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Costa Rican Handmade Cigars
Costa Rica is poised to become the hottest new region in a cigar world dominated by Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Ideal tobacco-growing conditions combined with the fertile volcanic soil, ensure that Costa Rica produces some of the best quality cigars in the world.
Costa Rican handmade cigars are exactly what they imply. From hand picking the tobacco leaves to rolling the cigar, the only exception is the use of the cigar mold. Many cigars produced in this country are Costa Rican Puro, meaning that all of the tobacco making up the cigar is grown in Costa Rica.
The quality and flavor of a cigar depends on the drying and fermenting, or curing process of the tobacco leaves as well as the quality of the tobacco itself. The job of the cigar maker is to create the perfect blend of tobacco leaves with each of the different parts of the cigar, the wrapper, filler, and binder.
The wrapper is a single tobacco leaf that comprises the outer layer of the cigar. The quality of the tobacco leaves used for the wrappers is very high and they play an important role in the way a cigar tastes. Wrappers range in color from light to dark. Wrapper leaves are often grown in the shade under a canopy to make them thinner and more elastic, yielding a better quality wrapper.
The binder also consists of a single tobacco leaf, but is the secondary layer in a cigar. The purpose of the binder is to hold the filler in place. The filler is composed of the tightly rolled bunch of tobacco leaves that are the heart of the cigar.
There are two different types of fillers, long and short. Long fillers are comprised of whole leaves that run the length of the cigar. Short fillers are smaller pieces of tobacco and not entire leaves. Short fillers are generally machine-processed. Most Costa Rican cigars are made with long fillers, an indication that they are handmade.
Tobacco has a long history of use in Costa Rica. Originally domesticated by the indigenous populations, it was used for medicinal and religious customs. As European settlers arrived and began trading with the native people, the tobacco plant (Nicotiana spp.) slowly became interbred with tobacco seeds from other countries.
Today the tobacco crop is grown on small family farms, plantations, or farm cooperatives in the mountainous Santiago de Puriscal region of Costa Rica, approximately 3500 to 4500 feet above sea level. It is a mixture of seeds from Cuba and Costa Rica.
Tobacco leaves are picked by hand and then dried in open air sheds. After the tobacco is dried, the leaves are packed into flat bundles and transported to small factories where they are fermented. Then the leaves are placed into a deep freeze to kill off any insect larva or microscopic eggs that might be remaining on the leaves. Finally, all of the major veins are removed from the tobacco leaves and they are ready to become wrappers, fillers, or binders.
The cigar maker cuts the leaves to size and rolls them to form all the parts of the cigar, then places them in mold. When the cigar is completely finished it is cured for a period of ninety days. After the final curing period the cigar is ready for distribution to the rest of the world.
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