Desktop Humidor Sizing: 40 to 250 Cigars

Ask ten collectors what size humidor they should have bought and nine will say "bigger." The tenth bought a cabinet. This is not because people are bad at counting; it is because a humidor is bought for the collection you have on the day and a collection, once it has a proper home, grows. The trick is to size for the near future rather than the present, and to understand what "capacity" actually means on a humidor's label.

What a capacity number means

When a humidor is rated for fifty cigars, the figure is for Coronas or Robustos laid neatly in rows, usually without dividers and without the cedar tray that many boxes include. Real collections are messier. Toros and Gordos take more room than Robustos; a tray eats a layer; a mixed collection with a few boxes kept intact will fill the space faster than the label suggests. As a working rule, take the stated capacity and expect to fit about three-quarters of it in cigars you actually smoke.

Why two-thirds full is the target

A humidor is a small climate system. The cedar lining absorbs and releases moisture; the tobacco does the same; the humidification source — in our shop, Boveda two-way packs — sets the level. That system is at its most stable when there is enough tobacco to act as a buffer and enough free air for the cedar to breathe. A humidor that is packed to the lid recovers slowly every time it is opened; a humidor that holds three cigars in a space meant for a hundred swings with every change in the room. Two-thirds full is where both problems disappear, and it is the number to design around.

The sizing rule

Count the cigars you own. Add the ones you expect to buy in the next year that you will not have smoked by then — for most people this is more than they think, because a good humidor makes buying boxes sensible. Divide that total by two-thirds, and that is the capacity to buy. A smoker with thirty cigars who expects to add a box or two over the year should be looking at a humidor rated for seventy-five to a hundred, not for forty.

Jemar's bodies, from small to large

Jemar's desktop humidors are built in Bilbao as furniture: a sealed carcass under a figured veneer, hand-finished, with a close-fitting lid and Spanish cedar throughout the interior. The range covers most collections short of a cabinet.

At the small end, the Classical 33 bodies — offered in walnut and root veneers — hold about forty cigars. They suit a desk, a study or a bedside, and they are the right choice for someone who buys a few cigars at a time and smokes them within the month. The Mediterranean collection, in padauk and other woods, begins at around fifty cigars in a footprint of 31 by 24 centimetres and steps up through 33 by 25 and 35 by 25 bodies as the count grows.

The mid-range is where most collectors land. The Classical 259 holds around sixty; the 450 in Macassar ebony, at 37 by 20.5 by 12.5 centimetres, holds about a hundred and is our most-asked-for body. These are the humidors for someone who keeps two or three open boxes and a rotation of singles, and they are large enough to hold a climate steady through a Canadian winter with the right number of packs.

At the top of the desktop range sits the WR2 in root veneer, rated for roughly two hundred and fifty cigars, with a separator and a lock. It is the piece for a serious collection that has not yet justified a cabinet, and it is handsome enough to live in a sitting room rather than a study.

Where it will sit

Size has a second dimension, which is the surface it will occupy. A hundred-cigar Jemar is a substantial object — measure the desk or the sideboard before choosing, and leave room to open the lid fully. Keep it away from radiators, direct sunlight and exterior walls, all of which push the climate around. The cedar and the packs will handle the rest.

Humidification, sized to the box

Jemar supplies its humidors as cabinets, and we pair each one with Boveda packs matched to its volume: one 60-gram pack for roughly every twenty-five cigars of capacity, at 69 or 72 percent for most Canadian homes. A forty-cigar box wants two packs; a hundred-cigar box, four; the WR2, a full set. We include the seasoning instructions with every humidor and walk through them in another story here.

El Laguito Cigars carries the Jemar collections as an authorized retailer, and every humidor ships in the maker's own box. If you are unsure between two sizes, tell us the cigars you have and the ones you are eyeing, and we will do the arithmetic with you — and nearly always recommend the larger of the two.