From Seed to Leaf – How Your Cigar is Made

When we think about how cigars are made, the focus tends to be on the more “glamorous” parts of cigar making, like blending and rolling.

Buit cigars start out as seeds – and while seeds and plants may not seem as interesting, I uncovered some fascinating facts about the beginning of the birth of our cigars. So let’s take a look at how modest seeds are transformed into the leaf that goes into a cigar.

It all starts with the seed itself. Like many seeds, cigar tobacco seeds are very small – in fact, 1,000 seeds fit into a thimble and one flower on a tobacco plant may produce as many as 3,000 seeds.

How did those cigar seeds we see today originate? Most of their lineage stems from Cuba (although there are a number of varietals that started in Mexico, South America, or other parts of the world). When the Cuban revolution forced many cigar makers to flee, because seeds are so small many were able to smuggle them from Cuba to Nicaragua, Dominicana or other countries where they settled. Those seeds were planted, and many were cross-bred to result in the New World tobacco seeds that are grown today.

The best example of seeds that is direct descended from Cuban seeds is Corojo tobacco – those were the primary varietals grown in Cuba around the time of the revolution.

A tobacco seed transforms to a plant in a relatively short timeline – in about four short months, the seed multiplies in weight 20 MILLION TIMES to become a mature tobacco plant. Here are the steps discussed in the video:

Step 1: Germination, a 14 day process that results in a small sprout
Step 2: Planting in trays until the plant is hardy enough to be planted in the field, about 60 days
Step 3: Planting, much of which is done with automated machinery
Step 4: Rapid growth over 45-60 days, where the small plant becomes as tall as 8-9 feet
Step 5: Priming – harvesting the leaves in layers from low to high over 10-14 days

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