Did you know that you can pair your cigars with a good cup of coffee? Cigar and coffee pairings are among the most popular choices for aficionados.
Let's take a closer look.
Cigars are a product of exceptional refinement, created through meticulous attention to detail in cultivation and production. While cigars offer a luxurious experience on their own, they can also be paired with other pleasures, such as a meal or a drink.
In this case, coffee makes the perfect companion to a cigar. These two products possess individual complexities, but when combined, they can result in a truly captivating experience.
Among the "compatible" coffees for cigars are Cuban, Kenyan, Puerto Rican, and Colombian blends. The pairing choices will largely depend on your personal tastes.
In the following paragraphs, we will explore:
- The specificities of cigars and coffee
- Why cigar-coffee pairings work
- Some examples of successful pairings
Let's dive into the explanations.
Cigars: a refresher on their appeal
A cigar is an agricultural product cultivated for flavors ranging from mild to robust, sweet to spicy, and simple to complex. Cigars can change in flavor throughout their smoke and can also vary in their effect on the smoker, from relaxing to invigorating.
Their properties are determined by the climate and region of harvest, the particular leaves used for the wrapper, their aging process, and several other factors.
With just these "variables," cigars offer a multitude of options and characteristics that smokers can explore. It's a vast world of taste.
Coffee: a refresher on its terroir
Likewise, coffee beans are cultivated and produced through an agricultural process. Like a cigar, the composition of coffee is determined by where the beans are grown. The taste of a cup of coffee typically ranges from mild to strong, nutty to fruity, and sweet to bitter.
Coffee can also have multiple flavors in a cup, with each sip offering different notes, variations of the initial taste or aftertaste. Coffee, like wine, is a world of flavors that is impossible to fully explore, and that's part of what makes it so appealing.
Among coffees, here is a selection of blends that are particularly enjoyed when paired with a cigar:
1/ Cuban Coffee
The most popular of Cuban coffee blends is Cubita coffee, which offers strong earthy tones with tasty notes of caramel and smoke. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find in UE.
As an alternative, there's Santiago blend, which is incredibly smooth with a sweet and buttery flavor.
2/ Kenyan Coffee
Delicate and sweet notes emanate from these coffee beans, which give off a subtle fruity flavor.
3/ Puerto Rican Coffee
A strong and powerful blend with a deliciously sweet and chocolatey taste.
4/ Colombian Coffee
A perfectly balanced taste, this medium roast is accompanied by light notes of bitterness, cream, fruit, and spices.
With this small selection, accompanied by some of your favorite cigars, you already have enough material to explore new flavors for a while!
Cigar and coffee pairing
There is a golden zone, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This magical band of the world encompasses regions such as South America, Africa, and South Asia. This area is also known as the "coffee belt," where the best conditions for coffee bean growth can be found.
With its rich soil and tropical climate, it is also the region in which our beloved tobacco plants grow.
Savoring a cigar with a cup of coffee offers a range of new and unique flavors, as the aromas often overlap and complement each other so well. Each presents notes of spices, earthy reminders, and hints of acidity, balanced by a host of other flavors that evolve throughout the tasting.
Obviously, the most difficult part is finding the combinations, which will depend heavily on the taste preferences of the cigar smoker and coffee drinker.
The best cigar and coffee pairings
A simple method to approach the selection process is to look for similarities between the two tastes.
For example:
- A mild and sweet cigar with a Connecticut wrapper will pair well with a similarly flavored roasted coffee, perhaps fruity.
- A medium-bodied cigar, with a nutty and/or slightly spicy flavor, wrapped in a Havana leaf, pairs well with a medium-roasted coffee or a cocoa-based coffee.
- A dark and deep Maduro wrapper is more leathery and spicy, and pairs well with a full-bodied roasting with more acidic notes.
With a gigantic range of coffees and cigars available, the combinations are limitless, so we have chosen some examples for you to try.
1/ Flat White Coffee & Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill Cigar
The Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill is a medium-bodied cigar, with an extremely smooth draw, that pairs perfectly with the sweetness of a
flat white. The cigar presents an earthy side that distinguishes it from the
milky flavors of the coffee, but the fruity and vanilla notes that emerge from it blend perfectly with this beverage.
2/ Black Coffee & Partagas Lusitanias Cigar
This pairing is sublime because the medium-bodied nature of the Partagas Lusitanias blends perfectly with the strength of black coffee. Starting with floral and sweet notes, the cigar will allow the flavors of the coffee to come through and balance its bitterness.
The cigar then develops to give notes of leather and cedar, creating a powerful combination.
3/ Latte Coffee & Montecristo No 3 Cigar
Medium-bodied smoke, the Montecristo No. 3 is the ideal companion to a rich and creamy coffee, such as a latte. The cigar itself offers notes of mocha coffee, so this touch of sweetness blends well with the milk coffee.
4/ Espresso Coffee & Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour Robusto Cigar
An espresso such as this must be accompanied by an equally sophisticated and powerful cigar. The Late Hour Robusto from Davidoff is a full-bodied smoke, full of powerful flavors and aromas, which is perfectly suited to the strength of an espresso.
The cigar presents spicy and sweet notes, with a hint of chocolate and caramel, which help to bring out the rich and bold flavors of the coffee.
If you don't know how to pair a cigar and coffee, try one of the previous combinations, and you'll be sure not to go wrong.
Find your perfect cigar-coffee pairing!
There are an infinite number of possible combinations when it comes to pairing cigars and coffee, but it all depends on what you like and what you're most interested in trying. Overall, this article has given you some guidelines that will help you think through your choices.
By exploring our selection of the most "cigar-friendly" coffees and quickly learning about their specificities, you probably have a better idea of what would go well with your favorite cigars.
Whether it's morning, evening, or afternoon, discover the diversity and nuances of each smoke, each cup, and savor the perfect combination.
>> To accompany this exceptional coffee-cigar pairing, don't forget your essential accessories kit.
