldr; not much change, just have more money to give myself a bigger collection to have more variety and higher frequency nowadays. 

[coug28]

Started out smoking cigars around 2007/2008 at Cbid (if you know, then you know lol)…first humi was 5 Vegas 100 ct and I thought it was real neat! Smoked only NCs as I really was just beginning to understand and learn about the cigar world. Progressed through the cheapies to be strictly in the Fuente, Tatuaje, Illusione, and Liga Privada realm. Went through all the initial Tatuaje craze ((East/West, Porkchop, OG Black jars, T110s, Franks/Boris etc etc.). Had the occasional Cuban, or maybe not, who knows what cigars were in some of those ‘trades’….but my palate grew tired of the pepper and lingering morning aftertaste I would frequently get, so a little over 10+ years ago I pretty much dumped my entire stock of NCs and bought/smoked strictly Cubans. Haven’t looked back since. No regrets. 

[Connoisseur Kim]

I didn't pay much attention to long and skinny CCs when I was new to CCs (puffed Petit Coronas, Robustos, and Grand Coronas mostly). However, I became a huge fan of long and skinny CCs after having a herf with @Raskol (LGC MdO 4 was a terrific skinny CC for sure). Since then, I bought tons of 24:24 CCs including long and skinny CCs like Punch 8-9-8 😃.

Hope that I can get LGC MdO 4, Monte 1, and Party Lusis boxes too, as these CCs are one of my favourite CCs.

[Tdm_86]

I voted totally changed, because I started out casually smoking maybe once a month. Over the last 15 years of buying and smoking Habanos, I’ve been trying everything and buying/smoking much more than those early days in college. So my ‘collection’ is much larger and diverse than it was at that time, in that regard it’s totally changed.

But I would say ‘Ever evolving’ is more what it’s actually like in my case. I have some staple cigars that I’ve always loved and always have multiple boxes of. And the others, I’m still constantly exploring and buying wildly different stuff. There’s periods I smoke much of what I started out with and periods where I don’t.