Esteli Cigar Factory Wednesday 06 May 2009

Today four of us went to a local cigar factory in Esteli to see the process of making cigars. Apparently it is big money in this area and the factories employ numerous people. The tobacco is dried at the local farms for three months before it is shipped to the factory. At the factory everything is done by hand. The leaves are graded for colour, size, scent and quality. The stems are removed and the leaves are flattened out and stacked. The leaves are then weighed and dried for up to a year in the storage area. The small leaves and broken parts are mixed regardless of colour and stored in a box to ferment and essential change to a uniform colour though heat and time. Once a specified type of tobacco leaf is needed it goes to the wet room where it is soaked and then placed in a humid room for several hours, this softens the leaf so it can be rolled. The second grading stage is where the leaves are separated into two halves, only the quality parts are used for the outside roll, the rest are used as the filler leaves. Once the tobacco is graded it is assigned to workers to make into cigars.
The workers work as teams, one does the rough rolling and the other the finishing and rounding the end to the specified type. The cigars are placed in a press before the final roll and shaping. They are inspected before being accepted for storage. Any pieces or rejected cigars are placed in bin to be recycled and the parts that cannot be used are shipped back to the farms as fertilizer.
After inspection and storage for about one month the cigars are sent downstairs to be labeled and packaged and then boxed for shipment. Most of the work is done by women workers. The cigars are not usually sold in many places as they are made under the Central American Free Trade Agreement and are shipped all over the world. So I bought some cigars for very close friends and I will not say what ridiculous price I paid for them!