Cigar & Cedar
The Leaf
Tobacco agriculture and the growing regions: Vuelta Abajo, Esteli, the Cibao, Honduras, Cameroon and Ecuador. The harvests that shape the smoke.
The Leaf
The Cibao Valley: Dominican Tobacco's Fertile Heart
In the valley around Santiago, the Dominican Republic grows the mild, elegant leaf that defines its cigars.
The Leaf
Honduras: The Quiet Power
The Jamastrán Valley rolls a huge share of the world's cigars and asks for none of the credit.
The Leaf
Cameroon: Africa's Wrapper
From a rainforest on the Cameroon border comes what the Meerapfel family describes as the most expensive wrapper leaf in the industry.
The Leaf
Ecuador: Cloud-Grown Leaf
On the equator, the clouds do the work that shade cloth does elsewhere, and the wrapper industry noticed.
The Leaf
Vuelta Abajo: The Benchmark Leaf
In Cuba's far west, a forty-thousand-hectare district grows the tobacco every other region is measured against.
The Leaf
Estelí: After the Boom
Nicaragua's northern highlands survived revolution, expropriation, and embargo to become the handmade cigar's capital.