Many of the most seasoned and experience smokers use an assortment of names to call what they believe is the “heart” and the most valuable place in the Habano House.

You may say cellar and we’re not precisely talking about that magnificent beverage that Esparto uncorked and it turned out to be nothing but a bottle of sparkling wine from the La Rioja cellars. Nor was the label that the voted Father of Cellar, Don Jose Raventos i Fatjo, turned to in 1872 to call his first set of cases under the Codorniu company.

For cigar connoisseurs, cellar is a very special and different area, some sort of masterpiece cabinetwork in which Habanos are stored in their boxes. This is the finest jewel of all, one that appeals to cedar’s nature in the raw as the only kind of wood good enough to preserve cigars’ excellent physical and organoleptic properties.

Inside of it, the whole range of Habanos –their 34 brands and hundreds of rings from countless presentations- are displayed to amaze even the most imaginative painter with a blend of colors. No matter if those are cigar bands that saw the light of day back in the 18th century or the latest top-notch stogies labeled as Reserves, featuring that shiny black coat of Chinese lacquer that can conquer the minds of the staunchest critics.

Sizes vary because each and every Habano House has laid out its own special place in unrepeated designs. For this reason, for instance, the Britons refer to those locales as walking humidors, since sauntering into one of them really packs a wallop among lovers of the ultimate smoke. It’s always gratifying to discover a new ring that had gone unnoticed due to our human virtue of preference towards certain formats and sizes.

Preservation conditions inside of the cellars are the real McCoy the devoted salespeople at the Habano Houses trumpet. Moreover, there’s love and dedication in the daily process of conserving those manmade gems in their beautiful stores and enjoy the staff’s devotion for those astounding pieces hand-rolled by unsung heroes, miles away from the walking humidor at the Habano House in the lavish Tokyo neighborhood of Guinza Chuo-Ku, or just a stone’s throw of the narrow and well-stocked humidor at the Partagas Royal Cigar Factory’s Habano House in the heart of Havana.

The objective of the cellar is to preserve Habanos and keep them fresh. As a general rule, the well-balanced humidity and air-conditioned ambience make cigars be the stars of the show, lit up by sideline and overhead fixtures rigged in the baldachins, let alone the dimmed bulbs that highlight the brand names.

When it comes to catering to the public, many cellars go the extra mile as far as exclusiveness is concerned, like the Habano House at the Melia Cohiba Hotel, or the special location of the cigar shrine inside the Club Havana, always protected by dry-behind-the-ears Habano men like Enrique Mons, sitting in his armchair with a cup of coffee and his Montecristo No. 1 sidekick.

It will take another report to write about the watchful caretakers of the Habano Houses’ walking humidors. Yet it will do to say that cigars are well taken care of in those places, as if they were bank vaults. A good case in point is the majestic safety door the lovely Habano House on the corner on 5th Avenue and 16th Street, in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood, is outfitted with, or the exclusive position it holds inside the VIP Lounge’s duty-free shop at the Beirut Airport, the apparent transparency of the Habano House in Italy’s Milan, or the one in Windsor, just a few feet from Detroit, in the U.S., the Motor Capital of the World.

Make no mistakes about it; this is a genuine gem. Maybe I didn’t sound too convincing in some aspects, so try to take a look at it by yourself. In the meantime, I wrap up these lines to return to the walking humidor of one of my favorite stores, the Habano House at the Melia Havana Hotel, and slide back into meditation with my bosom partner of forever more: the Habano.