Once upon a time in the long ago and far away on the island of Jamaica a small group of people toiled away, working long hours sometime. They made Jamaica cigars. They calld them Royal Jamaicas. What a fine smoke they were. They were expensive but I bought them by the box which made them a little less expensive, and placed them in my humidor. Now here as I write, looking at the wooden box, I can almost smell that fine tobacco. They were, of course, hand rolled and the smoke was mild, and the cigar had a taste that satisfied. Picking up a fresh box of those cigars was like a date weith a beautiful woman. In restaurant you got comments like, "That's a great smelling cigar, what is it" or "Blow a little smoke my way." When cigar smokers got together it was a thing of beauty to listen to the talk. Somebody would enevititably say I tried one of those Royal Jamaicas, I was afraid I'd get hooked on them and get the habit. I forget the year but a great storm hit the island of Jamaica. Tobacco crops were flooded and some of the commercial structures were blown down. The water stayed on the land a long time. The Royal Jamaica was forced to suspend operations, lay off employees, and eventually moved its operation to the Dominican Republic. I always lit a cigar, drew a few puffs through it and let it go out and chewed on it. Two cigars a day.It bgot so I couldn't wait for the new day to start and I could light up a Royal Jamaica. After the move tothe Dominicn Republic the cigar never quite tasted the same. It was still a good cigar, better than most to my taste but somehow not the same. I think the soil the tobacco grew in was different. and it affected the taste. That was back in the day.
I love the smell of a good cigar. My brother kept one in his mouth almost all the time. Like you, he chewed on it when it wasn't lit. Another thing that smells good is a Camel cigarette. Or they did back then, anyway. My Daddy smoked them and when he lit one, it smelled good enough to eat. Other cigarettes never smelled as good. It's true that different soil makes things taste different. That's especially true of root crops. You can't grow real Vidalia onions anywhere but Vidalia County, GA and right around it.