Cigar wrappers
Cigar wrapper types, compared
What the names on a band mean, and how Habano, maduro, Connecticut and the rest differ.
By Rahul Gupta, Certified Retail Tobacconist · Updated The quick answer
Wrapper names describe three different things. Some name the leaf: Connecticut, Habano, Corojo, Sumatra, Cameroon, Broadleaf, San Andrés. Some name how it was grown: sun grown or shade grown. Others name the color, from claro to maduro to oscuro, and maduro also means the extra processing that turns a wrapper dark. So "Habano or maduro?" compares a kind of leaf with a color. The wrapper's color doesn't set the strength. The blend inside does.
In this article
What the wrapper does, and what its name tells you
The wrapper is the outer leaf, the one you see. It's the most expensive tobacco in the cigar, and the trade's Spanish word for it is capa.
A wrapper line on a spec sheet usually stacks two or three kinds of information. "Ecuador Habano Maduro," for example, tells you where the leaf grew (Ecuador), what seed it came from (Habano, meaning Cuban seed) and what was done to it after harvest (maduro). Read each word separately and most wrapper questions sort themselves out:
- The leaf: the seed or variety, and often where it grew. Connecticut Shade, Habano, Corojo, Sumatra, Cameroon, Broadleaf, San Andrés.
- How it was grown: sun grown, or shade grown under cloth or cloud cover.
- The color, and the processing behind it: candela, claro, colorado, maduro, oscuro. Natural and maduro are the two broad groups.
Cigar wrapper types chart
These are the leaves you'll see named most often. The flavor column is what guides commonly cite, not our tasting.
| Wrapper | What it is | How it's grown | Color | What guides commonly cite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut Shade | Connecticut seed, which descends from Sumatra seed. True Connecticut Shade grows in the Connecticut River Valley. | Under shade cloth | Golden brown | Mild; cream and nuts |
| Ecuador Connecticut | The same seed grown in Ecuador | Under Ecuador's near-constant cloud cover | Golden brown | Mild; cream and nuts |
| Connecticut Broadleaf | A different plant from the same valley, with very wide leaves | Open sun; the whole plant is stalk cut | Very dark after curing; used for many maduros | Chocolate, coffee, earth |
| Habano | Tobacco grown from Cuban seed outside Cuba, now common in Ecuador and Nicaragua | Sun grown in Nicaragua; under cloud cover in Ecuador | Medium to dark brown | Spice, leather, wood |
| Corojo | The best-known Cuban-seed variety, first grown in Cuba in the 1930s | Grown today in Central America and the Caribbean | Reddish to medium brown | Leather, pepper, earth |
| Sumatra | A parent seed of Connecticut Shade and Cameroon, also grown for wrapper in Ecuador | Under Ecuador's cloud cover | Darker and oilier than Connecticut | Sources disagree |
| Cameroon | Leaf from Cameroon and the Central African Republic, from Sumatra seed the Dutch brought in the early 1900s | Grown in central Africa | Usually darker than most naturals, with a toothy surface | Cedar, cinnamon, baking spice |
| San Andrés | Mexico's San Andrés Negro, a stalk-cut leaf | Stalk cut in Mexico's San Andrés Valley | Usually made into a dark maduro | Coffee, cocoa, sweetness |
Three of these rows belong to the Connecticut family, and they're often confused with each other. The Connecticut cigar guide goes through Shade, Ecuador Connecticut and Broadleaf one at a time.
On Sumatra, the sources split. One retailer guide calls its taste "somewhat unremarkable," and on the same page cigarmaker Ernesto Perez-Carrillo calls it "one of the most flavorful tobaccos out there." Cigar Aficionado describes Sumatra seed grown in Ecuador as "stronger, darker, oily tobacco."
