In the world of cigars, you can never have too many humidors. A well-made, well-maintained humidor will help you keep your cigars in perfect smoking conditions so they're ready to light up when you're ready to enjoy them.
Today I'm unboxing and giving you my first impressions of the Raching C150A humidor. According to the box, this is the Raching Wooden Thermostatic Cigar Humidor C150A, but we'll just call it the Raching C150A for short.
Initial Thoughts:
Honestly, when I found out the C150A would arrive on a pallet, I thought, “That's dumb.” I knew it was about 150 pounds, but a pallet?
Anyway, this thing is huge. It's very well built, but it's large. The cedar walls are thick, the door is thick (more on that later), and the unit is fairly deep and would stick out from any wall a fair amount.
However, this thing was packaged super-well. Raching obviously cares that their humidors arrive in perfect condition. I appreciated all the extra reinforced padding, but it did lead to a lot of extra trash.
After all of the packaging and padding and protection were removed, the Raching C150A looked really nice. Also, the smell of Spanish cedar filled the room as soon as I opened the glass door. I'll talk more about what I liked and didn't like below, but my first impressions were that it was a great-looking humidor that I wish they'd done something to cover the yellow foam at the bottom.
What I Really Liked
First, wow, the Raching C150A is absolutely filled with cedar. The thick walls are covered in it (I can't verify if they're solid cedar or just a veneer) as well as the back wall and top and bottom of the humidor. I loved how much cedar was inside this thing.
Second, I also really liked how thick the walls and the door were. The thickness will be a great insulator and will help keep humidity and temperature both in and out, so my cigars will be kept at the temperature and humidity I choose.
Third, being able to easily see the water level in the water reservoir is also really nice. You don't have to wonder if you need to add water for humidification; it's right there in front of you.
Fourth, I also like the reduced branding on the humidor. The Raching logo text is on the front, and that's about it. The door and drawers are logo and etching free.
Finally, the control panel is great and easy to use. There's almost no part of the world where you could live and not want at least some control over either the humidity or temperature in your humidor or both. If you want to keep your cigars a little cooler or a little drier, the Raching C150A makes that super easy. I love that.
What I Didn't Love
First, I do not like that the drawers aren't attached to their support rails.
If you guess wrong when pulling a shelf out and weights shift, or if a cigar rolls toward you (which it will because if you place them horizontally, they could fall through the slats), all of your sticks are going to fall on you. And make no mistake, these shelves are meant to hold a decent amount of weight.
The least Raching could do is have some sort of hook that prevents the shelf from falling all the way out or to keep the back from popping up too much. The current shelf system is a problem.
Second, the empty area above the top shelf is inaccessible and a waste.
While the area could be for ventilation, I don't think it's necessary. There's room on the top shelf to stack 2 boxes on top of each other, but you can't because of the… forehead? that is hiding the light bar.
LED lights around the door would have been a better solution and that would allow for more storage on the top shelf. A stripe of LED lights would also likely generate less heat while also giving a more even distribution of light to better highlight the cigars inside.
Third, the lock is inconveniently located and doesn't really lock.
Ok, yes, the lock does work, but you can still open the door about an inch and get your fingers inside, while it's “locked.” That begs the question, “Is it a lock if you can still open the door?” Anyway, the lock works but doesn't keep the door closed. Had the slot for the locking plate been cut differently, the lock could have worked better.
Also, the lock is at the bottom of the humidor, about 2 inches off the floor. If you're tall, have back problems, or just hate getting on the floor (like me), the lock will be an annoyance.
Better lock placement would have been higher up on the door, perhaps next to the handle (which is also awkwardly small), or near the top near the blue control screen.
Finally, an oddity that I found was that the monitoring device wouldn't measure humidities above 75%. I noticed this when I set the internal humidity inside the Raching C150A to 95% to acclimate the wood inside.
Honestly, 95% is probably a little too much, but I wasn't going to leave it for long. Plus, higher humidity equals faster seasoning, right?
Anyway, after adding the Govee monitor to the humidor and seeing the humidity rise into the 90s, the readout on the C150A never showed anything higher than 75%.
