Cuban cigar
Cuban cigars are cigars manufactured in Cuba from tobacco grown within that island nation. Historically regarded as among the world's "finest", they are synonymous with the island's culture and contribute over one quarter of the value of all exports from the country. The filler, binder, and wrapper may come from different areas of the island, though much is produced in Pinar del Río province, in the regions of Vuelta Abajo and Semi Vuelta, as well as in farms in the Viñales region. All cigar production in Cuba is controlled by state-owned Cubatabaco. The Cuban cigar is also referred to as El Habano.
Cubatabaco and Habanos SA, held equally by the Cuban state and Spanish-based private enterprise Altadis, undertake all the work relating to Cuban cigars, including manufacture, quality control, promotion, distribution and export. Habanos SA handles export and distribution, largely through its European partner Altadis. All boxes and labels are marked Hecho en Cuba, Spanish for 'Made in Cuba'. Machine-bunched cigars finished by hand add Hecho a mano, while fully handmade cigars say Totalmente a mano. Torcedores, skilled workers who roll cigars by hand, are highly respected in Cuban society and culture, and travel worldwide displaying the art of hand-rolling cigars. Today, most torcedores are women, or torcedoras.
In the United Kingdom, Cuban cigars are distributed through specialist tobacconists. C.Gars Ltd, founded in 1997, is cited as one of the country's largest cigar retailers and distributors.
History
Evidence of tobacco smoking by Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean dates back to the 9th century. Prior to the discovery of the New World in the 15th century, tobacco smoking was unfamiliar to Europeans. In the late 15th century, scouts sent by Christopher Columbus into the interior of Cuba reported seeing "men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf ... suck, absorb, or receive that smoke inside with the breath". The word cohiba means "tobacco" in the Taíno language spoken by the Indigenous Taíno peoples of Cuba.Following the growth of European colonization in the Caribbean and the expansion of the African slave trade, tobacco became a major commodity shipped to Europe. Soon after the expeditions, the Spanish introduced tobacco to other parts of Europe and its popularity spread. The wrapper, filler, and binder of a cigar could all be grown on Cuba, due to favorable qualities in the climate and land. Due to Spain's claim to Cuba, the Spanish dominated the new tobacco industry in the region. During the 17th century, widespread growth in tobacco use led to condemnation and regulation in Europe. In 1606, Philip III of Spain banned the cultivation of tobacco, though this ban was lifted in 1614. Nevertheless, a special tax was thereafter placed on tobacco imports, with Cuban imports subject to the highest rates. In the early 18th century, increased regulation from Spain sparked armed protests from vegueros. Additionally, Spanish settlers were becoming acculturated in Spain, and many became involved in smuggling operations between trading nations.
Cigars rolled in Cuba were not popular in Spain at that time. The majority of tobacco arriving in Spain was processed in Cádiz to be made into cigars, or made into snuff. Spanish settlers in Cuba returning to Spain, however, retained the "expensive and aristocratic vice of smoking Havana cigars, which they had sent to them from Cuba".
Brands
Cuban cigar brands and brand names are among the most recognized and prestigious in the world. Among them are Cohiba, Montecristo, Partagás, H. Upmann, La Gloria Cubana, Hoyo de Monterrey, Punch and Romeo y Julieta. Due to an embargo on the import of Cuban cigars by the United States in 1960, difficulties with maintaining the integrity of these brand names arose. The U.S. refused to recognize Cuban ownership of applicable trademarks, resulting in manufacture and sale by companies in the U.S. and other countries unrelated to the Cuban industry, as well as large scale counterfeiting the more valuable Cuban products.Other prestigious cigar brands formerly made in Cuba include Davidoff and Dunhill, both discontinued there in 1991, but have since moved to other countries.
Exports
Cigars remain one of Cuba's leading exports. A total of 77 million cigars were exported in 1991, 67 million in 1992, and 57 million in 1993, the decline attributed to a loss of much of the wrapper crop in an extreme weather event, which was followed by significant agricultural policy reform and international trade deals that reinvigorated cigar exports in the following years. In 2016 Cuba exported $445 million worth of cigars worldwide, and in 2017, Cuba exported approximately a half billion dollars in cigars. This accounted for 27 percent of goods exports that year.Due to the perceived status and higher price of Cuban cigars, and the difficulty of identifying the provenance of an unlabeled cigar, counterfeits are not unusual. Cuba counters this trend through a series of exercises in demonstrating authenticity, such as guarantee seals and official government receipts.
