Easter Sunday has been a very full day for me so far, with a breakfast and cantata at church this morning, followed by an expansive meal with extended family, and extended sitting around and chewing the fat while soaking up the sun at a family farm. As we’ve returned home for the evening, there is still plenty of sun and warmth on Kansas to sit outside and take a quick break with a Villiger Export Natural.

I enjoyed the Export Maduro earlier in the week at a local lounge, while taking a short break from a dinner out. Punch and I shall soon do a joint review of that one (something about needing to rescue Elizabeth and get through Bioshock Infinite, first. <snerk>)

The Villiger Export line is a tidy little machine-wrapped, box-pressed stick almost four inches long, pressed into about one-half by one-quarter inch cross section. The filler and binder is natural leaf tobacco from Cuban-seed plants, and the wrapper is Sumatran. There is no cap, and so you’re free to smoke it from either end, but I suggest only one end at a time. Export is available only in Maduro and Natural.

As I removed the paper wrapper, I was surprised by how green this cigar’s wrapper appeared compared to the tan of the recently reviewed Colorado and the obviously-brown maduros. It also has a surprisingly consistent appearance, no doubt the result of the mechanical wrapping process.

I was so excited to get into the Natural, that I forgot to take a pre-light draw. Instead, I can tell you that it toasted easily and quickly, and establishing a cherry was no problem, even in the Kansas breeze. The flavor of caramel and oats (oatmeal?) were immediate and dominate, though I would put this in the mild-to-medium bodied category. I’ve heard others refer to it as creamy, and I agree that is an apt description.

Smoke produced in the mouth is thick and generous, but the Natural itself is not a smokestack by any means, producing very little when idle. I find that its smoke is not olfactorally-offensive, which might make it a good choice when indulging with non-smoking friends.

The cigar has a modestly-tight draw. Wrapper burns uniformly, no touch-ups, and the light-gray ash suggests a good, uniform burn. The ash falls off easily (aka: often), but it has yet to take the cherry, and the Natura maintains well. However, with so little cigar I am tempted to pull on it constantly, so nothing goes to waste.

There are no great flavor changes as you puff through this stogie. The last third is a stronger rendition of the first third, with a mandatory increase in spice, along a linear slope. The narrow rectangular guage means less total flame, and that means my being able to smoke this cigar right down to the limit of my fat fingertips to hold onto it.

Burn it or spurn it?

The Villiger Export Natural is a lighter wrapper with a medium-strong — albeit fairly simple — and consistent flavor. For its taste, performance, and limited burn-time I plan to keep several of these around for anytime-smoking.