Short, medium and long filler
How the inside is cut decides the draw, the burn and most of the price.
Long filler means whole leaves running the length of the cigar; short filler means chopped tobacco. The difference shows up in the draw, the ash and the price long before it shows up in the flavour.
Long filler
Whole leaves, folded by hand, running head to foot. This is what "premium handmade" means in practice: airflow along the leaf, a firm ash, and an even burn when it is rolled well. It is also the most skill-dependent and therefore the most expensive.
Short filler
Cut scraps, often the offcuts from long-filler production. Draws more freely, burns faster and hotter, ash flakes rather than holding. Not automatically bad — plenty of pleasant, honest cigars are short filler — but a different product at a different price.
Medium filler, and the honest middle
Longer pieces than short filler, shorter than whole leaves. Common in Cuban machine-made and in the "value" end of handmade lines. Burns closer to long filler and costs closer to short.
Do this: if a cigar burns fast and hot with a flaky ash for its size, suspect construction rather than blend. That combination is the signature of filler that is shorter than you were told.
How to tell
Look at the foot before lighting: whole leaf shows as visible folded layers, chopped filler as a mass of small pieces. After smoking, the ash gives it away — long filler holds an inch or more, short filler drops early and messily.
Where each is worth buying
Long filler for anything you intend to age or judge. Short filler for a fifteen-minute cigar with a coffee, where the fast burn is the point and the price should be low. What is not worth buying is short filler at long-filler prices, which is the entire reason the distinction matters.
The construction lives in your notes, not on the band
The band tells you the brand; only your own note tells you the cigar burned fast and the ash fell in the first inch. One field next to the score is enough, and after a dozen entries the pattern for a particular line is yours rather than the marketing department’s.
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Formats & vitolasBox-pressed or round: what actually changes
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Buying & authenticityReading a cigar band
Brand, line, factory marks and the words that are there purely to sell.