Editorial guide
Most beginners ask for a cigar strength chart and quietly mean two different questions at once. How hard will this cigar hit me, and how much will I taste. Those are not the same thing, and confusing them is the single most common mistake new smokers make.
Here is the short version. Strength is about nicotine, the physical kick. Body is about flavor, how much is going on in your mouth. A cigar can be light on one and heavy on the other. Plenty are.
This page lays out the strength scale in plain English, from mild to full, with a real example or two at each level so you can anchor the words to actual cigars you can look up. The catalog labels every line with a strength, so when I say a cigar is medium, that is the catalog's read, not a number I made up. Once the scale makes sense, I will untangle strength from body, because that is the part the charts usually skip.
Cigars worth your time, with the specs straight from the catalog. Open any one to see its full sheet and what members have logged.
Mild · Dominican Republic · Connecticut wrapper · $5-$10
A textbook mild cigar, and the catalog labels it exactly that: mild. It is Dominican with a Connecticut wrapper, in the five-to-ten dollar range. This is the kind of cigar people mean when they say start gentle. Low on the kick, easy to look up, and a useful anchor for the bottom of the scale.
See specs & vitolas →Mild · Dominican Republic · Connecticut wrapper · $5-$10
Another clean example of the mild end. The catalog lists it as mild, Dominican, with a Connecticut wrapper, in the five-to-ten dollar range. Pair it in your head with the Macanudo Cafe as a sense of what mild means: gentle on the nicotine, smooth to smoke, nothing that sneaks up on you.
See specs & vitolas →Medium · Nicaragua · Cameroon wrapper · $5-$10
A solid stand-in for the middle of the chart. The catalog reads it as medium, Nicaraguan, with a Cameroon wrapper, in the five-to-ten dollar range. Medium is where most smokers spend their time, and this is an easy, affordable way to feel what that level is like.
See specs & vitolas →Medium · Dominican Republic · Cameroon wrapper · $10-$15
The catalog lists this one as medium, Dominican, with a Cameroon wrapper, in the ten-to-fifteen dollar range. It is a well-known name that sits squarely in the middle of the scale, which makes it a good second reference point for medium alongside the Oliva Serie G.
See specs & vitolas →Full · Nicaragua · Habano wrapper · $10-$15
A widely regarded example of the full end. The catalog labels it full, Nicaraguan, with a Habano wrapper, in the ten-to-fifteen dollar range. This is the kind of cigar to approach after a meal and with some smoking under your belt, and a clean anchor for the top of the scale.
See specs & vitolas →Full · Nicaragua · Natural wrapper · $20-$30
One of the most famous full-strength lines out there, and the catalog labels it full. It is Nicaraguan, with a natural wrapper, in the twenty-to-thirty dollar range. It illustrates that full strength and a darker label are about the blend and the kick, not a verdict on quality or price.
See specs & vitolas →This is an explainer, not a ranking. The example cigars at each level were chosen because they are well known and easy to look up, and because the catalog's strength label for each one is a clean fit for the level it illustrates.
I pulled every strength label straight from the catalog rather than trusting memory, so the levels on this page match what you will see on each cigar's own page. Where I describe how a level tends to feel, treat that as the general convention smokers use, not a fixed rule, because blends vary.
Nothing here is sorted by a score or a star rating. The examples sit in scale order, mild to full, purely so the chart reads top to bottom.
Cigar strength is a rough measure of how much of a nicotine punch the cigar delivers, the body buzz you feel rather than anything you taste. It runs on a simple scale: mild, medium, and full, with an in-between step many makers and our catalog call medium-full.
Think of it as low, middle, and high, with one half-step near the top. The labels are a convention, not a lab measurement, so one brand's medium can feel like another's medium-full. Used the way this chart uses them, they are still the fastest way to know roughly what you are getting into before you light up.
Mild sits at the bottom. As a general convention, mild cigars are the gentle ones you can enjoy without much nicotine effect, which is why they get pointed at beginners. On this page the Macanudo Cafe and the Ashton Classic both carry the catalog's mild label.
Medium is the broad middle, and it is where a lot of experienced smokers live day to day. It gives you more presence than mild without leaving you lightheaded. The Oliva Serie G and the Arturo Fuente Hemingway are both labeled medium in the catalog.
Full is the top of the scale, the cigars that deliver a real nicotine hit and are best smoked after a meal once you have some experience. The Oliva Serie V and the Padron 1926 Series both carry the catalog's full label. Medium-full is the half-step just below, for blends that push past medium but stop short of full.
| Level | How it feels | Example cigars from the catalog |
|---|---|---|
| Mild | Gentle, little nicotine effect. Where beginners are pointed | Macanudo Cafe, Ashton Classic |
| Medium | More presence than mild without leaving you lightheaded | Oliva Serie G, Arturo Fuente Hemingway |
| Medium-Full | The half-step below full: past medium, short of full | The half-step below full |
| Full | A real nicotine hit, best smoked after a meal | Oliva Serie V, Padron 1926 Series |
If you take one thing from this page, take this. Strength is the nicotine punch, the physical power of the cigar, the part you feel in your body as a buzz, a head rush, or, if you push too far, a queasy stomach. Body is the weight and intensity of the flavor on your palate, how full and loud the taste is, the part you notice in your mouth and nothing to do with how hard you get hit. Strength runs mild to full. Body runs light to full-bodied. They are measured on different dials, and the words just happen to overlap.
