Now starts the race for the good and rare smokes in town. Its just amazing to see how the sharks start touring in circles trying to find the yummy sticks. At the hide away Casa del Habano in the Hotel Conde de Villanueva I actually ran into some guys buying the whole place. They captured the rare Partagas Replica Humidor, some even harder to find Montecristo B and massive bundles of 56 ring gauge Maravillosos. It makes me smile big time when I see these people buying such rare cigars -there is some twinkle in their eyes and thez seem to be full of adrenalin.

 Just coming back from todays most interesting event - the Cohiba Lancero tasting at the Laguito factory. Professionally organized by Italian enthuisiast Alex Iapichino and our fellow Japanese buddy Nobuhiro Nakamura this tasting was the first of its kind ever made in Havana. The panel, hand selected by Alex and Nobu-san constisted of most reknown cigar experts such as Simon Chase from Uk importer Hunters and Frankau, Valerio Cornale (LCDH Grand Cayman), Nino Muños (flying-cigar.de), fellow Urs Portmann from Switzerland, Ana Lopez of Habanos S.A., Spanish journalist Jose Illario and of course Laguito factory director Rafael Collazo.

Much to my surprise even some officals from the cuban tobacco research institute joined our tasting. The Lanceros of 1997 vintage sponsored by Alex came from a box purchased a while ago from Edward of Davidoff London. The cigar caused a very interesting discussion as just about half of the audience did not really appreciate the youngtimer whereas the other half did to the max. The Lanceros started fairly easy showing creamy flavours and a bit of a milk coffee taste. Not much developement into the second part - but getting better into the final one. Some spicy, herbal flavours combined with the inevitable metallic aftertaste towards the end. Excellent draw and superb combustion. The second surprise was a short summary of impressions given by Prof.Dr.Ing. Luis Sorina from the tobacco research institute. Luis not only described the various flavours in an excellent way but admitted clearly how wonderful Cuban cigars age - and why !! I remember very well those days back in 1995 when a high ranking official of Cubatobacco told me a Cuban cigar tastes like tobacco - end of discussion !!! What a change - now we having some people to talk to, - some people in Cuba understand what it is about..

To be continued - so stay tuned for more about the hot smokes - we will sample the new Cuaba Piramides Limited Editon 2008 for you.....