Konscious Cigars, a young but growing cigar company, is the brainchild of Kevin “King” Brown. He has tobacco in in his blood as he will tell you that he, as a youngster, enjoyed racing through the tobacco fields in North Carolina, (where he has family roots) in addition to being mesmerized by the varied smells of tobacco seeping thru his late grandfather’s pipe.
The company’s website notes:
“Kevin’s life pursuit to “Live Like A King”, which derived from his humble beginnings, pushed Kevin however to do something different. After being formally introduced to Premium Cigars in the early 2000’s, he became extremely eager to create an enterprise relative to the industry. In 2016 along with 6 other business partners, Kevin Co-Launched Maduro Marauders Cigar Co. With his influence, “The MM’s” have become transcending in their efforts to retail and promote cigars and the lifestyle that parallels it by opening up a cool, sleek lounge located on West Main St. in Tampa, FL. They are also known for their diverse concierge services and hosting unique/eclectic style cigar events.
His experience with creating the Maduro Marauders, coupled with his desire to manufacture his own cigar, has led Kevin to launch his own cigar line thru Konscious Cigars Co. The company was birthed from the lack of seeing Melanated ownership within the cigar industry. The Konscious Cigars is the first face of the line will of the Konscious Cigar Co.
The company has expanded their line of cigars and today I offer a review of the Konscious Cigars Box Pressed Grand Toro Maduro that was released to the market in early 2022.
The company describes the blend as:
- Wrapper: San Andrés Maduro
- Binder: Indonesian
- Filler: Nicaraguan (Estelí & Jalapa)
Like all Konscious Cigars, it is hand crafted in Estelí, Nicaragua at Karen Berger’s Esteli Cigar Factory S.A. They are expressed in a single (6 1/2 x 64) Box Pressed Grand Toro vitola and come packaged in 20-count boxes. MSRP is set at $15.00/cigar.
Pre-Light Examination
The Konscious Cigars Maduro Box Pressed Toro is a medium-dark brown well-constructed box pressed grand toro. It has a fine crisp square box pressing. The wrapper has more of a matte finish to it and is pretty much devoid of veins and smooth to the touch. The roll felt firmly packed and the cigar is neatly finished with a triple cap.
A single band adorns the cigar, which is the same on all their lines. It uses a primary black and gold motif with the colorful company logo in the center and the name Konscious just below.
Running the cigar along the nose I did not get much aroma along barrel but the foot had an enticing nut-like aroma.
Using my CigarMedics Baller cutter I opened the cap perfectly to my liking and gave it some cold draw puffs that offered a nicely restricted draw with notes of earth and nuttiness. This had me chomping to want to fire it up, but I went with few more cold draws to soak in the pre-light flavors on this one.
I used my double flame torch to warm the foot to an even orange glow and drew in the first puffs of sweet nutty smoke to start the journey. Follow along as I burn this one to ash.
Cigar Review Notes
- First light offers a pleasant sweet nut beginning
- A light grey ash forms on top of a slightly jagged burn
- Buttercream and fruity tang notes quickly join the profile to add a nice dimension
- The ash fell in a solid chunk revealing a nice burn cone
- I found the early part of this smoke to be quite smooth into the midway point
- Dark chocolate notes begin to develop
- The early fruit tang reveals as an orange note
- Touch of sweetness deep in the second third
- Slight off burn in the final but did not need a touch up
- Moving into the final there is a more of an earthiness and mild spice down to the end
- Mild to medium in strength
- Total Smoking Time was 1 hour and 55 minutes
Final Analysis
The Konscious Cigars Box Pressed Gran Toro Maduro was a surprisingly mild-medium strength cigar which is a prime example as to why you should not look at maduros as being strong and powerful blends. To the contrary, this was quite the pleasant cigar with smooth tasty smoke on every puff, pleasing the palate from foot to nub. Not only was it pleasing but it offered some unique flavors like orange and butter cream which added to the almost 2 hour pleasure and will have you taking it to the nub like I did. This is a box worthy cigar that I feel could be enjoyed any time of the day. I rate this a 93.
Point Deductions: (-1) Jagged Burn; (-1) Slight off Burn In Final
Bonus Points: (+1) Box Worthy
