Flavor and notes
Cigar strength chart
Cigar strength and body are two separate scales: strength is the nicotine impact, body is the weight and fullness of the smoke on your palate. Set both dials and see what that combination feels like.
Strength: Mild to medium · Body: Medium to full
Big taste, soft landing
Dense, chewy smoke and long flavor, with mild nicotine. This is what people mean by full-bodied but not strong.
Strength is nicotine, body is weight
Strength is the physical punch of a cigar: how hard the nicotine lands. Body is the texture of the smoke: thin and airy at one end, thick and chewy at the other. One you feel in your head. The other you feel on your tongue.
Cigar talk mixes them up all the time. "Full" on a box could mean either. Neither scale has a regulated standard behind it, so a rating is a taster's call. Use the dials to say which one you mean.
Every strength and body combination on one grid
The map has 25 squares, one for each pair of dial settings. They group into three bands per dial: mild or light (1 and 2), medium (3), and full (4 and 5). That makes nine zones, nine different smokes.
| Strength ↓ / Body → | Light body | Medium body | Full body |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full strength | Strong but lean. A real nicotine impact from a smoke that tastes light. The combination that catches people out: it does not taste big, but it lands. | Strong, medium weight. Strong nicotine with a medium weight of smoke. The push arrives before the flavor fills out. | Full on both. Heavy, dense smoke and a strong nicotine effect together. The top right corner of the map. |
| Medium strength | More push than taste. Moderate nicotine behind a light, lean smoke. It feels stronger than it tastes. | The middle of the map. Moderate on both dials. A medium weight of smoke and a nicotine effect you notice but that does not take over. | Heavy palate, moderate push. Thick, rich smoke with a moderate nicotine effect. Flavor leads, strength follows. |
| Mild strength | Light and easy. Little nicotine and a thin, airy smoke. Flavors stay delicate and the finish is short. Nothing pushes back. | Flavor without the kick. A medium weight of smoke on the palate with a mild nicotine effect. You taste plenty and feel little. | Big taste, soft landing. Dense, chewy smoke and long flavor, with mild nicotine. This is what people mean by full-bodied but not strong. |
Why don't strength and body always move together?
Because the blender controls them with different leaves. Ligero, the leaf from the top of the plant, is thicker and adds strength, body and intensity at once, so the two often climb together. But a blend can pile on weight and sweetness with less ligero, or carry ligero inside a lighter-tasting smoke.
And neither dial is a quality score. Mild, medium or full body tells you nothing about how well a cigar is made. Wrapper shade doesn't settle it either: see the wrapper shade chart for what color does and doesn't predict. The longer explanation lives in our guide to strength vs body.
What do health agencies say about nicotine in cigars?
The National Cancer Institute says a single cigar can potentially provide as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, and that nicotine is absorbed through the lining of the mouth even when the smoke is not inhaled. NCI calls nicotine the chemical that causes addiction and says there is no safe level of tobacco use.
The FDA says large cigars can deliver as much as 10 times the nicotine of a filtered cigarette, and that cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes. Strength on this chart is a tasting term. It is not a health measure, and a mild rating does not mean a safe one.
Strength and body questions
What is the difference between cigar strength and body?
Strength is how hard the nicotine lands. Body is how heavy and full the smoke feels in your mouth. A cigar can be full in one and mild in the other.
Is a full-bodied cigar always strong?
No. Full body means a dense, weighty smoke. Plenty of cigars pair that with mild or medium nicotine, and some light-bodied cigars carry real strength.
What makes a cigar strong?
Mostly the filler blend. Ligero, the leaf from the top of the plant, is thicker and carries more strength, body and intensity, so a blend heavy in ligero tends to rate stronger.
How much nicotine is in a cigar?
The National Cancer Institute says a single cigar can potentially provide as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. The FDA says large cigars can deliver as much as 10 times the nicotine of a filtered cigarette.
Where the nicotine figures come from
- Cigar smoking and cancer, National Cancer Institute
- Cigars, cigarillos, little filtered cigars, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Cigar: filler leaves (ligero) and body, Wikipedia