How Real Traditional Cuban Cigars Are Made in Cuba

Ever wondered how traditional Cuban cigars are made? If you are curious then I explain the process below.

Step 1 – Growing the Seeds

The cigar-making process begins with tiny little seeds which are first planted in nurseries outdoors in the sun.

A little after one month, the seeds will already have grown to between 6 and 8 inches high and are ready for re-planting into the tobacco fields.

Field workers tentatively pull the small plants out of the ground, one at a time.

It is very tough work for the field workers and physically demanding.

Each stage of the process in fact is quite physical in the cigar-making process as I will explain!

When the field workers have collected a hundred seedlings, they shake the soil off of the roots and then tie them into bunches.

The bunches are left in the field so that the workers can continue picking.

These bunches are collected later and then sorted and put into piles.

Workers must get the seedlings to the permanent field within a few hours as otherwise, they will die.

The seedlings are carefully carried out to be replanted in the very fertile soil of the tobacco field.

Before the seedlings are replanted, the soil is plowed into deep furrows.

After that, a foreman passes out the bunches of seedlings to a large team of workers known in Spanish as ‘vegueros’ and the replanting begins.

The soil will have already been irrigated and its chemical composition analyzed, to determine what nutrients need to be replenished and which are lacking.

The vegueros place the seedlings into the moist earth about 12 to 15 inches apart.

There is nothing automated about this process, with the work all done by hand manually. It normally takes between one and two weeks to fully plant a standard-sized tobacco field of 20 acres.

Step 2 – Growing the Tobacco

After the planting comes a light plowing, to loosen the earth, followed a few days later by the application of fertilizer, which is normally a combination of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and magnesium.

During the whole of this process, the plants are carefully checked and the soil is kept loose around the plant, to aid optimum growth. In the Caribbean Cuban climate, the tobacco plants thrive.

After 3 weeks, the tobacco plants will have grown to around 2 to 3 feet high, which is about half of their final height.

The tobacco continues to grow for another three weeks and the tobacco field will now look like a solid carpet of thriving rich green tobacco plants.

The tobacco is now picked from the plants but in a strategic manner.

Step 3 – Picking the Tobacco

The pickers will pick the bottom third of the tobacco on the plant and go through a row of plants only picking this section of the plant.

They will then go through the same row, picking the middle third and then the top third of the plant.

The point of doing it this way is that the higher up the plant the tobacco is from, the stronger the nicotine and nutrients.

This is how we get different grades of cigar!

Eventually, every plant in the field will be picked from, the tobacco leaves stored in the barns and then dried and then eventually used in the fillet of a cigar.

The tobacco that provides the 4 or 5 leaves which are used in the cigar’s filler is picked by hand in six stages, each stage taking roughly one week each.

The harvest goes from the bottom up and each passer moves only two or three leaves.

About 4 months after originally planting the seedlings, the harvest is ready.

Stage 4 – The Curing and Drawing Process

Once the tobacco leaves are harvested, they are taken to the curing barns for the drawing process.

There is though another type of tobacco that also goes into the making of a cigar, besides the filler.

It is the ‘capa’ tobacco and this requires special cultivation.

It is grown under a cloth tenting called ‘tapado’ and this tenting diffuses the sunlight on the laves so they grow whiter and thinner.

Just like the outdoor sun-grown tobacco, the capa tobacco has taken the same time to mature and grow and the picking process is similar with the plants picked from bottom to top.

A typical mature plant yields about sixteen leaves, providing enough leaves for around thirty-two cigar wrappers.

The standards for a Cuban cigar though are very high and only six or seven of the leaves will be considered good enough.

The other leaves are often used for the binder of filler.

The best wrappers come from the middle of the plant.

The darker top of the leaf is often used to make the darker cigars such as the limitadas.

The harvested tobacco leaves will now be taken to the curing barns.

These barns are aligned east to west so that the sun warms one end of the shed in the morning and the other end in the afternoon.

Inside the barns, women string the leaves in pairs, onto big needles, which are then hung on long large wooden poles.

The poles are placed on long horizontal supports and the leaves are left to dry.

It takes almost two months for the leaves to dry. Initially, the leaves turn from green to yellow, and then, through the oxidation process, they take on the golden brown color which we are accustomed to seeing when we see Cuban cigars.

Next, the tobacco goes through a selection and then a second fermentation process, before it goes to the factories in Havana.

In Havana in the factories, you will see bundles of tobacco and wrapper leaves.

The tobacco is taken out and the bunches of leaves are loosened by being shaken, in preparation for the leaves to be moistened.

After they are moistened, the tobacco is left for 24 hours, and then it is taken to the ‘galera’ to be rolled.

This moistening makes the leaves elastic, and which makes it easier to roll. This end moistening process is one of the few in the cigar-making process in which machines are used.

Workers carefully pan the tobacco out like a flower and place each bunch on a carousel.

The machine is sealed and is turned on and set to move slowly as the tobacco is gradually moistened in the water.

Overnight, the tobacco is hung up so that the humidity can evenly distribute itself on the leaves.

The next day, the leaves are ready to be classified by texture, color, and size. The size is important because there can be anywhere between 10 and 30 different sizes.

De-stemming of the leaf takes place and this is done according to the ultimate use of the leaf.

One-quarter of the central vein of the leaf is used for the filler, half is used for the binder, and the entire remains are removed for the wrapper.

Stage 5 – Classifying the Cigar and Fillers

Next, the tobacco is separated into specific classifications and weighed and planned for each specific cigar brand.

Next is the ‘La Galera’ or in English, the rolling room, where the perfect leaves are turned into cigars, with each worker normally processing around one hundred cigars a day.

Three different types of filler tobaccos are manually put together for the specific brand of the cigar being made. Then the filler is rolled into binder tobacco.

The cigars which are rolled are all unique, with every cigar hand-made and artistically created by the cigar makers in the factory.

The cigars are then put into a plastic or wooden mold and the mold placed into a press.

These presses are rotated for up to one hour and this helps to create even sides on the cigars, to create round equal-sided cigars.

And finally, the wrapper is out on the cigars and the tip is finished off by hand and the end cut.

Further Resources

If you have the chance, make a trip to Finca Alejandro Robaina (the plantation of Cuba’s most famous cigar grower Alejandro Robaina).

Alejandro sadly passed away in 2010, but you can still visit his plantation which is now run by his grandson.

The plantation is on the Vuelta Abajo area and, if you visit during the tobacco season between November and February, there are numerous organized tours for tourists who visit the finca (plantation).