Originally published at Tiki Bar Online
Papi Chulo, 4” x 42 ring gauge / MSRP $6.00, Burns
It seems only yesterday that the Namakubi blend debuted at our first Chattanooga Tweet-Up. In reality it’s been almost two full years and the Room 101 has grown by leaps and bounds since then. At the time, the Namakubi was the first 101 blend that I felt was really excellent, although I had enjoyed the original blend and Conjura Limited in certain sizes. After Namakubi, we saw a veritable flood of new Room 101-branded cigars: the Connecticut (regular line, released at the same time as the Namakubi), San Andres (another regular line), OSOK (limited release), and Darum (last year’s IPCPR limited release). I’m personally not a fan of the Connecticut, but have enjoyed every other blend in that list. I was a little surprised to hear about this spin-off of the Namakubi brand name, but it makes sense when they ended up using the same fillers as the first Namakubi (Honduran and Dominican), in addition to the Corojo binder and Ecuadorian Habano wrapper of the OSOK line. Like the OSOK, 3 of the sizes of the Namakubi Ecuador are diademas or perfectos, while the last vitola is the Papi Chulo, a very popular size for the original Namakubi. These showed up at Burns days after the official release announcement. I smoked one Papi Chulo right after purchasing them, then saved my second one for this review.
The boxes used for this release are the same as the original Namakubi releases. The only thing I could find different for the packaging was the addition of a secondary band (also, the vitolas besides the parejo Papi Chulo are wrapped in paper, ala OSOK, except this time it’s a Sumurai-inspired design instead of the “Day of the Dead” do-rag design). I have to be honest, the secondary band looks a little like an after-thought. While the red trim matches the red of the original band, the white background and gold foil “Ecuador” kind of clashes with it. The wrapper, though, is a different story; it was quite dark for an Ecuadorian Habano, also very oily and somewhat veiny. Ecuadorian Habano is an interesting varietal…last year Crowned Heads got a small quantity that they deemed too dark to use for Four Kicks wrapper so they ended up using it as part of the Mule Kick release. This would be way too dark for a Mule Kick…it was almost a dark chocolate hue and it smelled rich and sweet, as well. The foot had the more familiar pungent, manure-y earth of the Namakubi. The cold draw was excellent and had a sweet earthiness that may have been similar to the Namakubi, but initially made me think more of the Conjura.
On first light, the Namakubi Ecuador had hay and earth flavors, mixed with cedar and pepper spice (lots of spice on the nose). All that sounds good, but with this blend, something about it just didn’t quite work at the beginning. I noted that same thing with the first sample of these I smoked, but noticed it really start to hit its stride about halfway through. Would I encounter the same here? Time would tell. As the first third continued to burn, I picked up a bit of a coppery taste…almost like sucking on a penny, although not nearly as strong (c’mon, don’t lie…you all sucked on a penny when you were younger…before you had any concept of how absolutely filthy they are). This is a flavor I’ve had come up in other Namakubi vitolas as well as the Room 101 Connecticut, so I guess there is some certain filler leaf that is contributing that flavor.
Almost like flicking a switch, though, things started to change around the time the first third was done and the second started going up in smoke. The metallic flavor mellowed out considerably, and the other flavors became more harmonious. Boom! Just like that! Construction was mostly very good. I had a fairly straight burn line and a great draw. The only quibble I had was that the ash seemed to be a bit flaky and prone to banana-peeling, which is also something I’ve seen in previous Namakubis.
And in the final third the Namakubi Ecuador just simply worked. It had red pepper and earth, along with a subtle, but thick molasses sweetness. The body of this cigar was medium-to-full pretty much the entire time and the nicotine content was about the same, making it fairly strong for its size; I would suspect that the larger vitolas have quite a nicotine kick, so you might need to take that into consideration when deciding when to smoke one. I enjoyed this Papi Chulo vitola, though, and will probably try to get my hands on a few more with the aim to age them 6 to 12 months. I suspect that a bit of aging will help this blend marry a little better and make it more enjoyable right from the start.
Body: 8/10
Strength: 7/10
Complexity: 7/10
AFP Scale
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10
