France, Spain and Portugal were the first European countries to experience tobacco. In the 18th century, Havana Madrid got permission to convert part of the tobacco of the island. The first factories opened their doors. The cigar as we know it, composed entirely of tobacco, was invented in Seville. It was wrapped in leaves of other plants. In Cuba, the first signs appeared in 1810. That is when the cigar of Cuba took the name of Havana and, in absolute pre-eminence, stalked all the medals at the international expositions.
Although the French, Spanish, British and many other countries also make cigars, Havana is still the prince of cigars, being very commercialized and smoked in some regions of the United States (or as everyone knows, there is no law) and northern Europe.
Composition
A cigar is composed of a head, a body and a foot in the longitudinal direction. The head is the closed end the smoker should be able to incise or cut, so that he inhales the smoke. The body represents the entire straight or tapered or twisted cylinder, connecting the head to the toe. The foot has the cut end open for the smoker to see the inside of the module.
In width, we find the wrapper, the binder and the filler. The wrapper is the outer shell of the cigar, consisting of a single half-sheet of high quality spirally wound. The binder separates the cape of the filler and is made of two halves of sheets stacked and rolled in the opposite direction of the veins in order to give firmness. As for the tripe, the heart of the cigar, it is made of 3 sheets of different qualities, which give the character, strength and richness of the aroma altogether.
The tripe
It is the tobacco inside the cigar. The filler consists of three sheets of various origins: ligero, seco and volado.
- The ligero leaf is at the top of the plant, receiving direct light. It gives strength to the cigar.
- Seco is picked up and gives its aroma
- Gathered at the foot, volado also ensures a proper combustion of the cigar.
The binder
The binder is the interlayer, placed between the filler and the wrapper. Its role is to maintain the filler.
The cape
The cape is the skin of the cigar. If it does not constitute the bulk of Havana, the cape does not count in reality and its weight and quality are far from negligible. It affects the burning ash on the cigar and plays some role in revealing the "like salt in a dish" concept as Cuban torcedores like to say.
The ring
The ring is the signature of the manufacturer, formed into rings in brightly colored paper. The legendary origin of the rig dates back in the 18th century. They used a strip of paper they were driving near the head to protect their fingers or gloves. However, the father of this dress is Gustave Bock, a merchant of the Netherlands, who marked the Havanas he sold in 1850 to recall the memory of its customers. 25 October 1884, the Union of Havana Manufacturers officially endorsed the concept of the ring. Therefore, the importer was established according to the fineness of the ring produced. Here is why red and gold often dominate the palette of colors.
Ignition
Ignition is a crucial moment in the art of cigar smoking. The cigar is made and rolled so that the drawing is as constant as possible. But, poorly lit, the best cigar will be smoked badly. The flame should be bright and odor free. First, one must warm the foot of the cigar and then light up the whole section, drawing several small puffs together. The first puffs are also not the best, not giving off the flavor of the cigar that was warmed by the fire.
Accessories
A priori, one might think that smoking cigars does not require any accessories, except the fire lighter, of course.
Yet, one of the most useful accessories is the cigar cutter. Many amateurs still use the bite to open their cigar. But apart from highlighting the lack of elegance as well as the difficulty to spit out the torn end, this may damage the head. The cigar cutter makes it possible to make a clean and precise cut and damage neither the head nor the cape.
Choose a humidor to keep your cigars. For a smoker, this is like a cellar for a wine lover. One should keep the cigars at a temperature of 15-20 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity of 60-70%. If they do not have one, they should find a place where it is dark and where the temperature remains constant.
Manufacturing processes
Tobacco cultivation requires constant care. After preparing the land in July-August, sow it in September and transplant the seedlings in mid-November. The growth of the feet must be closely watched. A farmer should check each foot of tobacco150 times. Harvesting is done entirely by hand and sheet by sheet from January. Once the leaves have been harvested, they are stored in the Casa de tabaco between 20 and 50 days, where they dry.
After the first fermentation at 35 degrees, the leaves are sorted, wetted and the tie is removed (an operation which involves removing the central vein). A second fermentation at 42 degrees will last about 60 days, then the leaves will be collected in bundles.
After about 6 months to 2 years of ripening, they are shipped to factories. In the factory, the cigars are rolled by hand by torcedores in the room called the Galera (the pain). Factories were prisons in the early 19th century. This model was born of the custom of the torcedores, who sat in long rows, like galley slaves. Each torcedor makes bundles of fifty cigars, in which he slides his mark. A cigar is removed from each bundle, for the weight and size to be checked.
The cigars are divided into classes according to their color after they have rested for several weeks. The last step is the banding and packaging. After a final stay in the store, the cigars are sent to their destination.
The story...
If you do not know when men began to smoke, you should know that the Europeans were unaware of tobacco before Christopher Columbus reported its existence in the New World in 1492. The Portuguese and Spanish sailors then took up smoking. The word cigar, which starts to appear in the current language in the late eighteenth century, comes from the Mayan "sikar", which became "cigarro" in Spanish.
The first cigar, at least in the form as we know them today, was manufactured with Cuban tobacco in the early eighteenth century. The name "Havana", used to designate this type of tobacco in Cuba, emerged during the same period. However, we no longer speak of "Havana", but "Habano". Indeed, Cubans have decided to protect their name by making an appellation of origin (PDO). A cigar is only entitled to the appellation "Habano" if it was rolled in Cuba, from leaves collected in Cuba.
Over time, cigars were adopted in various shapes and sizes, from the classic robusto module to longer or shorter modules...
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