Three companies want to accelerate the curing of the leaf with solar heaters to increase production
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 31 July 2024 — Sancti Spíritus has initiated a series of tobacco “experiments” that violate the golden rule of the cigar: never produce it in mass. The idea – supported by an “unpublished investment” of the monopoly Habanos S.A. – is to enhance the controlled curing of the leaf, a euphemism that hides accelerated production by artificial means.
The curing process, which normally requires between 45 and 55 days, will now take only one month. Three producers from the municipality of Cabaiguán – the tobacco-growing territory par excellence in the center of the country – are the “pioneers” of the new process, which aims, even if the official press does not mention it, to remedy the terrible results obtained by the province last year, the worst in its productive history. Only one-sixth of the tobacco that was harvested was good enough for export.
Now, and against the basic rules of a crop where there are no short cuts to achieve excellence, the province wants a quick curing of the leaf for more cigars and better quality. The “new project” has solar heaters to accelerate the drying, which Escambray celebrates because Habanos S.A. also paid for them as a strategy to “reduce the consumption of electricity and fossil fuel.”
The province’s Communist Party newspaper admits that the investment still has no “use value”
The first signs of failure are already there: the province’s Communist Party newspaper admits that – although they have been experimenting with this method for two years – the investment still does not have “use value” and that not a single cigar has been exported with the new method, although the producers say that there is “a high degree of progress” in the project’s infrastructure.
To recover the status of “leading territory” of the cigar, along with Pinar del Río, is the aspiration of the three state producers who have benefited from the investment. Yoandi Rodríguez, Aniskyn de la Cruz and Nelson González intend, in their words, to “bring technology closer to the field.”
“The cigar is less damaged” than when it dries naturally – a process with several centuries of implementation – argue the producers, who promise to increase the amount of exportable leaf. However, the result has to go through the review of the experts and Cuba’s very demanding international customers, who quickly detect any drop in the quality of a product that is very expensive.
The producers centralized the whole process in their cooperatives, from planting to curing
The producers centralized the whole process in their cooperatives, from the planting to the curing, drying and picking of the leaf that is then sent to province’s factories. Sancti Spíritus has tried to improve the fast-track production numbers at any cost, given that the regime chose the province as the venue of the July 26 events and the harvesters were required to be “up to the task” of the “honor.”
This was the case of the Roberto Rodríguez Cigar Factory for Export, which produced 4,000 cigars a day – 96,000 units a month – during the first quarter of 2024. The Roberto Rodríguez takes care of the premium cigars that Sancti Spíritus delivers to Habanos S.A., which end up in the luxury humidors of Spain, China, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
Its principal brands are Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo and Juliet, Partagás, Rey del Mundo, Bolívar, San Luis and Trinidad, the cigar “invented by Fidel Castro” that the regime has vigorously promoted this year.
Roberto Rodríguez’s tobacco growers are paid 27,000 pesos per month – in April there were 40,000 – thanks to the fact that international sales skyrocketed by “180%,” its director alleged. The money has contained the “fluctuation of the workforce,” as the official called the stampede of state workers that characterized 2023. Now the factory staff is “almost covered.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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