The secret of the best tobacco of the world on your Cuba Holidays.
On your Caribbean Holidays you have to visit Pinar del Rio, where light clouds cross by, rubbing breezes that blow by combing the thatches and of the palm trees. The most beautiful scenery is given to you on your holidays in Cuba; you can see foliage by the edge of a river that reaches its top strength under the deep blue sky with the beautiful ornament of your green tobacco fields. The secret of tobacco can be discovered by you on your Cuba holidays while visiting Pinar del rio. Your Holidays in Cuba will show you that Tobacco is a plant that hails from South America. As part of your all inclusive holidays in Cuba you will realize that tobacco is as older as Cuba is. On November 6, 1942, Christopher Columbus jotted down in his diary. “Late last night, the two men I dispatched to explore the hinterlands came back (…) The two Christians found along the way many people who presented their own people, men and women, with a charred stick in their hands, herbs, to accompany the aromatic smoke the usually inhale.” This fact took place in the province of Holguin, however, the best tobacco is the one from Vueltabajo, between the Hondo and Cuyaguateje rivers, especially from the plantations of San Juan y Martinez, San Luis Pinardel Rio and Guane and this marvellous place with its secrets is waiting for you on your Cuba Holidays. And it is the satisfaction of all Cubans that this famous plant is also very rich for its medicinal properties, it can act as a narcotic, a laxative, parasite killer, antitetanic and in the treatment of bladder paralysis.
Some of history and tradition on your luxury holidays in Cuba
If you decide to visit Pinar del Rio on your Cuba Holidays, you will be a witness of the complete process of the tobacco industry that starts on the fields and ends on such famous boxes with its emblematic aroma. Once there as part of your package holidays, you will know that it is true that it comes from South America, but there is a Cuban species, the havanensis, that was recovered somewhere else between 1915 and 1919, and recognized as the genuine Cuban tobacco, let alone a top quality that gets better and better with each passing year. While being on your summer holidays you will see that the growing of these plants takes tons of experience and expertise. Each and every step must be taken like clockwork and with the highest quality standards. On your Cuba holidays you will realize that this is the only way of sending to the cigar factories the finest leaves for the hand-rolling process. The process is wrapped up with the lovely cedar boxes and the rings that Cuba feels so proud of.
Cuban Cigar real process witnessed by you on your Cuba Holidays.
Now that you are on your luxury holidays in Pinar del rio you are ready to know that the making of a Cuban cigar takes two productive processes: one in the field and the other one in the factory. Together with the farmer you can be part of this legendary process while you are on your all inclusive holidays in Cuba. Then, put on your boots and hat that your Caribbean holidays are going to be unforgettable. The first process kicks off at the seedbeds, with the seeds germinating within a week. The tiny plants must be protected from sun expose and five days later, in the second half of October, they are planted in a furrow irrigated with abundant water and sprinkled with organic fertilizer. Ten days later, the soil is chemical fertilized again covering the weak stem with land. Two weeks later, more fertilizer is added before the cultivator comes to see it. You can think that its is a simple process at the beginning but it takes time and become very complicated, are you ready to go on and make your Christmas holidays an unforgettable experience? Then, we go on. Insecticides are sprayed on the plants to kill possible bugs some of them are even picked off by hand. The “unbugging” process begins a month later with the purpose of making the plant get the most of the sap. The process also allows certain aromatic substances to get impregnated in the leaves, so they can get bigger and improve their quality dramatically. Once you are there you can if you want, be part of this process and help the farmer, take pictures of the fields and make this cultivation process and event to remember on your Cuba Holidays. After this toilsome process is over, the leaves of the tobacco plants are ready to be picked up. First the Mañanita is picked up. Forty five days later, Libra de Pie (bottom leaves) are recollected. Five or six days later, it is the turn of the Centro Fino, while the Centro Gordo follows suit a week alter. Finally, another week goes by and all hands get set to pick up the Crown (top leaves).You can see how many new things you can learned while being on your Holidays in Cuba. All leaves, following the classification process, are knit together in pairs along a wooden rod and they are left to wither way in the sun before taking the rods with the dangling leaves to the tobacco houses. Those houses are the ones that are always expose on the posters and be on a picture with one of them will be a unique opportunity only given by your Cuba holidays. These tall wooden houses and roofed with a variety of materials, are built from east to west in order to make the most of the sunlight. The tobacco or cure houses area symbol of Pinar del rio´s rural architecture.
On your Caribbean holidays you can be inside those houses, where female hands pierce the leaves and tie them up around the rods. The rods are then placed between wooden planks inside the houses and remain there for two or three weeks. Its wonderful aroma can be just enjoyed by those who have chosen Pinar del rio on their luxury holidays. When that span of time is up, the leaves are removed from the rod, rolled up in bundles and treated to a fermenting process to make them slough off the excess of nitrogenous matter and resins. This is when the leaves acquire a uniform colour, the good-tasting flavour accrues and the aroma beefs up. And you are there touching it with your own hands and we are sure that this holiday in Cuba is going to be the best of your life. Finally, the dry leaves are packed up in wooden cases that can accept up to a hundred rods of leaves. The whole bundle is shrouded with thatches, blankets or any other material capable of warding off both heat and moisture. They bundles are tied up with threads of gunny fibbers and dispatched to the selection area.
