Cigarette hardness is an important cigarette quality parameter which can be perceived by the smoker. In addition hardness is via cigarette weight strongly related to economy. Therefore hardness has been a concept in cigarette production almost since the invention of the mechanical cigarette maker. During the last decades a lot of work has been done in several companies and in CORESTA to establish a reliable measurement procedure. As a result different methods or instruments are used today in order to monitor the production. In this paper the measurement procedure is reviewed. Stress is laid on the situation when cigarette makers have to be compared. In this case, or when machine modifications have to be tested, a short response time is demanded. Then special care has to be taken to minimise the inevitable error of the measurement procedure. The different factors which influence the result of the measurement are discussed. Some factors are well known and obvious - as tobacco moisture and the tobacco itself - some factors are more hidden - as ends dropout and roundness of cigarettes. A standard procedure using a Borgwaldt densimeter and Labmos moisture gauge is presented, together with some results.