Cigar Sense Podcast

This episode is based on our article Sensory analysis, a misunderstood discipline. Franca explains some key factors that drive misconceptions when it is about sensory analysis:

• it deals with subjective data
• sensory science is a young research area
• anyone can evaluate cigars
• many expert tasters
• many obsolete tasting guides
• a lot of academic literature, little sharing of benefits among non-academic communities
• companies like to tell consumers what to sense, even if it's wrong
• why should marketing teams believe results from sensory tests that are inconsistent with their own evaluations?
• why, on the contrary, is there trust on influencers, who also publish totally different results (but help sell)?

There are certainly more points and we will update our article where appropriate.

If you have any comments to the episode or to the article, please email Franca, your comments might be included in our next episode.

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Franca interviewed Scott Haugh, Director of The Haugh Family Foundation and co-founder of Cayman Cigar Company.

Cayman Cigar Company has a unique story in that they are the world's first and only premium cigar company to give 100% of all net profits to charity. They are helping Caymanians in addiction recovery in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands through their nonprofit The Bridge Foundation (www.thebridgefoundationcayman.org) and growing tobacco at their nonprofit Beacon Farms (www.beaconfarmscayman.org). Beacon Farms employs graduates of The Bridge Foundation and teaches sustainable farming practices while providing stable careers for deserving local residents who are continuing their sobriety and improving their lives. Cayman Cigar Company will soon make the world's first cigar for international export using 100% grown tobaccos from Beacon Farms. This will be the first super-premium, very limited production cigar from a brand-new tobacco growing region.

Visit the Cayman Cigar Company and the Haugh Family Foundation. The foundation supports inclusive learning programs for special needs children, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for U.S. Veterans and specialized agricultural opportunities and training for Caymanians in addiction recovery in the Cayman Islands.

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Log-in or sign-up for free at cigarsense.com to download your free ebook "Our senses in action when enjoying a premium cigar".

Ana Lopez started working in the tobacco industry in 1984. She is a former operational marketing director of Habanos and participated in the creation of more than a hundred of new lines and products and of concepts, such as the Habanos limited editions, Colección Habanos, and even Habanosommelier. She is also founder of the Habanos festival.

Ana is currently a sales advisor at the company Hunters & Frankau in the UK. She is Master in Havana cigars.

Together with her husband, Ana has recently started venturing into YouTube and created the Cigar Ritual Channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqbE0uuVGjJdQZpbdUDALTg] where you can find great educational content.

This interview covers many different aspects of the theme we approached:

• the influence of the wrapper on the Cuban cigar's flavor
• the different types of tastings in Cuba - tasting commission in the factories, national commission of tasters
• measuring flavor intensity and importance of creating objective cigar profiles using a common sensory language; why is this not so important in Cuba?
• the enigma of origin of the believe "the darker the color, the stronger the taste"
• what should women smoke?
• the role that consumers deserve

and more.

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Log-in or sign-up for free at cigarsense.com to download your free ebook "Our senses in action when enjoying a premium cigar".

Bongani Cigars is the first African Cigar brand. Their premium cigars are made in Mozambique and they are growing their presence across Africa, Europe and the US.

Kamal Moukheiber discusses with Franca about:

• the African cigar tobacco tradition
• the young open-minded African consumer: as they become more mature and wealthier, they shift from international to what talks to their identity
• the scent of Ghana cedar wood
• the Mozambican production team with a Dominican undertone culture
• and more.

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Log-in or sign-up for free at cigarsense.com to download your free ebook "Our senses in action when enjoying a premium cigar".

From Greece to the USA to Saudi Arabia to Cuba, the principles and international mindset of Nicholas Syris convey that the road less traveled, when choosing, enjoying and marketing premium cigars, is not always easy, but provide the highest satisfaction.

Nicholas has a deep experience in tobacco, blending, understanding consumers and a lot more. Lots to learn from him.

He is the LH (Lavida Habana) Premium Cigars brand owner and blender, as well as a Cuba "expert".

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Log-in or sign-up for free at cigarsense.com to download your free ebook "Our senses in action when enjoying a premium cigar".

Angelika Bauer has been working for Messe Dortmund and since 2006 and is the Project Director of InterTabac and InterSupply.

In this episode, we discuss the trade show mission and goals, how visitors can access the show, the forthcoming activities and more.

Visit their LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/intertabac/ for more updates.

