An over-humidified cigar feels swollen between your fingers. Gentle pressure shows no springiness; the body is soft, almost spongy, and the wrapper may feel slightly tacky to the touch. Visible signs include a slightly puffed-up appearance and a wrapper that has lost its sheen.
If you light it anyway, five symptoms follow. The draw is tight; the cigar resists each pull because the moisture has compacted the filler against the wrapper walls. You light it once, then again ten minutes later, then again, because too much water vapour in the cigar interrupts combustion. The smoke is heavy and sour, sometimes carrying a wet-tobacco note that does not belong. The burn wanders rather than tracking straight, and may tunnel toward the centre instead of consuming the wrapper evenly. The ash is dark and dense rather than the light grey of a properly humidified cigar.
The fix is patient drying. Drop the cigar’s storage humidity to sixty-two or sixty-five percent and wait. A few weeks at that lower level will rebalance the moisture without shocking the wrapper. Do not use desiccant or open-air drying; both move too fast and crack the wrapper.
The full diagnostic, including symptoms for too-dry and too-fresh cigars, is in How to Rest a Cigar.