Quote Originally Posted by rodwha View Post
Sick?!?! What is that?


When the cigars are being rolled all the leaf gets moistened as part of the process. That usually makes the leaf start to ferment again giving the cigar an ammonia smell while the taste can be bland or nearly flavorless altogether. They call this the sick period. Per Steve Saka, it usually takes ~60 days post roll(depending on how heavy the leaf is) for the cigar to go through this phase. The ammonia tends to take months to fully go away though and many times the cigar will still need more down time to come into its own.