Cuban Cigar Manufacturers Turn to a New Audience – Women

The crisis in the pockets of Europeans, combined with the increasingly widespread smoking ban, has eroded yet another prestigious symbol of style – the Cuban cigar. The Cuban government recently announced that production for export fell from 217 million in 2006 to 123 million in 2008, finishing last year at just 73 million pieces of the renowned tobacco wrappers.

Without them, photographs of Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, Sigmund Freud, or Fidel in his prime are almost unimaginable. Habanos S. A., a joint company of Cuba and the British Imperial Tobacco Group and the exclusive distributor of Cuban cigars in the global market, recorded an eight percent drop in sales last year. The reason lies in the crisis of purchasing power among the middle class, who embraced various glamorous habits in good times, and an important reason is the decline in the number of air travelers, as 25 percent of Cuban cigars are sold in duty-free shops.

The toll has also been taken by the increasingly widespread prohibition of smoking and exposure to tobacco products precisely in the countries with the highest number of aficionados, namely Spain, France, Germany, and Switzerland. Only Great Britain and the USA follow them. The total export sales recorded by Habanos S. A. fell from 243 million dollars in 2008 to 218 million in 2009. Much of what is associated with these elegant tobacco sticks evokes the romantic mystique of distant lands and adventure novels, starting from the names of the most famous brands – Montecristo, Cohiba, Partagas, Romeo y Julieta (Churchill’s favorite brand), or Trinidad – to the legend of how they are rolled by the hands of exotic Cuban women in hot workshops.

It is known that J. F. Kennedy sent his press secretary to Cuba before the imposition of the economic embargo to bring him a supply of 1,200 pieces of his favorite Petit H Upmanns. That brand still dominates the global cigar market with a 70 percent share. However, the romantic legend is one thing, and the recessionary reality is another: tobacco production for cigars is also declining in Cuba. The area under tobacco decreased by 30 percent last year: in the tobacco region of Pinar del Río, the harvest fell from 26 to 22.4 million leaves, or 14 percent.

This will also affect production and sales in the coming years as the leaves must ferment at least twice and age for several months, and sometimes years, to achieve the required quality. Some cigar brands require triple fermentation of the leaf for their special aroma, e.g., the most prestigious brand Cohibas, almost part of Castro’s political legacy as it was made especially for him in 1966. (Davorka Zmijarević)