The Partagás Serie E No. 2 does not hurry. Light it at a table you are willing to sit at for ninety minutes, pour something dark, and let the cigar do the work of introducing itself.

The first third is leather — soft, broken-in, unpretentious. There is a whisper of cedar underneath, the kind you notice more on the retrohale than on the palate.

By the midpoint, a quiet cocoa sweetness arrives and stays. The draw remains exemplary; the burn corrects itself without touching up. It is a cigar that asks very little of you and returns rather a lot.

The final third warms and deepens, finishing on coffee and a clean cedar sweetness that lingers past the last ash. A slow conversation — and, as conversations go, a good one.