Cuban cigars are rolled from tobacco leaves found throughout the country of Cuba. The filler, binder, and wrapper may come from different portions of the island. All cigar production in Cuba is controlled by the Cuban government, and each brand may be rolled in several different factories in Cuba.

“Torcedores” are highly respected in Cuban society and culture, and they travel worldwide displaying their art of hand rolling cigars.

Habanos SA and Cubatabaco between them do all the work relating to Cuban cigars, including manufacture, quality control, promotion and distribution, and export. Cuba produces both handmade and machine-made cigars. All boxes and labels are marked “Hecho en Cuba” (Spanish for made in Cuba).

Machine-bunched cigars finished by hand add “Hecho a mano”, while fully handmade cigars say “Totalmente a mano” in script text, though not all Cuban cigars will include this statement. Because of the perceived status of Cuban cigars, counterfeits are somewhat commonplace.

Despite American trade sanctions against those products, they are one of the country’s leading exports, exporting 77 million in 1991, 67 million in 1992, and 57 million in 1993, the decline attributed to a loss of much of the wrapper crop in a hurricane.

The heart of the distinction is the tobacco and its taste born of a combination of four factors that exist only in Cuba: the soil, the climate, the varieties of Cuban black tobacco seed and the know-how of the tobacco growers and cigar makers.

Other places may have acquired some Cuban skills, even some Cuban seeds, but never the natural gifts of the Cuban soil and the Cuban climate. These you will find nowhere else.

Nor will you find anything that matches the centuries-old culture of cultivating Cuban tobacco: the extraordinary labor that the tobacco farmer invests in his crop; the months and years of patient waiting before his leaf is deemed fit for a Habano.

A further distinction lays in the definition of the term “Habanos”. All Habanos are Cuban, but by no means all Cuban cigars are Habanos.

All crafted “Totalmente a Mano” which means totally by hand using methods that were pioneered in Havana two centuries ago and remain virtually unchanged to this day.