Examine the cigar for the quality of the wrapper. Look for things like oiliness, firmness, a silky texture, and overall consistency of wrapper color. Bulging veins, excessive spotting, marks and a rough finish are defects. Cigars should be maintained at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 70% humidity. A poorly humidified cigar will display cracks and have an overall dry feeling to it. Seeing oil in the wrapper leaf indicates that the cigar has been well-humidified and the smoke should be relatively cool. A cool smoke is a tastier one, because it means the tobacco isn't carbonizing or overheating, which can limit the flavors.

How you cut and light your cigar determines how well you will enjoy it. A cigar with a bad cut will pull too loosely and smoke hot and bitter or just fall apart towards the finish and leave you spitting like a camel. A correct cut rivals a comfortable chair; you don't even notice it. Each smoker has a favorite way to snip off the end of a cigar. A ritual so personal is subject to inflexible opinions about right and wrong methods, and the choice of method is often traceable to the mentor who taught a given smoker to appreciate cigars. For now, if you are uncertain about cutting your cigar, you should ask someone for help.

Lighting your cigar is equally important as cutting and determines how well the cigar will taste once it is lit. The use of a wooden match or cedar strip, called a "spill," is elegant and effective, but it's often time-consuming and unwieldy because it takes more than one match to properly light up. Any good butane lighter is an efficient cigar smoker's companion. Now you are ready to light. Cool smoke is the goal. Never let the cigar touch the flame. When you light up, hold the cigar at a 45 degree angle above the flame, just far enough away so that the tip of the flame dances up to the cigar but never quite touches it. 

As with sampling fine wines and liquor, cigars have a descriptive language of their own. The overall cigar can be described as mild, medium, or full-bodied. The first third of the cigar will contain flavors such as spice, pepper, toast, coffee, chocolate, nutty, creamy, tobacco, earthiness, grassy, vegetal, floral, salty, and cinnamon. The last third of the cigar determines the finish, the lasting taste of the cigar on your palate. To describe a finish, use words such as mild, medium, cedary, leathery, hot, bitter, earthy, creamy, and spicy.