Following a long selection process, the dry leaves are repacked in square bundles, called thirds, and are taken to the nerve removers. On your package holidays you will see that another huge house is used to remove three to four capotes, whose nerves are removed. Once this work is done, the leaves are taken to the dryer, a huge cedar wardrobe divided in shelves whet they rest for approximately a week to ten days for the final cure, according to their classification. Once you are here you can learned from the best qualified specialists that these part of the process is very important because it depends the final quality of the tobacco. Being a witness of this process is an event only achieved on your Cuba Holidays. When the cure is done, the leaves are wrapped in sewn gunny blankets and taken to the factory to be hand-rolled into cigars, depending on the width and the kind of tobacco being used. The stogies are finally whisked off to the selection room where colour distribution is the next step. On your all inclusive holidays you will know that this is also a key part of the process because selectors need to pay heed to 14 different hues and shades. Attention to the shape is also paid. And you can be there as part of your luxury holidays learning how to differentiate the leaves and helping to do it. What an amazing Cuba Holidays!!! The final steps of the process is the ringing and casing of the cigars, specially in gold –threaded boxes with their respective full-colour lithography depicting scenes of the national history and other traditions. The very last step is the labelling of the boxes and the stamping of warranty seals on them.
Learning to know the real Cuban Habano, an important part of your Holidays in Cuba.
Now that the process is almost finished you will see that it is really important for you to be there on your Cuba Holidays because you are going to learn how to differentiate the real Cuban Habanos from the fake ones. Dating from a law enacted on 16th July 1912, the Cuban Government Warranty Seal was among the first steps taken to identify true Habanos. While on your Caribbean holidays you will learn and never forget the other four marks, more recent in origin, bear witness to the persistent interest of the counterfeiter. You will find three "hallmarks" burnt into the underside of the box. One, Havanos S.A, is the name of the Cuban company exporting Habanos from 1st October 1994. (Boxes made between 1985 and 1994 have Cubatabaco's logo in this position). Another "Hecho en Cuba" was added in 1960 to replace the same words, formerly in English, "Made in Cuba". The third, "Totalmente a mano" meaning "totally by hand" appeared from 1989 onwards. The latter establishes that the cigars are fully handmade in the traditional Cuban manner. An important point, as European Union rules permit partly machine made cigars to be described as "hand made". If the Warranty Seal or any one of these marks is missing you can be sure that the box does not contain genuine hand made Habanos. You see how much you can learn and do on your Cuba Holidays in Pinar del rio.
Hoyos de Monterrey: a special place waiting for you on your Cuba Holidays.
As part of your holidays in Cuba you can also visit a very special place. Among the famous spot that produce top-quality tobacco is Hoyos de Monterrey, at the entrance of the San Juan y Martinez village. A row of royal palms to the right of the town announces the proximity of the world-class plantations and you can see it with your own eyes while being on your Caribbean holidays. In 1860, these lands were bought by Jose Gener, who built an arch an arch at the entrance of his farm that was declared a National Monument on June 16, 1969. Out of these lands came the brand that has helped put Pinar del Rio on the map as a token of the best Cuban cigars in the world. You can see and touch with your hands the leaves of one of the best tobacco in the planet as part of your all inclusive holidays in Cuba. The lot of any farmer, challenged by weather, disease, pests and the demands of his crop is always hard but never harder than it is for the Cuban Veguero there in the heart of the Vuelta Abajo. Once you are there on your Cuba Holidays, you can talk to the farmer and know that for him there can never be an idle moment. His fields may rest for much of the year in preparation for the six months of frenzied activity during the growing and harvesting seasons, but he cannot relax as the soil must be tilled and nurtured to be ready for the onslaught. He will have charge of half a million tobacco plants or more. To be sure of success, each individual plant must be visited over 150 times.
Vegas de Robaina : Where tobacco become a legend
There is a place that is a must to visit on your luxury holidays in Cuba. You have to visit Vegas de Robaina, in the Pinar del rio farm, Barbacoa, in the municipality of San Luis, if you want to say that in your holidays in cuba you visited the best tobacco land in the world. It is a contemporary case in point that of what Cuban cigars area actually all about. This brand bears the name of the property of the best Cuban tobacco grower, Don Alejandro Robaina, whose family of tobacco growers set up in the tobacco region of San Luis during the middle of the last century. The San Luis area has the finest tobacco plantations and wrapper tobacco of the Vuelta Abajo region and you can be there as part of your all inclusive holidays in Cuba.
On your Cuba Holidays you will know that Don Alejandro’s father, Maruto Robaina, was considered the finest tobacco grower in the country. In 1950, upon the death of Maruto Robaina, Don Alejandro took charge of the plantations, which have produced and continue to produce the wrapper used to manufacture Habanos cigars. Approximately 30% of the tobacco exported from Pinar del Rio province uses Vegas Robaina (Robaina Tobacco plantation) wrapper, making the plantation a tobacco legend. When you visit this marvellous place on your Cuba holidays and talk to this very famous old man you will know that there is a list of Vegas Robaina Cigars such as: Clasicos, Don Alejandro, Familiar, Famosos and Unicos among other and all of them with the finest quality and the Robaina´s family brand.
Regarding his plantations Mr. Robaina once said, “(…) in addition to this tobacco I produce, and I would say that all Habanos, all tobacco across the country, even the worst of it, is the best in the world. So, it tobacco is harmful- that as a matter of fact it has not proved that way in my case- the Cuban tobacco is the least harmful of all because we use very little amount of chemicals”.
Each year, the city of Pinar del Rio celebrates the tobacco festivity and you can be there on your Cuba holidays, it is a moment on which pinareños pay tribute to centuries of experience in the art of cultivating tobacco leaves. You can be there on your Cuba Holidays, on these days the city wears its green party dress and there is the moment for tasting the best tobacco of the world. There are expositions of Cuban Habanos and it is a special occasion for seeing and buying beautiful paintings relation to the tobacco plantations and ma de by the best of Cuban painters. The city wears its best bib and tucker, and friendly events take place everywhere among harvesters, selectors, hand-rollers, scientist, business people and lovers of the ultimate smoke and they have a place for you as part of your holidays in Cuba.
