J. Meaden’s 1833 Ten Minutes Advice In Choosing Cigars claims to be “Exposing Many Popular Errors, And Detailing All The Secrets Of The Trade.”
Meaden begins his book by praising the use of cigars. “Cigars are now positive adjuncts to our well-being. The light of a Cigar is the real Promethean spark, enlivening the clay-cold formation of our English society.”1 He also notes that not all cigar smokers enjoy their cigars in similar ways: “All who smoke are not smokers. There are persons who prefer a bad Cigar to a good one, and who puff out as much cloud and vapour in a year as Mount Etna, without tasing a particle of it.”2
The book then goes through several short chapters, giving readers a surface-level understanding of the history of tobacco, its spread, opposition to its use, and how it is grown and manufactured. All of those topics are dealt with in the span of 10 pages; it doesn’t go deep into any of them.
In his chapter on choosing cigars, Meaden offers the following advice (much of which sounds very, very wrong to a modern reader):
- Buy genuine Havana cigars if you want the real article; avoid London-made cigars since they are cheap and not of the right quality. Some of these London-made cigars, he says, include fillers that aren’t tobacco – though he says reports of this happening are exaggerated. “The large dock leaf, by long steeping in tobacco-water, is sometimes rendered serviceable; but cabbage and lettuce leaves, contrary to general supposition, are never employed.”3
- Mild cigars are best when they are thicker in the middle than the ends.
- Pick a cigar with “many little spots of a bright yellowish white” on them. “These marks cannot be made artificially, nor are they ever discovered upon inferior tobacco; they are the result of excessive heat, caused by the second fermentation, or sweat, give to the tobacco to insure its mildness and freedom from rancidity.”3
- Choose cigars with a bit of mildew on them
- “Do not be too particular about choosing an amazingly well rolled Cigar”4 Badly-rolled cigars can have superior flavors, according to the author.
- Don’t judge a cigar’s quality by the color of its ash.
- Be careful when you’re picking up a cigar that you may buy – be gentle to not damage the cigars when doing so.
- You shouldn’t lick the cigar before smoking it.
While most of the advice in this book is outdated and not something most smokers would want to follow, it’s a fun and quick read that gives a glimpse into what smoking cigars was like in the early 1800s.
Ten Minutes Advice in Choosing Cigars is in the public domain and can be read for free on Google Books.