Final Thoughts
The Raching C150A, at first glance, is absolutely fantastic. However, if you're really into cigars, if you've had a few humidors in your life, and if you have a lot of boxes of cigars… the C150A has some problems.
My main complaint about the C150A is that the shelves could easily dump your cigars onto the floor. Easily. That's a big problem.
Then, the shelves aren't spaced far enough apart vertically to hold two boxes of cigars stacked on top of one another. They're also not deep enough to hold one box behind another.
There's also wasted space, a lock that doesn't keep the door closed, a humidity gauge that doesn't register over 75% RH, and an ugly water reservoir. Oh, and none of the shelves are deep.
All that said and as I said before, the Raching C150A is a very attractive humidor. It's sturdy and well built and the cedar aroma is intoxicating. There's so much cedar! And, it's amazing.
Next Steps
My task now, or at least after the humidor has been seasoned, is to figure out how to implement this humidor. Or, if I want to implement it.
I think the Raching C150A is a great humidor for people with a combination of singles and boxes. The boxes, not stacked, of course, could hold the shelves in place while the singles took up space at the front of the shelf. And with the amount of cedar in the unit, cigars will age wonderfully.
But for me, personally, I think I'll use it as an aging humidor. The ability to drop the temperature and humidity, or raise them, makes the Raching C150A a tool for precision aging cigars.
UPDATE: 3 Months Later
Since initially publishing the video on YouTube and Rumble, I've gotten lots of questions about the Raching C150A and if people should buy it. After keeping it in the CigarScore Lounge office for 3 months, and using it to store both boxes and singles, here are my thoughts.
The Raching C150A humidor has a lot going for it, but there are also some problems.
What I Really Like:
The cedar is amazing, as is the temp/humidity control. Those elements are generally spot on. As long as the water basin at the bottom is at least 1/2 full, I never have to worry about this humidor.
What I Absolutely Hate:
My first problem is with the shelves, mostly with how they're not secured. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped or almost dropped a shelf full of cigars. This is a major problem for this (and maybe other) Raching humidors with shelves like this. You might be thinking, “Oh, I can work around that.” And, I'd say, “No, you can't.”
And the thing is, the solution to this problem is easy and cheap for Raching to make. A strip of cedar above the shelf would secure the wood and keep the back from popping up due to gravity.
My second problem is the amount of wasted space. From what I can tell, the Raching C150A uses the same humidification system as some of the taller units. So, on a unit that's 1/2 the size of what the humidification was intended for, it leaves about 1/3 of the unit as wasted space. Because of this, the bottom 30% of the humidor is unusable because of the basin of water and the space above it. Also, the shelves don't go all the way back, so there is wasted space there, too.
As with the shelf solution, the fix for the wasted space is easy too. To fix the first problem, Raching could cut the water basin in half or by 1/3 and add a shelf above it would solve the first problem. Making the shelves deeper, so they go all the way back (but keeping the gap for airflow) would fix the second problem.
Because of the shelf problem and the amount of wasted space, you can't store as many cigars in the C150A as you think you can.
Should You Buy The Raching C150A?
Honestly, right now, no. These last 3 months have taken me beyond “oh hey, that's a sweet-looking unit” to how it actually functions in a real-world environment. However, if they fixed the issues mentioned above, I would give this a YES/BUY rating easily.
That said, I think the better units to explore are the Raching C230, which is (currently) the same price ($1899) but has better space utilization, or the Raching C380, which is more than twice the size for just $700 more ($2599). Or, if you're looking for something super fancy, my personal choice would be the super sexy Raching MON3800 for $3899.
Looking to Buy a Raching C150A?
If you're interested in learning about the Raching C150A Wooden Thermostatic Cigar Humidor, below you'll find the contact info for Luke Chen, my very helpful resource over at Raching. You can also find information about the Raching C150A on Amazon here.
Luke Chen
Tel: +86+755 8953 9339
Fax: +86-755 8953 9329
Mobile: 0086-13006688395
Email: luke@raching.com
Instagram: instagram.com/raching_humidor_luke/
Alibaba: www.raching.en.alibaba.com
Website: www.rachingglobal.com
