Petit corona

When is a petit corona the right pick?

Pick a petit corona when you have well under an hour and still want a full, hand-rolled cigar with a proper start, middle and finish. It's the gap-filler size. Run your situation down this list.

• Lunch break, or 40 minutes before a call? Yes. At a steady pace it lands near 36 minutes on our estimate.
• Cold night, standing outside? Yes. Short sizes end before your hands quit on you.
• Trying a new blend? Often a smart way in. You taste the whole blend in less time than a toro asks.
• A long evening with friends? No. Reach for a Churchill or a double corona instead.
• Want lots of smoke per puff? No. A 42 ring is slim. A wider size gives a fuller draw.

Short and slim also means less to manage. Fewer relights, less ash to watch, and a cigar that stays sharp to the end if your pace is steady.

Marevas: one name, one size

Marevas is the Cuban vitola de galera for the petit corona, fixed at 5 1/8 x 42 in every Cuban factory. Brands print their own names on the band, but the factory size doesn't move.

Outside Cuba, the label floats. Cigar Aficionado's size primer calls the petit corona "basically a miniature corona" at about 4 1/2 inches and a 40 to 42 ring. That's more than half an inch shorter than Marevas. Both are fair uses of the name, which is exactly why you read the box.

Even shorter? The 4 x 40 Perlas size exists, at roughly 34 minutes on our estimate. Longer? The full corona adds half an inch at the same ring.

Longer than a robusto, yet done sooner

A petit corona is a little longer than a 4 7/8 x 50 robusto but much slimmer, and on our estimate it finishes a few minutes sooner: about 45 minutes against 49. Width is doing that. The robusto has more tobacco in every inch, so each inch burns longer.

Compare it to the standard corona, the next size up at 5 5/8 x 42, and the gap is small too: about 49 minutes. Half an inch of the same ring buys you roughly four extra minutes. So if time is tight, ring gauge matters as much as the length on the box.

These figures come from our own model, about 10 minutes per inch at a 50 ring, scaled by width and pace. Plug in your own numbers with the smoke time estimator.

Does a short cigar cost more per hour?

It can: when a short cigar is priced close to a longer one from the same line, its cost per hour of smoking runs higher. Not a reason to skip it. A reason to know the number. Work it out with the cost per cigar calculator, which also gives a per-hour figure.

Petit corona questions, answered

Where the petit corona sizes come from

1. Vitola: Marevas (Petit Coronas) 5 1/8 x 42, Wikipedia
2. Cigar Shapes, Sizes and Colors, Cigar Aficionado