They do tend to track together, which is why the mix-up is so easy. A lot of full-strength cigars are also full-bodied, and a lot of mild ones taste light too, so most of the time you can use the strength label as a loose stand-in for both and not get burned. The trouble starts at the edges, where the two dials are set differently, and that is where the labels lie to you.
Here is what that feels like in practice. A creamy Connecticut-wrapped cigar can be packed with flavor, all that sweet cedar and toasted-bread richness filling your mouth, while the nicotine barely registers, so it reads almost full-bodied yet smokes mild. That is a flavorful but gentle cigar, and beginners love it for exactly that reason. The opposite happens too. A cigar can knock you sideways on nicotine while tasting fairly plain and one-note, plenty of strength but not much body. So next time someone hands you a cigar and calls it full-bodied, the honest question back is whether they mean it tastes big or hits hard, because they are not the same claim, and a careful smoker keeps the two apart.
When people lump strength and body together they end up talking past each other. It helps to lay the two axes out separately, plus the related idea of flavor intensity, and look at what each one actually measures versus what you feel.
None of these is a number off a meter. They are conventions, and blends vary, so treat the table as a way to keep the words straight rather than a precise gauge.
| Term | What it measures | What you actually feel |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | The nicotine punch, the physical power, on a mild-to-full scale | A buzz or head rush in your body; pushed too far, lightheadedness or a queasy stomach |
| Body | The weight and overall intensity of the flavor on your palate, light to full-bodied | How full and heavy the smoke feels in your mouth, from thin and airy to rich and mouth-filling |
| Flavor intensity | How loud and pronounced the individual tastes are | Whether flavors are faint and easy to miss or jump out at you, separate from how strong the kick is |
Strength lives mostly in the filler tobacco, the leaves rolled up inside the cigar, and in where and how those leaves were grown. The richest, most potent leaves, often called ligero, come from the top of the tobacco plant and get more sun, and a blend with more of them tends to read stronger.
What strength does not come from is the color of the wrapper. A dark wrapper looks intense, but darkness mostly reflects how the leaf was fermented, not how much nicotine the cigar carries. A dark cigar can be mild, and a light-colored one can be full. Judge strength by the blend and the label, not the shade.
Start mild and work up. A mild or easy medium cigar lets you learn to light, pace, and taste without the nicotine knocking you off balance, which is what ruins a lot of first cigars. The Macanudo Cafe and the Ashton Classic on this page are good mild starting points per the catalog.
Whatever the strength, smoke on a full stomach and go slow. A full-strength cigar on an empty stomach is how people end up dizzy. As your palate and your tolerance grow, climb the scale toward medium and eventually full at your own pace. There is no prize for starting at the top.
Strength is the nicotine kick, the physical effect you feel in your body. Body is the intensity of the flavor in your mouth. They often rise together, but not always. A cigar can be full of flavor yet mild in strength, or strong yet fairly plain. When you read a strength label like mild, medium, or full, that is about the kick, not the flavor weight.
Yes, and that combination is exactly why people get confused. Full-bodied describes a big, intense flavor. Mild strength describes a small nicotine kick. A cigar can deliver plenty of flavor while staying gentle on the nicotine, so it tastes like a lot while feeling like a little. Body and strength are two separate dials, and they can be set independently.
Full-bodied is about flavor, not the nicotine kick. It means the smoke feels heavy and rich in your mouth, with big, mouth-filling taste rather than something thin and airy. It does not, on its own, tell you how hard the cigar will hit you, because body and strength are separate dials. A full-bodied cigar is often also full strength, but not always, so I treat full-bodied as a claim about how much flavor there is and check the strength label separately for the kick.
Start mild, then work up to medium as you get comfortable. A mild cigar lets you learn the basics without the nicotine overwhelming you, which is the usual cause of a bad first experience. On this page the Macanudo Cafe and the Ashton Classic both carry the catalog's mild label and make sensible starting points. Smoke on a full stomach and go slow regardless of strength.
Full strength comes mostly from the filler tobacco and how it was grown, not from the wrapper. Blends that use more of the potent, sun-rich upper-plant leaves, often called ligero, tend to read stronger. So a full-strength label, like the one the catalog gives the Oliva Serie V or the Padron 1926 Series, is really telling you about the blend inside and the nicotine kick to expect.
The wrapper adds flavor and so leans more on body than on raw strength, and its color is a poor guide to either. A dark wrapper mostly reflects longer fermentation, not more nicotine, so a dark cigar can smoke mild and a pale one can smoke full. Treat the wrapper as part of the flavor picture and judge strength from the blend and the catalog's strength label.
It is just the mild-to-full scale read with a beginner in mind: start at the mild end, treat medium as the goal to work toward, and leave full for later. The key beginner lesson layered on top is that strength is not body. This page is built that way, with the scale explained in plain English and real mild, medium, and full examples you can look up in the catalog.
Snap the band, Cigarista identifies it, and your rating joins the cigar’s page. New members get 2 free scans. No card required.