Cigar Manufacturing

The making of a premium hand-rolled cigar is a complicated process. In some factories, a leaf may be touched by human hands up to 40 times before the cigar is completed.

Growing the Tobacco
Cigar tobacco reaches the factory after a series of six-week periods; six weeks to germinate seeds before transplanting to a field; six weeks to grow the tobacco plant to maturity; six weeks for a complete harvest, followed by a series of periods of fermentation. In the fermentation stage, workers pile slightly moistened tobacco in huge bales or stacks; temperatures inside the bales reach as high as 140° as the cigar "sweats" during the early stages of the fermentation. Some tobacco may be "turned" up to three of four times and remoistened before fermentation finally ceases. The process releases ammonia from the tobacco and releases overall nicotine content.

Workers then wrap the fermented tobacco in bales, usually surrounded by burlap, to age. Standard aging time is 18 months to two years, although some manufacturers keep inventories of tobacco as old as 10 years. Before workers turn over the tobacco to the rollers, they "case" it, or slightly dampen it again, to make it supple.

Making the Cigar
A cigar blend is created by a master blender, someone who combines tobaccos of varying tastes and strengths to create a particular taste in a balanced, harmonious smoke. Depending on its ring gauge, a cigar will contain a blend of between two and four different tobaccos. Each type of tobacco leaf is placed in different boxes at the roller's desk, and the roller is given the formula for the cigar he or she is making.

The roller takes the leaves and presses them together in his hand; he then places the leaves on a binder leaf, a flat, somewhat elastic leaf of tobacco. He rolls them together into a "bunch," cuts them to the appropriate length and then places them in the bottom half of a wooden mold. After he puts the upper half of the mold in place, he puts the entire box into a screw press. The press operator will usually break down the press once, turn the bunch inside the mold and then rebox and press the bunch again, for a total pressing time of about an hour.

Once the worker has pressed the cigar, he returns the wooden molds to the rolling tables. The roller removes the bunch and wraps it with the wrapper leaf, a supple, very elastic and visually beautiful leaf that has been cut in half. Keeping constant pressure on the bunch and the wrapper, the cigar maker rolls the leaf around the bunch and applies a bit of vegetable glue to bond the wrapper leaf together at the head so the cigar won't unravel.

Supervisors inspect each cigar by hand. They feel it for weight and for any hard spots, which could indicate a plug, or soft spots, which can cause an uneven burn. They reject defective cigars. Then, in most factories, workers weigh the cigars in bunches of 50. Good cigar makers will have less than 1 gram of variation between 50-cigar bunches. Bunches with significant weight variations may be returned to the roller.

Aging the Cigar
The next stop for cigars is the aging room. Most factories age their cigars for at least 21 days, and some leave them in the aging room for anywhere from 90 to 180 days. This allows the different cigar tobaccos to "marry" and create a more balanced smoke. After aging, the cigars are selected for each box, checked for fine gradations in wrapper leaf color, and finally, they are packed in boxes for shipping.

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