Cumpay Lancero

Earlier this year, Maya Selva Cigars announced that it would be adding a lancero to its Cumpay line. At 7 x 38, this is tied with the Churchill for the longest vitola in the line and is the thinnest vitola, edging out the Corona size.

The Cumpay line is made entirely of Nicaragua tobaccos, including a habano wrapper from Jalapa, a binder from Jalapa and fillers from undisclosed region(s) of the country. It was introduced in 1999 and the line went through a packaging overhaul in 2016. With the addition of the Lancero, it is now offered in seven sizes:

• Cumpay Short (4 x 46)
• Cumpay Robusto (4 3/4 x 50)
• Cumpay Volcán (5 x 60)
• Cumpay No.15 (5 1/2 x 54)
• Cumpay Corona (5 1/2 x 42)
• Cumpay Churchill (7 x 48)
• Cumpay Lancero (7 x 38)

There’s also a Cumpay Maduro that is offered in the Robusto and Volcán sizes.

“The new Lancero has the elegance of a unique savoir-faire,” the company said in a press release in March. “It’s the expression of a grand cigar that has power, finesse, and complexity. It features a complex array of aromas, with a hint of espresso, hazelnut and leather, revealed through an unusual progression where potency precedes mildness.”

Maya Selva Cigars says that the “Cumpay” name comes from the word used by the Tawakha Indians to refer to rolled tobacco.

• Cigar Reviewed: Cumpay Lancero
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: Plasencia Cigars S.A.
• Wrapper: Nicaragua (Habano Jalapa)
• Binder: Nicaragua (EstelÍ)
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 7 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 38
• Vitola: Lancero
• MSRP: $18 (Box of 20, $360)
• Release Date: April 2022
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

In photographs, the Cumpay Lancero’s band is a bit more distinctive than it appears in person, where it has a habit of fading into the color the wrapper a bit more. I also think the cigars are slightly darker in person—at least compared to the pictures in this review—though the wrapper color is still noticeably lighter than a Hershey milk chocolate bar. Appearance-wise, everything is quite dull, though the wrapper has a medium amount of oils. The first cigar I smoked is very hard to the touch, the second cigar was pretty normal outside of a hard spot that was located about two inches from the foot, the final cigar is much better in terms of its firmness, though all three feel a bit light weight-wise. The wrapper from the aroma is medium-plus with sweet cedar over barnyard and leather. The foot’s aroma is slightly stronger with scents of chocolate, cedar, sugar sweetness and some chemical-like flavors I can’t quite place. I find the cold draw to also be medium-full with a very balanced mixture of chocolate, oranges, creaminess and some oak flavors.

The first puff of the Cumpay Lancero is medium-plus with a crisp earthiness, cedar, plum skin, a soft mineral flavor and a touch of tartness. For the first few minutes, the cigar has some odd flavors—one puff has a ton of herbal flavors, another one tastes like plums—but it eventually settles on a mixture of nuttiness, tartness and white sandwich bread with a secondary set that includes herbal flavors, creaminess and sourness. The finish produces a lot of salivation in my mouth and tastes like white sandwich bread, a mayonnaise-like creaminess, a soft sweetness and some artificial flavors I struggle to place. Retrohales are interesting because they are a mixture of herbal and floral flavors, the latter almost like a field of daffodils, along with a touch of harshness. Continuing with the curve balls, they finish with earthiness, creaminess, some Ritz crackers and a bit more harshness, i.e. very little of what any of the rest of cigar tastes like. Flavor is medium-plus, body is medium and strength is medium. Construction is fine, but the Cumpay Lancero definitely needs more attention than most. It’s not to say that I need to take a puff every 45 seconds or the cigar will go out, but I’m very concerned about letting the puff rates extend much past a minute. There’s also issues with the wrapper cracking: two cigars have their caps crack when I cut the cigar or shortly thereafter and two cigars—not the same pair of cigars—develop cracks down the body of the cigar.

While the flavor profile of the Cumpay Lancero is rarely static, it’s more or less a similar progression of the first third until right around halfway mark, when all of a sudden there’s a puff that tastes very bitter. Then another puff that tastes bitter and, on one cigar in particular, a cascading collapse of the flavor profile into bitterness. Two cigars do a lot better than that one, but there’s no question that all three cross a line of bitterness. Whether or not these things are related, it doesn’t help that I also find the non-bitter flavors to be increasingly sharp, a criticism I didn’t have of the first third. Those flavors include earthiness and lemon—both quite sharp—over some Thousand Island dressing-like creaminess and some mild oak. It’s tough to separate the harshness from black pepper, but I think it’s more the former than the latter though neither are helping the case. At times, the Cumpay can settle down and deliver a softer mineral flavor over some oak, sweetness and some of that sandwich bread flavor from the first third, but those puffs are the minority compared to the bitter ones. Flavor finishes with white bread, sourness, mineral flavors, oak and lots of herbal flavors. Retrohales have harshness, white pepper, cinnamon and some sharpness. They finish with earthiness and mineral flavors. Flavor remains medium-plus, body is medium and strength is mild-medium.

While I don’t think the final third is stellar, it’s a lot better than the middle portions the cigar. Touch-ups—there’s at least one per cigar—and a tighter draw make it difficult to fully determine what’s going on with the flavor profile, but what I taste is consistently damp earthiness over some herbal flavors, nuttiness, black pepper and, on one cigar, some meatiness. It’s still bitter, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was during the middle portion. The finish has bread, earthiness, toastiness, white pepper and some minor amounts of herbal flavors. Surprisingly, that daffodils floral flavor returns to the retrohale, now over some herbal flavors, toastiness and some slightly sweetness. Unfortunately, the retrohales are midler than before and they finish with a lot of damp earthiness and barnyard. Flavor is medium-plus, body is medium and strength is medium. I find the draws to be tighter, particularly on two cigars, than they were earlier. I think it’s a linear progression of getting tighter as the cigar burns, but it never was really close to the point where I’d mention it before. Even at its highest points on two cigars, I don’t think I’d normally mention it if there weren’t other non-normal things happening with the cigars, though one cigar definitely got into the “tighter than most cigars of this ring gauge” territory.

Final Notes

• All three cigars suffered wrapper cracking. On two cigars that include a small part of the cap upon cutting. All three cigars suffered issues related to cracking after the halfway mark.
• While I didn’t weigh any of the cigars I smoked for this review, I weighed the other two cigars we bought as part of the five-pack. Both weighed 9 grams. For some comparison, I weighed three other lancero cigars that I saw: Villiger Miami 2022 (10 grams), Don Carlos Lancero (12 grams) and Tatuaje H-Town (13 grams). I know these all aren’t the same size, nor do they use the same tobaccos, but my suspicions that this felt a bit light seems to have some evidence.
• Also, one of those other cigars either had wrapper damage in the cellophane or was damaged removing it from cellophane. I think it’s safe to say the wrapper is delicate.
• While I think there are some signs these cigars were underfilled, the cigars burned pretty well, which is not something I normally say about underfilled cigars.
• Somewhat confusingly, I found the draws to be slightly tight, even for a lancero, and to get progressively tighter throughout the cigars.
• The color scheme used on this band reminds me of the Oliva Serie V band. The main background color is more brown than black to me, though it’s a bit darker than the Serie V.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel. After we purchased the cigars, a sample from Maya Selva cigars arrived at our office, that cigar was not used for this review.
• The cigar burned fairly quick with smoking times ranging from one-and-a-half hours to one hour and 45 minutes.