In brief
- Tobacco was used on the island long before European arrival.
- Havana became a centre of cigar manufacturing in the nineteenth century.
- Many of today’s best-known marques trace their origins to that period.
The story of Cuban cigars is the story of a plant, a place and a craft. Tobacco was cultivated and smoked by the Indigenous Taíno people well before Europeans reached the Caribbean, and members of Christopher Columbus’s first expedition in 1492 are traditionally credited as the first Europeans to record the practice.
From colonial monopoly to open trade
Under Spanish rule, tobacco became a valuable commodity. In the early eighteenth century the Crown established a monopoly over the purchase and export of Cuban tobacco, a system that caused lasting friction with growers. The monopoly was abolished in 1817, and the freer trade that followed helped cigar manufacturing flourish on the island itself rather than in Spain.
Havana’s golden century
Through the nineteenth century, hundreds of workshops and factories opened in Havana. Several houses founded in this period are still familiar names: Partagás: One of Havana’s Oldest Houses traces Partagás to 1845, H. Upmann is dated to 1844, and Romeo y Julieta to 1875. Makers competed with distinctive lithographed boxes and bands, many of which are still reflected in today’s packaging.
Factory life developed its own culture. From the 1860s, the tradition of the lector — a reader who read newspapers and novels aloud to the rolling floor — spread through Havana’s factories. It is often said that the Montecristo marque took its name from a novel popular with those audiences; see Montecristo Cigars: History of a Numbered Classic.
The land behind the leaf
Much of the reputation of Cuban cigars rests on the growing regions of western Cuba, above all Vuelta Abajo in the province of Pinar del Río. Soil, climate and generations of farming experience are all credited for the character of the leaf. Our article on How Cuban Cigars Are Made follows that leaf from seedbed to box.
The twentieth century
After the 1959 revolution, the cigar industry was nationalised, and many owning families left the island; some went on to produce cigars under familiar brand names elsewhere, which is why certain names exist in both Cuban and non-Cuban versions. New marques were also created in Cuba, including Cohiba: The History of a Modern Cuban Marque, first made in the 1960s.
Today, international distribution of Cuban cigars is handled centrally, and the name Habano is protected as a designation of origin. For an overview of the marques, see Cuban Cigar Brands: A Guide to the Marques; to understand the sizes they are made in, read Understanding Cigar Vitolas.
