My tour stopped at the door of the conditioning room. The filler leaves are separated according to their strength-volado, seco or ligero-and put into black plastic bags with designations for which cigar brands they are destined for, and moved to a conditioning room. If they are wrapper leaves, they are sorted by color and size, and then they are moved to the blending room. The next day the leaves are moved from the casing room to the second floor of the factory, where they are stripped of their center veins. This system has replaced the old method of men shaking leaves under a mister, or simple wooden racks in a room that was filled with moist air. The poles move in circles along tracks through a steady stream of mist for several hours up to a day. At La Corona there are three glass-sided machines, each with seven- to eight-foot-high poles with arms on which the tobacco is hung. Today in many cigar factories-even in Cuba-this has become an ultra-mechanized process.
The hands, each tied with a string, are placed in a container and then moved to the moistening, or casing, room. Two men, Torres Medina and Castillo (neither gave their first names) said they had been doing the job for more than 50 years. One bundle still on the floor wore the stenciled letters V D-1, which designates a specific farm in the Viñales region, a notation of type (seco), the crop year (2009) and then a weight for the bundle.įrom there the leaves go into a kind of first stage revision room, where the leaves in the bundle are counted by zafadores, or sorters, and given a quick once-over for quality and tied together in bunches of leaves known as hands. The tobacco arrives in big bundles, wrapped in either burlap or palm fronds, and marked with codes designating where the leaves are from. In early June, La Corona’s storage room was almost empty because the new month’s shipment hadn’t arrived, although it wasĮxpected later in the week. According to Hernandez Fuente, the factory receives a tobacco shipment about once a month from the main warehouse of Tabacuba, where the tobacco is aged and stored. It’s the first area for tobacco classification. The metal gates that open on Avenida 20 de Maio lead into a large loading zone, which has direct access to a storage space that feels like a basement. La Corona was open, and it was a good choice: in fact, I had never visited there before, so I approached it with a fresh eye. The request took some time to filter through the bureaucracy of Habanos S.A., and the week I arrived, several factories had actually been shut down due to the excessive humidity in Havana during the last week of May and early June. Rather, I asked to be taken on the same journey a single tobacco leaf makes from the time it comes through the front door until it leaves in a box. I have toured dozens of cigar factories in my 20 years at Cigar Aficionado, but this time I wanted to do more than just walk around. The multistory building makes a host of cigars: Romeo y Julieta, Hoyo de Monterrey, Cuaba, Por Larrañaga, Saint Luis Rey, San Cristóbal de la Habana, and, like nearly every cigarmaking facility in Cuba, some Montecristos. Factory manager Roddy Manuel Valdez and Osmar Hernandez Fuente, his number two, are settling in to oversee one of the biggest cigar factories in Havana. The workers are filtering into the building, getting ready for another day of making cigars. I will then adjust the postage accordingly.By 7:30 in the morning, Avenida 20 de Maio is bustling with buses, motorbikes and a steady stream of old cars passing in front of the La Corona Cigar Factory. If more then one item is desired, please add them to your basket and request an invoice from me before paying. I am happy to combine postage if necessary. Please also have a look in my eBay shop for other interesting and unusual items (by clicking the link).
In that case I will always add an "out of office" message to advise you. It may however take a little longer if I'm away. Postage will be 2nd class, which I aim to despatch as quickly as possible. Please have a look at the photographs to determine the condition and detailing and if you have any questions then please just ask. This is a great looking item which measures 21.7cms by 16.2cms by 3.3cms. Item: 164414696176 Vintage La Corona cigar box (empty) - Made in the USA.
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