Cello or No Cello?
Ah, that is the question! We get asked this a lot and I thought I might jot down our thoughts on this topic in the wee hours of the night. A few decades ago, some smart aleck thought it would be great to wrap cigars in plastic wrap so they will stay fresh longer. Sounded great at the time. However, they did know that the average cigar contained 14% moisture content when it left the manufactures plant. What they forgot was that ordinary plastic wrap doesn’t breathe, and so all that humidity got trapped in the non-breathable plastic wrap and thousands of cigars were ruined by mold! Great idea, wrong application. But don’t worry, the cellophane wrappers they have on cigars now is permeable or breathable. So mold is not a problem with the relatively new cellophane wrappers. The question is:
Do I need to keep it on?
What are the effects on aging my cigars with the cellophane on?
First of all, no you don’t need to keep the cellophane on, it really is a matter of personal taste. But we feel there are good reasons to leave them on. First, it does provide a level of protection from some inadvertant rough handling….not to mention it keeps the oils from our hands off of the wrappers. Also, if one cigar should get mold or a beetle growing inside it, it won’t spread to the other cigars in the box or humidor. Bad enough one cigar gets turned to dust by beetles, but a whole box lost to the beetles is something else!
As to the question of cellophanes effects on long-term aging of cigars with the cellophane on….our answer would be….we don’t know! We smoke our cigars before they get too old. Seriously though, we have cigars in our humidors for over two years with the cellophanes on and we haven’t noticed a descenible difference in taste. Many serious cigar aficionados swear that the cellophane will slow down the aging process and prevent your cigar from aging properly and as such will affect the cigars overall taste!
Whatever you do, take them off or leave them on, it really is up to you and your personal preference. CigarCyclopedia has a good article that comments on this issue….to read the article, click here.
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Brian | Jan 17, 2008 | Reply
All very good points. I find that the cigars that come naked (i.e. without cello) invariably get damaged when I’m rummaging around through my humidor.
I do believe that cigars will marry and age better if taken out of the cellophane and placed with like cigars, resulting in a more consistent smoke from one cigar to another. However, as cellophane is porous, some amount of marrying will occur even with the cello on.
But how many people actually age their cigars? I don’t I light ‘em up as soon as I have a chance! Damage and humidity control are far more pressing issues in my humidor.
Good post!