Marun, meaning “5” in Yoruba (the language of an indigenous Nigerian tribe), celebrates Black Star Line Cigars 5th anniversary. This also marks the first time that Black Star Line is releasing a cigar with an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper and their first time releasing a cigar manufactured at Erik Espinosa’s La Zona Cigars Factory. I have been very excited to smoke this cigar and figured I should review it while I knocked around some golf balls in the pasture.
Country of Origin: Nicaragua
Factory: La Zona Cigars Factory
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Vitola: 6 x 50
Price: $12.99 MSRP
Link to Purchase: The Cigar Farm (Use code “Review” to save 10%!)
This Marun has a brown paper bag colored wrapper with some tooth and minor veins. It’s a firm, dense feeling cigar. It smells like sweet earth and spices. The cold draw is all peanut shells. First light brings about medium bodied smoke with medium-full flavors of baking spices, dark brown sugar, leather, and maybe a touch of citrus. It’s quite interesting how little smoke is being produced, while maintaining quite potent flavors. An inch in and it's a leather bomb! The baking spices, citrus, and brown sugar are there, but complimentary. The retrohale deepens the leather and adds a bit more citrus. Moving into the second, the performance has been great, but do note that the ash drops in inch pieces. Reaching the halfway point this cigar is rolling along. There hasn’t been any big shift, which is fine, because the profile is rich, flavorful, and well balanced. Entering the final third there is a flavor shift. The leather and brown sugar are dropping off and some earthiness is replacing them. The smoke production has picked up here in the final third. Coming to an end at an hour and 45 minutes the profile remained unchanged and performance remained perfect.
Overall Experience
Overall this cigar is a great addition to Black Star Line Cigars’ portfolio. This Marun is rich, flavorful, and balanced with full flavors of leather, baking spices, brown sugar, citrus, and earthiness. It is approachable, in my opinion, for any smoker, as it is not overpowering to the senses and I did not pick up any notable strength kick. This was an absolute leather-bomb in the first two thirds, so if that is a flavor you seek out or want to experience, definitely try this soon. If you are a smoker that seeks lighter, brighter flavor notes, or one that prefers “dark and dirty” earthy, peppery cigars, then I think there are other Black Star Line offerings that would better suit you.
Have you smoked this one? Let me know your thoughts!