How your notes change when you smoke in company
You smoke faster, you taste less, and somebody else names the flavours before you do.
In company you smoke faster and pay less attention, and both push a note in the same direction. That does not make company the wrong way to smoke — it makes it the wrong time to trust a score.
Pace
Conversation sets a rhythm, and the rhythm is usually quicker than you would choose alone. A cigar smoked at conversation pace runs hot: the last third arrives early, bitter, and gets blamed on the blend.
If you are going to record anything, record how fast it went. "Gone in fifty minutes" explains more about a harsh finish than any flavour note.
Suggestion
Taste is astonishingly suggestible. Once somebody at the table says "coffee", most people find coffee — this is well documented in wine tasting and there is no reason cigars are different. In a group, the first person to speak writes everyone else's note.
The fix is trivial: hold your comments until the halfway point, or write two words on your phone before anyone speaks.
Do this: in company, note the fact rather than the verdict — who, where, how fast. It keeps the record honest, and it is the part you will actually enjoy re-reading years later.
What company is good for
Not accuracy — comparison. Three people smoking the same cigar find things one person misses, and the disagreements are more instructive than the agreements. It is also the only way to calibrate your own vocabulary against somebody else's.
Scoring in company
Either score before the discussion or do not score at all. A number written after twenty minutes of collective enthusiasm belongs to the table, not to you, and it will sit in your journal looking exactly like a number that meant something.
The note stays yours until you publish it
Everything you write in Ligero is private by default; publishing a tasting to the feed is a separate decision you make one entry at a time. What you scored in company stays your own record unless you choose to put it in front of anyone.
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