RESERVA cigars

Reserva is the middle tier of Habanos' aged-tobacco releases. The filler and binder leaves are aged for a minimum of three years before rolling, and the box is marked with the cosecha — the harvest year the tobacco came from — which is unusual for Cuban cigars and lets you know exactly what you are smoking.

What the ageing does is smooth the edges. A Reserva version of a familiar cigar is recognisably the same blend with the sharpness taken off it: rounder, sweeter, less ammoniac in youth. It is the clearest available demonstration of what time actually does to tobacco, because you can smoke it against the standard production version of the same vitola.

Production is limited and each cosecha is released once.