What is the true story of plume?

I am not talking about patchy, white mold or trying to identify the two.

I was unaware of plume probably for the first 10 years I smoked and a few years ago became aware of it and have always read that plume is a sign of aged cigars.

I got an MRN from Mark a while back and have been reading up a bit. On page 216 there is an Hoyo de Monterrey EL Particulares with plume. This cigar was only a few years old when the book was printed. This photo caused me to read up a bit.

On one of the Forums I recently started reading through there is an explanation that plume really has nothing to do with the "age" of a stick but rather is a result of extreme changes in the temp or humidity and appear when the oils come back to their previous state. Doesn't mean the stick is bad because the extreme change occurrs briefly and is not prolonged so as to affect the stick.

I know a little knowledge, and I have very little, can be a very dangerous thing so I am looking for some insight.

I buzzed around here and thought this would be an interesting topic to go over with the FOG's and for many of us to learn from and perhaps dispel a myth one way or the other.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Travis
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Interesting post Travis.

So, could it be conceivable that plume could be achieved "artificially", that is by someone exposing cigars to these temp and humidity variations, and make a cigar appear older than it is?
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I've always thought it was the crystallized tobacco oils reconstituting themselves on the outside of the wrapper. Which would imply that one may be able to fake it, or fool it into forming using extreme temperature/humidity swings.

Although, the fact that they crystallize may be the result of a very slow reconstitution, and may imply that this cannot be done quickly.
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Seeing as how Plume/Bloom is a crystallization of oils on the wrapper of the cigar, I'd be curious to know how it can be done "artificially".

That aside, when you find Plume on a cigar, you are supposed to snort it and then smoke the cigar. :-)
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What a great start to my thread guys!

This is precisely what I am getting at!

Again, I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert nor do I pretend to have the answer as I do not but I would like to infer that perhaps what I have accepted as gospel is not true or may be a "half-truth" so to speak.

I would like to see what some of the FOGs say. Maybe this is the start to an experiment?

Travis


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I was told some of this by Jesus Fuego when he last stopped by the shop. After some extra research and data gathering of my own, this is what I've concluded:


Plume is indeed the crystallization of oils from the tobacco on the surface of the leaf. However, plume will not necessarily form on a cigar just because of age, nor will it visibly form on any cigar.

Waxy oils of the tobacco are suspended within the cellular structure of the leaf of tobacco, and help to prevent moisture loss and protect against extreme heat. As the aged leaf gets older, the cellular structure will eventually start to break down on a microscopic level (known as ripening, or in a layman's term: decomposing), causing the oils to be further released out of the leaf. When sufficient oils are released, they eventually crystallize at the point of accumulation. Thus, plume can form "inside" the cigar without you ever seeing it, just as it can form on the outer wrapper.

Unfortunately, that breakdown happens SO slowly at "optimal" conditions, that the cigars may take years to develop plume thus the stigma that a plumed cigar is well aged. In fact, certain temperature and humidity fluctuations can cause the tobacco to ripen (almost identical to what happens when a leaf ferments under heat and pressure to become a maduro wrapper) and release oils faster, thus allowing a cigar to possibly plume. Oil accumulations form where the structure has broken down, thus allowing them to crystallize in spots. This is why cigars will plume evenly, because the natural breakdown in the cellular structure happens in an even distribution. The larger the crystal structures and the more spread out they are, the slower the oils accumulated and then crystallized. The smaller crystals in a more dense spread is the result of rapid crystallization where the oils crystallize too fast for them to migrate to a central spot and build a larger crystal.

Leaves that are fermented, especially Maduro and Oscuro wrappers, tend not to plume as much given the cellular walls are already broken, releasing many of the oils to give the leaf it's characteristic flavors and color.



Anyway, I found there are a LOT of similarities between the biological and geological concepts that happen when cigars plume. But this is merely my own hypothesis on my own research.
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I was at my local B&M the other day...

The owner's husband grabbed an NC Macanudo in a silver tubo. When he unleashed that bastid, I recoiled in horror. It was COVERED with blotchy, mottled patches of some fuzzy lookin, off white ( almost grey ) colored............. something.

He called it "plume." Said it was the sign of a good cigar, lit up and puffed away happily.

I gotta tell ya, kids.... After VERY respectfully asking if I could take a look at this "finely aged cigar COVERED in plume", I can only guess Mr. Larry will have NO fear of infection for the next month or so because I have a feeling he had a NICE, LARGE shot of penicillin administered via stogie. :-)
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I love threads like this, so informative :-)
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I see you used a lot of big words in there....being that I don't understand more than two of them I must conclued this to be the correct answer.

:-)

Seriously though, that all makes sense and I would venture to say is the most plausible answer to the plume mystery
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I like this explanation a lot. For one, how come so many very aged cigars have no plume, and some slightly aged cigars have plume? At a minimum there must be more to plume than just age. Thanks for the post!
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That must be why I do consulting part time :-)
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Hmmm. Very interesting gents....
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I'm no FOG, but my :-)

You are definitely on the right track Travis. Poorly stored cigars can have plume regardless of age, while perfectly stored cigars do not, again, regardless of age. I wouldn't call plume an indicator of a poorly stored cigar, but neither would I consider it a sign of a well stored one. It is what it is, an interesting effect of a chemical process.

If I want to know how well a vintage cigar was stored, the smell, feel, appearance (and obviously flavor) will tell the tale much better than the mystical plume.
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thats classic...:-):-)
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Thank you very much for your input Silound, I appreciate the time and effort you put into your post.


Thank you so much! This is what I was heading towards.

This makes plume, at best, an unreliable indicator of the cigar.

Maybe this is a well known fact amongst the better read but it always catches my attention when we celebrate the existence of plume, myself included, when it can in fact be simply a sign of less than optimal storage conditions.

Making this discussion even more complex is when we take into account the fact that whether it be plume under optimal conditions or less than optimal due to changes in storage conditions the cigar is evolving and there are probably different flavor profiles caused by both these situations.

The purist saying that under optimal conditions is better of course!

It is an incredible site, to see a 10 or 15 year old stick with plume and in this case it probably is from the breakdown under "optimal" conditions and there is alot more science to this than I pretend to know or understand and this is part of the passion we all share and strive to learn and understand more of as we fall farther and farther down the slope.

Regardless, I thought I would share some of my thoughts and invite many of you to do the same so we can all learn together.

Thank you once again.

Respectfully,

Travis
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