Cigar Manufacturing: Cultivation, Processing and Packaging

This page offers basic discussion on how cigars are manufactured in terms of cultivation, processing, and packaging. It is good overall basic background information on how cigars are made.

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Cigar tobacco is first grown from tobacco seedlings indoors, such as tobacco grown in greenhouses, and then later moved and replanted outdoors into dedicated tobacco fields. This whole process normally occurs after a window from anywhere between 4-6 weeks all the way up to 10-12 weeks as a general time frame.

 

Once planted into tobacco fields, cigar tobacco plants take many months to grow into full size. The length in time before these plants mature before cultivation is largely due to variances in weather and climate.

 

After cigar tobacco leaves are cultivated, they are allowed to turn color from a bright or fresh green color to a brownish-type color. Next, the leaves are hung from ceilings in well ventilated warehouses, barns, or storage buildings on these wooden-type fixtures normally called “laths.” Again, these wooden laths are hung from ceilings in these buildings. The main purpose of this process is to “cure” the leaves. The curing process for cigar leaves is very important in terms of developing a good aroma and taste of any given type of cigar.

 

Next, the cigar leaves are “aged” or “fermented.” After cigar leaves are cured, they are separated by leaf size. Smaller leaves are used for inside of cigar as filler space. Larger leaves are used on the cigar’s outer shell or “wrapper.”

 

When the separation of leaves is completed, cigar leaves are then put into processing boxes for the aging or fermentation process. These cigar leaves will stay in these boxes for months or years, depending upon quality or brand of cigar. Moreover, cigar leaf fermentation is basically a chemical aging process for cigar processing.

Again, this whole storage process promotes the fermentation or aging of cigar leaves in which a cigar’s aroma and its taste or flavor are developed in this whole process. Thus, more expensive cigars are normally aged longer than inexpensive ones.

 

After aging, in order that the finished cigar product burns more evenly when it is lit, the major vein or stem is removed from the cigar tobacco leaves. This process is done either manually or by machine, depending upon the cigar plant’s own method.

 

The production process known as “rolling” of cigars into finished goods comes next. Cigars can either be hand rolled or machine rolled. Expensive cigars are often hand rolled. On the other hand, most cigars today are machine rolled in order for cigar companies to offer cost effective and price competitive cigars.

 

Finally, cigars are finally wrapped in packages normally by a machine packaging process. Cigars are then boxed and are now ready to go to market!

 

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