Wrapper colors, light to dark
Cigar Aficionado uses seven color names, from light green to nearly black. La Aurora, a Dominican cigarmaker, publishes flavor words for most of them.
| Color | What it looks like | How it gets there | La Aurora's flavor words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Double claro (candela) | Light green | Heat-cured in a sealed barn, up to 165 degrees, in about three days, which locks in the green | "Grassy," "herbal" |
| Claro | Light tan | Usually shade grown, picked early | "Mild," "creamy," "light cedar" |
| Colorado claro | Light reddish-brown | Often sun grown and left longer to mature | Not listed separately |
| Colorado | Medium brown to brownish-red | Often shade grown | "Toasted nuts," "wood," "soft cocoa" |
| Colorado maduro | Darker than colorado, lighter than maduro | "Cocoa," "roasted coffee," "earth" | |
| Maduro | Deep reddish-brown to almost black | Toasted under pressure or fermented longer in more heat | "Dark chocolate," "molasses," "espresso" |
| Oscuro | Nearly black | Top leaves left on the plant longest and fermented longest; sometimes called double maduro | "Dark cocoa," "pepper" |
Cigar Aficionado says claro wrappers "have little to offer" in flavor and let the filler dominate, while a maduro "lends significant flavor." Candela is a process, not a kind of leaf, and Connecticut Shade began replacing it in the early 1980s.
What does "natural" mean? It depends on who's using the word. Cigar Aficionado's glossary defines natural narrowly, as a medium-brown wrapper, the same as colorado claro. Tobacconist University uses it broadly: in the U.S. market, natural and maduro are the two main classes, and natural covers everything from claro to colorado rosado. Rosado means "rose-colored," the reddish tint on some Cuban-seed wrappers. Retailers such as Holt's use the broad sense: natural covers any wrapper not classified as maduro.
What are dark cigars called? Maduro, or oscuro for the darkest. The maduro guide covers how a wrapper gets dark, maduro vs. natural, and oscuro vs. maduro.
Are dark cigars stronger? Not by color alone. On our pages, strength means nicotine: the physical effect you feel. It comes from the blend of tobaccos inside. La Aurora puts it plainly: a darker wrapper "does not automatically mean stronger nicotine content." For the difference between strength, body and flavor, see cigar strength, body and flavor, explained.
Habano vs. maduro
Habano names a kind of leaf. Maduro names a color and the extra processing that produces it. They answer different questions. Wrappers grown in any region can be processed as maduro.
The word Habano has two meanings, and that's where much of the confusion starts.
- In Cuba, a Habano is a cigar made entirely of Cuban tobacco. Habanos S.A., which markets them, says every leaf in one is grown in Cuba.
- On a cigar made anywhere else, Habano (or Havana) in the wrapper line means tobacco grown from Cuban seed outside Cuba. Cigar Aficionado's glossary lists Cuban-seed tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua, and notes that Oliva introduced Habano seed to Ecuador. "Ecuador Habano" means Cuban-seed wrapper grown in Ecuador.
For taste, most guides point to spice for a Habano wrapper and sweetness for a maduro. Cigar Aficionado describes the maduro wrapper as "mild in aroma, but to have robust, almost sweet flavor." Neither name tells you the strength.
Corojo vs. Habano, and Corojo vs. maduro
Corojo is one specific Cuban-seed variety, and Habano is the broader label. Corojo was developed in the 1930s at the El Corojo plantation in Cuba and used to wrap Cuba's best cigars. Cuba no longer grows it, but its descendants are grown in Central America and the Caribbean. So every Corojo is Cuban-seed tobacco, and "Habano" on a band can mean Corojo or other Cuban-seed leaf.
Corojo vs. maduro is the same leaf-versus-color question as Habano vs. maduro. Corojo names the plant, and the two can meet in one cigar: Cigar Aficionado has rated a Camacho Corojo Maduro. Camacho Corojo is grown in Honduras: Cigar Aficionado lists its wrapper, binder and filler as Honduran, rates its strength Medium-Full, and found molasses, leather and pepper in the Churchill.
Connecticut vs. Habano vs. maduro
Connecticut, Habano and maduro each describe something different.
Connecticut usually means the light, shade-grown leaf: golden brown and mild. Broadleaf, from the same valley, is a different plant grown in full sun. The Connecticut guide sorts out the three leaves that carry the name.
Habano is Cuban-seed leaf grown outside Cuba, usually darker than Connecticut and, in most guides, spicier.
Maduro is a color and the process behind it. It's most often made from Broadleaf or San Andrés leaf, and most guides point to sweetness. The maduro guide covers maduro vs. natural in full.
For Broadleaf against Habano, there's a side-by-side we've already published. Drew Estate's Liga Privada No. 9 wears Connecticut Broadleaf and its T52 wears Connecticut Habano, both over a Brazilian Mata Fina binder and filler from Nicaragua and Honduras. Liga Privada No. 9 vs. T52 walks through the differences.