Premium cigars

Premium cigars are the best of a determined brand. World class companies strive to give the public the best of what they can offer and go to extreme efforts to achieve this goal. They begin with the selection of the harvest. There are very good years and bad ones, places in the fields where the leaves were well fed, rain came just in time and the tobacco grew beautifully. Some of these leaves were not collected at the appropriate time and some leaves were not ready to be cut or were starting to age. All the production is gathered in the factory and then the selection begins, sometimes a couple of years are needed to assemble the necessary leafs for the entire production process. Leaves that were too old, too young or too small are discarded. Of the remaining leaves only a few will make the into the premium cigars. They are carefully examined for beetles and other infections. Outer leafs are striped of all veins, if done properly an even burn of the cigar will be achieved. This is why at every step of the process, a new selection is made.

Truly premium cigars are aged at least a year and a half before rolling. But don't be amazed of hearing about premiums 10 or 17 years old. The most experienced and capable rollers are assigned to the production. Also, special care goes into the unfolding of wrapper leafs of premium cigars and then they are deveined.

After the cigar was rolled, traditionally it rested for another year, but the new boom has increased demand and shipment is done immediately, so it's up to you to let them rest to truly appreciate the desired taste the manufacturers intended to give their premium cigars.

The cigar is individually scrutinized for size and weight to select only the ones that live up to the company's standards.

The remaining cigars, the ones not selected are sold very cheaply as "segundos", these cigars were sold only to recover the elaboration investment but could be pretty good smokes. Slowly people found this out and the demand for segundos started to rise, making them, not so cheap any more. The demand for good premium cigars makes a company produce more segundos to let the trainees learn enough so they can be promoted to the elaboration of premium cigars. The need for qualified rollers has been so big, sometimes extra leaves are shipped in just to train them, but the resulting segundos are of very inferior quality.