Macassar, Padauk, Rosewood: The Woods of Jemar

There is a common misunderstanding about humidors that is worth clearing up before talking about wood at all. The veneer on the outside of a Jemar — the walnut, the root, the Macassar — has nothing to do with how well the box keeps cigars. That job belongs entirely to the Spanish cedar lining and the seal of the lid. What the outside wood decides is something different and, in its way, just as important: how the humidor looks on the desk, how it reads in the light of the room, and how it ages alongside the furniture it lives with. Jemar treats the choice accordingly, and so should you.

How a Jemar humidor is built

Every desktop humidor in the range starts with the same construction. The carcass is solid and sealed, so that the interior climate does not leak through the walls. Over that carcass goes a figured veneer, cut thin enough to show the grain at its best and laid by hand so that the pattern runs continuously across the lid and down the sides. The whole is finished by hand — a lacquer built up and polished until the wood seems to sit under glass — and fitted with a lid that closes with a soft resistance and no gap. The interior is Spanish cedar throughout.

What changes from piece to piece is the veneer, and it is worth knowing what each one is.

Walnut

Walnut is the most familiar of the woods and the easiest to live with. Its colour runs from warm brown to a deeper chocolate, its grain is straight and even, and it sits comfortably beside almost any furniture. In the Classical collection it appears on the 33 and 259 bodies, and it is the veneer we suggest to someone who wants the humidor to belong to a room rather than command it.

Root

Root — burl, in English usage — is cut from the swollen, knotted growths at the base of a tree, where the grain turns in on itself. The result is a surface of swirls, eyes and clouds that no two boxes share, and it is the most dramatic veneer in the range. Jemar uses it on the 33 and on the large WR2, where the figure has room to breathe. It suits a study or a sitting room and a person who likes the box to be looked at.

Macassar ebony

Macassar is the formal one. It is an ebony from Indonesia, striped in bands of dark brown and near-black, dense and heavy, with a natural lustre that a good lacquer turns into depth. On the Classical 450 — the hundred-cigar body that is our most-asked-for humidor — it produces a box with real presence: dark, precise and quietly expensive-looking. It pairs well with leather, brass and dark wood and is the veneer for someone who wants the humidor to read as an object of some seriousness.

Padauk

Padauk belongs to the Mediterranean collection and is the warmest wood Jemar uses. Freshly cut it is a vivid orange-red; with light and time it mellows toward a deep reddish brown, and the change is part of its appeal. It suits lighter rooms and warmer palettes and gives the Mediterranean bodies a character quite unlike the Classical line — less formal, more sunlit.

Rosewood

Rosewood sits between Macassar and walnut in both colour and figure: darker and more striped than walnut, less austere than ebony, with a reddish undertone. It is a traditional humidor wood for good reason and suits anyone who finds walnut too plain and Macassar too severe.

Choosing between them

Since the woods perform identically, the choice is aesthetic, and it should be made in daylight. Veneers photograph poorly — root looks busier on a screen than in the hand, Macassar looks flatter, padauk looks louder — and the only honest way to choose is to see two or three of them side by side in the light they will actually live in. Think about the surface the box will sit on, the other wood in the room, and whether you want the humidor to disappear into its setting or anchor it.

A few practical notes. Dark veneers show dust more than light ones and reward a weekly wipe. Root and padauk change colour more over the years than walnut and Macassar, which is a virtue or a nuisance depending on temperament. And all of them dislike direct sunlight, which fades the wood and pushes the climate inside — keep the box out of a window whatever the veneer.

El Laguito Cigars keeps the Jemar Classical and Mediterranean collections in Mississauga so the woods can be compared in the hand, and we are glad to send daylight photographs of specific pieces to anyone choosing from elsewhere in Canada. Every humidor arrives in Jemar's own box with its Spanish cedar interior ready to be seasoned.