An offline keeper for your cigar collection - inventory and value across humidors, humidity and temperature monitoring, and a tasting journal - fully on-device, no account.
Download Cigar Humidor & Journal on the App Store
All Cigar Humidor & Journal guides
Most premium cigars store well between 62 and 70 percent relative humidity, with 65 percent the most common modern target. The old 70/70 rule (70 percent RH at 70F) still keeps cigars smokable, but it sits close to the point where wrappers swell, draws tighten and mould becomes possible, so most collectors now run a few points drier. Lower set points around 62 to 65 percent give a firmer draw and a cleaner burn, while 69 to 72 percent suits people who like a softer, oilier feel. What matters more than the exact number is holding it steady, because repeated swings are what crack wrappers.
Half fill a bottle cap with plain table salt, add just enough distilled water to make a wet slurry that is not floating, and seal it with the hygrometer in a zip bag or airtight container. Leave it undisturbed for 24 hours at a stable room temperature. A saturated sodium chloride solution holds the air above it at about 75 percent RH (ASTM E104 lists 75.3 percent at 25C), so a reading of 71 means the unit runs 4 points low. Either adjust the calibration screw or write the offset down and apply it to every future reading, and repeat the test roughly once a year.
Plume, sometimes called bloom, appears as a fine white or grey crystalline dust that sits flat on the wrapper, has no smell, and brushes off cleanly with a dry finger or soft brush. Mould is fuzzy and three dimensional, usually blue-green, grey or dark, often follows the foot or the seams, smells musty, and leaves a stain when wiped. Plume is harmless and the cigar can be smoked; mould means removing and discarding affected sticks, wiping the interior with a cloth dampened in distilled water, drying the humidor fully, and lowering RH and temperature before restocking. Many so-called plume sightings are actually early mould, so judge by texture and smell rather than colour alone.
Bring them back slowly, because rushing rehydration is what splits wrappers. Start the dried cigars in a container at a low humidity step, around 62 to 65 percent, rather than dropping them straight into a 72 percent environment, and raise the target only after a week or two. Rotate the cigars every few days so all sides take on moisture evenly, and expect a full recovery to take anywhere from four weeks to several months depending on how far gone they were. Cigars that have been bone dry for a long time often lose volatile oils permanently, so they may come back smokable without ever tasting the way they did.
Temperature drives two separate risks. Warm air holds more moisture, so a humidor that heats up will read differently and can push cigars toward the wet end even with the same water source, and warm cigars burn faster and taste harsher. More seriously, the tobacco beetle Lasioderma serricorne hatches from eggs already present in tobacco once conditions get warm and humid. Published trigger figures vary: cigar retailers commonly cite roughly 72F (22C), Wikipedia's *Humidor* article puts hatching around 25C (77F) and advises staying below 20C (68F), and entomological work on the species finds no larval development below about 15C (59F). Keeping storage below about 70F, and well away from windows, radiators and lofts, is the single most effective preventive step. Temperature and humidity should be judged together, not separately.
Rarely. Capacity ratings assume tightly packed corona-sized cigars with no boxes, no dividers, no humidification device and no air gaps, so a realistic working figure is about 60 to 75 percent of the printed number. A 100 count humidor comfortably holds roughly 60 to 75 cigars in practice, and fewer again if you store them in their original boxes or smoke a lot of large ring gauge sticks. Leave enough headroom that air can move around the cigars, since packing a humidor solid creates dead pockets where humidity and mould problems start.
Wrapper shade names run roughly from lightest to darkest: Candela (double claro, green, cured fast to fix chlorophyll), Claro, Colorado Claro, Colorado, Colorado Maduro, Maduro and Oscuro (sometimes called double maduro). Lighter shades generally come from shorter fermentation and shade-grown leaf and lean grassy, creamy and mild; darker shades come from longer fermentation and more sun exposure and lean sweeter, richer, and more toward cocoa, coffee and dried fruit. The correlation is real but loose, because the wrapper is only a fraction of the tobacco by weight and the filler blend drives most of the strength. Treat shade as a hint about sweetness and body, not a reliable guide to nicotine strength.
The scale used by Cigar Aficionado and copied widely by reviewers weights appearance and construction at 15 points, flavour at 25, smoking characteristics or performance at 25, and overall impression at 35. In practice scores below 70 are almost never published, so the working range is about 70 to 100. The published bands are 95 to 100 classic, 90 to 94 outstanding, 80 to 89 very good to excellent, 70 to 79 average to good commercial quality, and below 70 not recommended. If you score your own smokes, the value is in consistency over time rather than in matching anyone else's number, so keep the same four categories and note the conditions of each smoke.
Cellophane is porous enough that cigars still humidify through it, so leaving it on is fine and it protects wrappers and feet from scuffing when cigars are moved. Keep it on for singles you handle often, for travel, and for anything you want to keep individually identifiable. Take it off if you want cigars to marry, meaning to trade aromas with the rest of the humidor, and for long term aging where most collectors prefer naked cigars in cedar. Cellophane that has yellowed is a sign of age and oils migrating, not damage.
Standard homeowner and contents policies often cap or exclude collectibles, so an insurer will usually want an itemised inventory before scheduling cover. Record each line as brand, line, vitola, quantity, purchase date, purchase price, retailer, and current replacement cost, and note which humidor or cabinet it sits in so a partial loss can be proved. Keep dated photographs of the boxes, band and box codes where present, and receipts or order confirmations, all stored somewhere off site or in the cloud. A per-humidor subtotal plus a collection total makes claims far easier, and values should be refreshed at least annually since aged and discontinued releases move.