Earlier this month, CAO announced the fourth blend of the Amazon series. It’s called Orellana and it joins the three other blends; Amazon Basin, Fuma em Corda and Anaconda, each featuring rare Amazonian tobaccos.
The Amazon series has been around since 2014 but, the wrapper used for Orellana has been aging for longer than that.
The CAO Orellana is a limited edition cigar that is only made as a Toro vitola and measures in at 6 x 52.
The blend is comprised as a Cubra Sungrown wrapper, a Nicaraguan binder and a blend of Amazonian Braganca, Colombian and Dominican fillers.
The Cubra wrapper has an oily, dark brown appearance. The noticible veins and seams give the cigar a rustic look. Adding to the rusticness is a this rope leaf that creates the band and spirals downward towards the foot of the cigar.
The wrapper smelled like rich tobacco and leather while the finished foot had a rich, earthy aroma.
The Orellana had a good weight to it and was firm.
After a quick decapitation of the smooth, triple cap with my guillotine cutter, I took a pre-light draw and was greated by sweet tobacco with notes that are reminiscent of cherries.
Time to torch this cigar and see how it performs.
The Orellana burned evenly with a gray ash that also had black striations. The ash was very tight for the most part. The rope leaf caused the ash to have a small flake at times. I only noticed because it’s one of the things I look for when reviewing a cigar. I doubt anyone else would notice or care for that matter.
The first third of the Orellana started off with a mild tobacco flavor on the palate and a medium retrohale.
The second and last third of the cigar was pretty much identicle. There was a strong spice sensation with the retrohale and a smooth tobacco that coated the palate with a long finish.
Even thought there wasn’t a lot of compexity with this cigar, I enjoyed it just the same. I consider the CAO Orellana a medium strength, medium bodied cigar and give it a 91.