Quote Originally Posted by Sir Lancerolot View Post
THIS! Oh, this is dead-on!

One of my favorite smokes early on was the Sancho Panza Double Maduro - especially the Quixote. For the money, they were (and still are) SO good ROTT. So I figured they MUST get better and better with age, right? Well, yes - to a point. After 2 years the flavor begins to decline dramatically. I ended up with a lot of "meh" smokes. If I had known the "fiver" time test, I'd have been much better off.
It was very helpful to me when I got more into CCs as well. There's a tangent there but I'll post it in the Habanos section so I don't clutter this up.

The other thing that I think is very helpful is to play with RH. As long as you give the cigars about a week per percent change to acclimate you might be shocked how different the same cigar smokes at 68,65 and 62%. When I started I dreaded my cigars getting below 65%, I thought it would all be dried up crap! I store everything at 62-63% now and I feel like I taste more, have fewer burn issues, fewer draw problems and never get a tarry stick. YMMV, don't take what someone tells you about temp and RH as gospel, everyone has different tastes, find what works for you.