Five centuries of leaf
The cigar predates every country that now makes one. This timeline follows the leaf from ritual plant to global craft.
- Pre-1492
Ritual in the Caribbean
Taíno and Maya peoples rolled cured tobacco leaf for ceremony and medicine long before European contact. The Spanish word cigarro likely descends from the Maya sikar, to smoke.
- 1492
Europe takes note
Columbus's crew record islanders smoking rolled leaves. Within a generation tobacco is planted in Spanish gardens and traded as a curiosity, then a commodity.
- 1717
Cuba's royal monopoly
Spain grants itself exclusive rights to Cuban tobacco. Growers revolt, but the monopoly forces the standards and grading that made Cuban leaf a benchmark.
- 1810s
The brand era begins
Cabañas, Partagás and Punch put names and bands on their boxes. A cigar stops being anonymous leaf and becomes a signature.
- 1860s
Machines and mass markets
Cigar factories industrialise in Key West and Tampa as Cuban makers move north. Hand-rolled and machine-made split into two markets that never rejoined.
- 1962
The embargo redraws the map
The US embargo cuts Cuban cigars off from their largest market. Makers relocate to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras, and those countries become powers in their own right.
- Today
A craft, plural
Cuba no longer holds the monopoly on quality. Nicaraguan puros, Dominican blends and Ecuadorian wrappers compete on equal terms, and the best cigar is a matter of palate, not passport.