In this episode, industrial engineer Radhames Rodriguez discusses the benefits of Tabacalera El Artista vertical integration from farms to factory to distribution. He is a young innovator, always thinking outside of the box, while respecting the family tradition. We also discussed:

• the use of the sensory language in marketing;
• the challenge of determining the characterizing flavors of cigars produced with a particular tobacco in a particular terroir;
• the objectivity of cigar analyses based on statistics;
• the premium cigar on its way to become an intangible cultural heritage in the Dominican Republic

and more.

Radhames Rodriguez is one of the youngest cigar executives in the industry, an industrial engineer by trade, applying his knowledge to his 3rd generation family owned cigar factory, which has been in operation in Tamboril, DR since 1956. Tabacalera El Artista is one of the few boutique brands to be vertically integrated from farms to factory to distribution, owning the supply chain. As he says: "This means really good tobacco at a very sharp price!"

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This podcast is brought to you by Cigar Sense founders and paid members.

With the free Cigar Sense membership, you can obtain personalized recommendations of cigars that best suit your unique individual tastes. In a few simple steps, you can see what your top cigar picks are from the thousands of cigars available on the market. You can also explore sensory and other cigar attributes as Cigar Sense helps you better understand what you like and dislike in a cigar.

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Be sure to subscribe to Cigar Sense Podcast so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate the show? It would be greatly appreciated!

In this episode, Randy Griggs and Franca discuss about cigar reviews, their usefulness and whether some standards might help increase it.

Randy Griggs has worked in the craft beer industry for 19 years, establishing himself as a flavor sensory specialist. After becoming a beer judge at age 21, Randy followed up with a BBQ judge certification and is studying to become a beverage and spirits specialist, as well as a cigar sommelier. Randy has worked with event production teams to develop beer educational events throughout the country, including the Great American Beer Festival as well as a speaker at the National Craft Beer Wholesalers conference. Randy hosts alongside Rob Rasmussen for Cigar Dojo's pairing-focused cigar show, A Flavor Odyssey. When not smoking cigars and drinking craft beer, Randy is also very passionate about food, coffee, BBQ, cheese, and all things craft.

—

This podcast is brought to you by Cigar Sense founders and paid members.

With the free Cigar Sense membership, you can obtain personalized recommendations of cigars that best suit your unique individual tastes. In a few simple steps, you can see what your top cigar picks are from the thousands of cigars available on the market. You can also explore sensory and other cigar attributes as Cigar Sense helps you better understand what you like and dislike in a cigar.

—

Be sure to subscribe to Cigar Sense Podcast so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate the show? It would be greatly appreciated!

In this episode Franca discusses the sensory world of Room 101 Cigars with Matt Booth.

Learn about the key principles that drive Matt's personal and business activities. He has a special way to describe his cigars using emotions. However, Matt also pays attention to the sensory language and to the way it affects branding, as well as, inversely, to how branding affects sensory. We also talk about his top priorities when creating a new blend, reviews ethics and intangible cultural heritage.

Matt says "I maintain a steadfast resolve to both explore my personal interest and connection to tobacco - specifically in cigar form - as well as introduce fans and potential fans of our culture and community to my personal approach and reflection of what it is that we do. I also prefer high thread count bedding materials and am an ongoing fan of interpretive dance as well as many other forms of artistic expression."

Visit www.room101brand.com to discover his world.

—

This podcast is brought to you by Cigar Sense founders and paid members.

With the free Cigar Sense membership, you can obtain personalized recommendations of cigars that best suit your unique individual tastes. In a few simple steps, you can see what your top cigar picks are from the thousands of cigars available on the market. You can also explore sensory and other cigar attributes as Cigar Sense helps you better understand what you like and dislike in a cigar.

—

Be sure to subscribe to Cigar Sense Podcast so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate the show? It would be greatly appreciated!

In episode "Correlation or causality?" David Wells, VP and co-founder of Cigar Sense, explains the key principles that drive the accuracy of our cigar recommendations. He also talks about the differences between online recommendations based on data correlation, aka big data analytics, as opposed to recommendations based on data causality, aka deep data analytics.

In statistics, "correlation does not prove causality" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them.

Bottom line, on one hand you can invest virtually all you can on marketing, get millions of consumer data for and through correlation based recommendations, and hope you will make at least 50% of those millions happy with what they buy next. On the other hand, you can invest in a sensory panel, in samples, in training, in curing the data, in continuously monitoring the algorithm performance over thousands of consumers and make 90%+ of them happy. We believe that, belonging to the second example, we are ready to scale up.

On another note, correlation and causality are obviously also referred to when science attempts to demonstrate flavor precursors from different terroirs. Are they managing to find causation? More on this, and on a lot more, in our online tasting course. Stay tuned.