The cigar is a cylinder of dried, fermented and rolled tobacco leaves, which can
be smoked.
It is very likely that the first tobacco plants were discovered by the first
Europeans on the island of Santo Domingo, although the plant was present
throughout the Caribbean archipelago. The tobacco used for cigars is grown in
significant quantities in countries such as Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United States.
Cigars made in Cuba have long been considered unparalleled, thanks to the unique
microclimate of the Vuelta Abajo area, in the province of Pinar del Río in the
west of the island, where tobacco of very high quality — imported to the island,
which originally had a much stronger and more acrid variety — is worked thanks
to the skill and experience of the cigar makers.
After the 1959 revolution, the cigar factories were nationalized, which led to
the mass emigration of almost all the more experienced managers, along with a
good part of the skilled workforce, to the nearby island of Santo Domingo, as
well as to Nicaragua and Honduras — countries which, until then, had been
entirely marginal in the manufacture and marketing of cigars.
The Cuban government has since partially recovered from this very serious
crisis, and today Cuba is once again considered by many to be a place of
excellence for a variety of vitola products, even as it continues to face fierce
competition, both in quantity and quality, from Santo Domingo and, to a lesser
extent, from Honduras and Nicaragua. In Europe, the manufactures of the
Netherlands and Germany have also been considered of a good standard, as has
Italy, with its various types of Toscano cigars.
(source: Wikipedia)
(Selection 2026)