Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024

While I don’t play favorites with cigar names, there are ones that catch my attention or resonate more than others. Case in point: Rojas Cigars’ Street Tacos line, which debuted in 2021 with the Barbacoa line and immediately reminded me of the taco trucks that dot numerous corners and parking lots across Phoenix and the surrounding cities.

Since then, and as would be expected given tacos’ versatility and vastness, Rojas has expanded the line, adding Street Tacos Carnitas and Breakfast Tacos to the portfolio.

For 2024, the company added a limited edition that celebrates Cinco de Mayo, which Noel Rojas said will be the first in an annual series that commemorates the May 5 holiday. The debut cigar is a 6 x 52 toro that uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper, a Mexican San Andrés binder and fillers from Nicaragua and the United States. The cigars are produced at the Rojas Cigar Factory in Nicaragua.

The Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024 is priced at $12 per cigar and packaged in 20-count boxes. Rojas produced 1,750 boxes for a total of 35,000 cigars.

After debuting at the 2024 PCA Convention & Trade Show in March, the cigars began shipping to retailers on April 15.

• Cigar Reviewed: Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024
• Country of Origin: Nicaragua
• Factory: Rojas Cigar Factory
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Habano)
• Binder: Mexico (San Andrés)
• Filler: Nicaragua & U.S.A.
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 52
• Shape: Round
• MSRP: $12 (Box of 20, $240)
• Release Date: April 15, 2024
• Number of Cigars Released: 1,750 Boxes of 20 Cigars (35,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

The vibrant, shiny and lively bands are instantly eye-catching as they stand out from the wrapper but also work very well with the wrapper color, which is kind of a meaty brown hue. The cigar itself looks good if a bit standard, but with no visual issues. The veins are small, the seams are barely visible, and the foot gets a very small covering as just a few millimeters of tobacco stretch down from the cylinder, leaving a good bit of the filler to be seen. The cigar is firm, but there are some soft spots across the three samples. The partially-covered foot has a slightly damp aroma, kind of a soggy bread smell at first sniff. There isn’t much pepper at first, but it emerges with a bit of time to tingle my nostrils. In between the initial smell and the tingle, some simple syrup sweetness fills the space between those two sensations. The cold draw is smooth to a tick firm and has a flavor that reminds me of a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on wheat bread, as the flavors are all there and come together just like the staple of my grade school lunches. There’s some peppery tingle from the wrapper itself, while the third cigar has decidedly less sweetness than the other two.

After a couple of mellower warmup puffs marked largely by a mellow creaminess, the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024 adds in some pepper and meatiness to start stimulating my senses. Retrohales have a moderate amount of black pepper that is backed by wheat bread and a slightly powdery texture, which provides a bit of both complexity and stimulation through the nose. The third cigar continues to be a bit of an outlier, as it holds onto a mellow, creamier flavor longer than the other two cigars, which I find interesting as it leaves both expecting the transition to the meatier flavor and wondering if it’s actually going to arrive. It does arrive, though unlike the other two cigars I notice it first in the resting aroma, which reminds me of the wafting aroma of a taco truck’s grill. There is a slight change as the first third comes to a close that gives the smoke and flavor a sensation that I’d call somewhere between dusty and powdery, the latter coming to mind in because the sensation reminds me of cocoa powder but with a touch of smoke. Flavor starts medium-minus but builds to medium-plus, body is medium-plus and strength is mild. Combustion, smoke production and the draw are all good, though the first cigar’s burn line shows some shoveling. The other two don’t have burn line issues.

The start of the second third aligns the three cigars in terms of flavor, though the third is a bit more else intense than the other two. There are the familiar wood and pepper hallmarks of a cigar that uses an Ecuadorian habano wrapper, while the aroma and flavor of a well-used grill give the cigar a unique spin. The pepper has dialed back a touch in the flavor, which is just a touch drier than it was in the first third. Retrohales, meanwhile, still have a decent amount of pepper that provides a thorough but not overpowering tingle of my nostrils. Just past the midway point, I get a very faint flavor of melted vanilla ice cream, a flavor that can’t keep up with the more lively earth, wood and pepper, and certainly not a flavor I would expect from a cigar named Street Tacos, but it does a good job making itself known and helping add some complexity. A sharp, dry wood closes out this section, quickly steering the profile in a new direction as the burn line approaches the final third. Both the flavor and body of the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024 are pretty squarely at the medium mark, while strength is closer to mild. Construction is still very good on the whole, and the burn line issue in the first cigar was able to be corrected with a quick touch-up.

The final third of the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024 starts off with a bit of harshness from the dry wood, as a crisp, almost sharp sensation now hits my taste buds and the roof of my mouth. It’s not as prominent in the third cigar, which continues to be just different enough from the other two, but it is still present. Specifically, the harshness emerges with a point at the top of my throat that seems to be the focal point for a very specific sensation. Retrohales have a bit more black pepper and a notably longer finish that dodges the harshness but does make for a more pronounced sensation when combined with that lingering flavor sensation. Creaminess continues to try and push for a spot in the profile, which it does from time to time but doesn’t get a firm foothold and thus gets bumped out by the other flavors. Even with the harsher aspects, there is still an enjoyable core flavor that has a richer woodiness, peppery accents, and more of the flavor and aroma that reminds be both of a busy wood-fired grill and the lighter meats that come off of it, specifically grilled chicken and pork as opposed to steak or other red meats. The cigar comes to a close with a touch more smokiness and a bit more intensity and focus from the pepper that tingles the front half of my tongue. Flavor is medium-plus, body is medium and strength is just barely medium-minus. Construction is very good and essentially problem-free, as none of the cigars needed relights and I never had an issue getting the draw to deliver ample amounts of smoke.

Final Notes

• I really have to give another round of applause for the bands, as this color combination just worked very well for me.
• This is not the first time that Rojas Cigars has celebrated Cinco de Mayo, as in 2023 the company teamed up with United Cigars for the Elote Firecracker. That release was part of the United’s Firecracker Series that started as a celebration of the 4th of July, though the Elote Firecracker was released for Cinco de Mayo.
• Noel Rojas has long proclaimed himself to be King of Small Gauge Cigars, going so far as to release a line called KSG. That certainly doesn’t mean that he can’t release bigger ring gauges, and probably needs to in order to appeal to more cigar smokers, but I do find it interesting that he chose a 6 x 50 toro for this limited edition given how much he has leaned towards smaller ring gauges over the years.
• That decision reminds me of numerous discussions I’ve had over the years with manufacturers when it comes to the toro size for a single-vitola release. They have almost all said that the 6 x 50 size is the midpoint of where consumers are right now, in that it’s not too big for people who prefer smaller sizes, and not too small for those who like thicker sizes.
• There is also the reality that toros tend to be one of the easiest cigar sizes to roll, which allow them to be crafted by more people in a factory and at a faster rate compared to thinner sizes.
• In terms of nicotne strength, I didn’t find the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024 to have much of it. If anything, the final third might have a bit, but I don’t think this merits being called an overly strong cigar.
• The cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.

• The company lists these as a 6 x 52 toro. The numbers above are the measurements we found for the three cigars used for this review. To borrow from Charlie’s comments on the measurements, “this is about as good as it gets (for) consistency.”
• Final smoking time was about two hours and 20 minutes on average.
• Site sponsors Atlantic Cigar Co. and Smokingpipes carry the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2024.