Competition in the Caribbean
After the Cuban Revolution a number of Cuban Cigar manufacturers moved to other Caribbean countries to carry on production. The Dominican Republic's similar climate and tradition of cigar export assisted in integrating exiled Cuban producers. Consequently, its production of tobacco rose substantially. This was compounded by a second influx of immigrants from Nicaragua, which also has a favorable climate and soil for growing tobacco, after the Sandinista takeover. Some of these immigrants were the same Cubans who had fled to Nicaragua from Cuba after the Cuban Revolution. Further growth was spurred in the Dominican Republic, which has over time become the largest premium exporter of cigars globally. Honduras lags behind its neighbors in cigar production due to sub-par infrastructure, problems controlling the spread of blue mould, and repeated large weather phenomena.The United States embargo has caused unfavorable market conditions for Cuban cigars versus its Caribbean counterparts, which have worked for over half a century to garner positive reputations and notoriety of their own.
International renown and popularity
Cuban cigars as a whole have a global reputation. A reason for this is a strong flavor profile, a result of their particular type of shade-grown tobacco. That profile and reputation are actively maintained. When the opportunity came in the 1990s to cultivate Connecticut leaf tobacco, a type of wrapper doing particularly well in Europe, Cuba refused, conscious of the fact that the Connecticut leaf's flavor profile was not conducive to the image cultivated around the Cuban cigar.The popularity of the Cuban cigar has also manifested as a near-constant demand from Central-and-Western Europe, but that demand extends beyond the West as well; China is the third largest market for Cuban cigars, despite the Chinese trade system driving the price up significantly.
Interest in Cuban cigars has also influenced one of Cuba's tourism industries. Cigar tourism is a particular form of Cuban tourism wherein the tourists are taken on a cigar factory tour, and are given the option to purchase cigars at the end of the tour. These purchases come with special receipts and customs certificates which guarantee authenticity and allow cigars to be transported legally out of the country.
Cigar tourism, combined with the expensiveness of Cuban cigars, leads some Cubans with access to cigars to attempt to sell them at bargain prices on the street. These vendors are known as "jineteros", the same name given to Cuban prostitutes. Counterfeit receipts and customs certificates can be bought from these vendors as well, for a price that rises as the receipts appear more authentic. These practices have risks, as those caught participating in them can be subject to both fines and arrests.
The Smoking Habanera
The 'Smoking Habanera,' often sold in Cuban markets as a type of souvenir, is a small, painted figurine sculpted out of clay. It depicts a black woman with exaggerated feminine characteristics smoking a cigar. It embodies the stereotype of what is perceived to be a traditional Cuban woman. This stereotype is sometimes used by black Cuban women to their advantage, as they will dress in traditional garb, and walk the streets with a cigar, offering to have their picture taken for a price.Smoking laws in Cuba
Smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, esophageal cancer, and mouth cancer are common in Cuba, as are other cancers associated with smoking. Various laws regarding smoking regulations have been on the books in Cuba since the 1980s, but serious efforts were not made to enforce them until around 2005. These laws included bans on tobacco advertisements, prohibiting sales to minors, and bans on smoking in public places. Additionally, educational initiatives were ramped up around this time, addressing public health education on the harm caused by tobacco, putting health warnings on packaging, and instructing doctors to inform their patients at any given opportunity about the dangers of smoking. The response from smokers has been largely negative.Global competition
Competition has come from the United States in several ways. The first of these is the Connecticut leaf, a type of shade tobacco that caused competition in European markets for having a significantly less harsh flavor than Cuba's shade tobacco.The second is the Florida cigar industry originally started before the Revolution due to the "Clear Havana" Cigar. In 1868, cigar manufacturer Vicente Martinez-Ybor moved his cigar operations from Cuba to Key West, Florida to escape conflict and to avoid paying the United States' higher excise tax on imported manufactured products. In 1885, he bought land in Tampa, Florida, and built the cigar manufacturing town of Ybor City. Other manufacturers followed, and Tampa soon became the world's leading cigar producing community by specializing in "Clear Havana" cigars—hand-rolled cigars made from Cuban tobacco by mostly Cuban workers in the United States.
The third is the duplicate brands created by Cuban exiles and the trademarks appropriated by United States Manufacturers. This phenomenon is not unique to the United States. There are currently at least 17 cigar brands being produced both by Cubatabaco in Cuba and completely unrelated non-Cuban manufacturers abroad, including such premium marques as Cohiba, Montecristo, Partagás, and H. Upmann. Cuba's main exporter to Europe, Altadis, owns one of the companies producing these duplicate Cuban cigars, Consolidated Cigar Co.
Outside of the West, Indonesia has periodically presented competition for Cuba in the form of higher tobacco production, and was described in a 1999 edition of Cigar Aficionado magazine as a "tobacco Mecca". The global rise of health concerns pertaining to smoking have impacted the cigar market less severely than the cigarette market, but it has made a visible impact on demand. In response, in the mid-2000s Cuba attempted to develop a less harmful tobacco, dubbed IT-2004.