Current Status of Habanos Production Cigars

[Trevor2118]

The following information represents the current (2006/7) status of Habanos Cuban Cigars.

It has been thoroughly checked out and has been confirmed by both Simon Chase of Hunters & Frankau, UK and by our own Rob Ayala of Friends of Habanos.

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Currently there are now 27 brands in the Habanos Range.

All these brands are fully handmade.

Three of these brands contain all Tripa Corta (short filler) vitolas.

These are Jose L Piedra, La Flor de Cano, and Quintero.

In addition, three other brands contain a single Tripa Corta (short filler) vitola.

These are Por Larranaga, Rafael Gonzalez, and Fonseca.

Habanos no longer makes machine-bunched hand finished cigars.

Production was reduced in the 1990’s, and was no longer produced by 2001.

Short Filler cigars should have TC stamped on the box.

However several boxes have recently been found unstamped. Dissecting the cigars proved that they were short filler.

There are no longer any machine made cigars in the Habanos range.

The Guantanamera and the recent mini cigar releases (Mini, Club, & Puritos) were always made (and are now distributed) by the Internacional Cubana de Tabacos s.a.

The other machine-made brands (Belinda, Cabanas, Gispert, Los Statos, & Troya) have been removed from the Habanos range and were either discontinued or transferred to a company based in Spain.

This should put an end to the various theories, but remember…….anything can happen in Cuba.:-D

Cheers, Trevor.

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Copy of Simon Chase’s email:

Trevor

Apologies for the delay in responding but I have been away.

If you go page 35 in the 'Cultivating' booklet you will find that there are three ways to make a Habano: Totalmente a mano - long filler, Totalmente a mano - short filler and Machine made. This was the case in 2001 when we produced the booklet and it remains the same today. Machine bunched, hand finished did exist, but it was discontinued sometime in the 1990s.

There was some confusion during the early 1990s about Totalmente a mano being applied to boxes of short filler cigars, but the system developed at that time was definitely totally by hand, so it was logical to state this on boxes of these cigars. Machine bunched cigars were never described as Totalmente a mano.

It has been agreed that boxes short filler, handmade cigars should be identified by the letters TC (Tripa Corta) but this is taking a long time to implement.

The major changes that have taken place since the 2001 booklet and size charts were produced are:

(i) that all the formerly machine made cigars in the major brands' portfolios have been converted to Totalmente a mano, long filler and

(ii) that the marketing of the exclusively machine made brands such as Los Statos, Troya, Cabanas, Gispert and Belinda has been transferred to another company based in Spain.

Consequently the Habanos SA range now consists of 27 brands as opposed to 33, all made Totalmente a mano either using long or short filler methods. This is what is reflected on the new size charts.

It's not simple, but I hope this helps.

Simon

PS. Rob has been able to independently confirm this information.

[El Presidente]

[Ginseng]

Fantastic information/b]! You have done your research and the quality of the info follows. Well done.

Wilkey

[GoatLocker]

Thanks for the great info Trevor, I know it was not easy to get! I guess this means the Party and RyJ Mille Fleurs, and the Hoyo and Punch Coronations are now Marevas?

[Wiley]

Great work, thank you!

[Trevor2118]

» Thanks for the great info Trevor, I know it was not easy to get! I guess

» this means the Party and RyJ Mille Fleurs, and the Hoyo and Punch

» Coronations are now Marevas?

Apparently not. The 2006/7 poster series shows both factory vitola names for this size.

Maybe eventually amalgamated?? I don't know.....

Trevor