The Types and Uses of Humidor
You might have heard of what a humidor is but is puzzled on what it does; basically, it’s a room or box that has controlled level of humidity to store pipe tobacco, cigarettes or cigars. As a matter of fact, tobacco products are quite sensitive that being exposed to too little or too much humidity is enough to change its quality. For this reason, the primary objective of humidors are to keep a desirable moisture level in its interior. Secondarily it is used to protect whatever content it has from deterioration and physical damage from sunlight.
If used privately, there are several small wooden boxes that are used to hold a handful of cigars while most cigar shops might even have a walk-in humidor in their facility. Many of these humidors are using hygrometers to be able to keep track of the level of humidity inside the humidor.
Well in reality, there are four different humidor types you can find today and these are:
Number 1. Walk-in – if you go to bars or cigar stores, expect to find a walk-in humidor in their facility. Here, their room is either converted to be one or built specifically as a humidor to which they keep all their cigars.
Number 2. Cabinet – normally, it is placed on floor as piece of furniture which is capable of storing around 1000 to 5000 cigars.
Number 3. Desktop – this is a common type of humidor. Oftentimes, it’s boxed sized with lid on top or with several drawers that vary in size from
Number 4. Travel – these humidors have a compact design which is enough to store 20 cigars; after all, it is intended for traveling purposes.
As for commercially made humidor cases, these are most commonly made from woods. However, materials similar to metal and acrylic glass can be used in its construction while silicon carbide, polyethylene and carbon fiber are rare. Not only that this is creating unparalleled aesthetics, the objective of the casing is to provide protection in the interior and produce a closed environment so by that durable and airtight materials may be used.
Oftentimes, the interior uses Spanish cedar which has numerous sought after aspects that is perfect for cigar storage. For example, it is able to hold more moisture compared to other wood materials to maintain humidity, it isn’t susceptible to cupping or warping in high humidity, it infuses its aroma to the cigars etc.
Humidors need to be seasoned either when it is new or having been out of use for a little while. This is necessary to ensure that it can do its job.