Moving Forward in Nicaragua

Posted: December 31, 1969

The younger Garcia has a powerful build, a military-style haircut and sleepy eyes, and the frequent smile of a man who realizes he is hitting his stride and doing things very well. He eagerly hands out cigar after cigar. The tobacco is excellent, rich Nicaraguan leaf with lots of character. Some of the smokes are balanced and sublime, others as powerful as an uppercut from one of the Klitschko brothers. All are exquisitely made with the careful construction that has become a Garcia hallmark. Was it difficult to teach the Nicaraguan rollers how to do a three-seam cap, in the Cuban style? "It's not their tradition, so it's difficult," Garcia admits. "We said, 'You need to work more.'"

Garcia's father was a top roller in Cuba, making such cigars as the Montecristo "A." (Back in the late 1950s, Jaime says, the family had a factory in Cuba.) Pepin Garcia left Cuba for Nicaragua, worked with Fernandez in the Jalapa region, then opened El Rey de Los Habanos in 2003. High ratings in Cigar Aficionado soon followed. But the Garcias could only do so much in Miami, where they had all of a dozen rollers. For expansion, they looked to Nicaragua, the source of most of their tobacco.

There are differences. In Miami, the cigars are made by one person, who bunches and wraps. In Nicaragua, the bunching is done by one worker, the rolling by another.

With a nod to Cuban style, the cigars in Nicaragua are rolled with two binder leaves, rather than one large one. "The binders are important in the blend," Jaime Garcia insists. There are also no Temsco bunching machines here, not even for the Cuban-sandwich-style cigars made with a hefty dose of short-filler tobacco.

The factory does quite a bit of business under contract, making cigars for other companies. In addition to Tatuaje owner Pete Johnson and Padilla Cigars, there are Holt's, Cigars International and others. Total production at the factory will be about 3 million cigars.

When asked if they worry that quality will slip with this great expansion of cigar production, the younger Garcia says, "We think we can improve the quality." The high ratings have followed: the Tatuaje Havana VI Angeles, which is made in Estelí, recently scored 93 points.

Garcia is not concerned about Ortega. "Everyone is working in tobacco here. Where are they going to work if everything changes?" he says, reflecting on the importance of the tobacco industry to the Nicaraguan economy.

Toraño Cigars, one of the established Nicaraguan cigarmakers, has reaffirmed its commitment to making cigars in this country by recently acquiring a mountain overlooking the city of Estelí, where it will build a new factory for its cigar production in Nicaragua. The company envisions as many as 400 rollers and 400 bunchers eventually working there. Carlos Toraño Noventa and Toraño 1916 Cameroon will be rolled there, as well as C.A.O. International Inc.'s Nicaraguan cigars. The company also makes the Dunhill Signed Range cigar brand for British giant BAT.

Jose Oliva puts flame to one of his family's cigars.

Tabacalera Oliva Tabolisa has been making great strides in Nicaragua. The family-owned business (known as Oliva Cigar Co. in the United States) makes about 6 million cigars a year, about 90 percent of them Oliva-brand cigars. The rest are private labels. "People think we do a lot more private-label [cigars] than we do," says Jose Oliva, 34, one of the brothers working for the company under the tutelage of patriarch Gilberto Oliva Sr., 76, who came to Nicaragua in 1964 from San Juan y Martinez, Cuba. After working for others, in 1969 Gilberto struck out on his own to grow tobacco, but he had to leave in 1979 with the turmoil facing Nicaragua. "In between, Dad grew tobacco in Honduras, Mexico, Panama and the Philippines," says Gilberto Jr. "In 1995, he came back."

Over the past 12 years the Olivas have grown their business, surviving the tough days that followed the cigar boom and now prospering thanks to the succulent blends they make using well-aged tobacco, much of it grown on their own farms. Jose and his older brother, Gilberto Jr., show off several warehouses.

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