Cigar Cipha

The Cigar is one of the most popular forms of smoking. The culture of smoking is very old. Men have been using tobacco for a very long time. The first time Europe was introduced to tobacco was when Christopher Columbus first brought it back after his journey to West Indies. The first time any European saw a tobacco tree was on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas. It was two of the crewmen of Columbus in his 1492 journey to discover India. The crewmen Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres were offered dry leaves of tobacco. It was already very common in the islands of West Indies and in Cuba.

The interlocution of tobacco in Asia was done by the San Clemente in 1592, a Spanish galleon that had 50 kilograms of tobacco seed which was later used in the Philippine soil. The Philippines has a very good and supporting weather for tobacco and the quality of this tobacco is one of the finest. Around the 19th century, the cigar was very common and used more while the cigarettes were then only rising in popularity. The increasing demand for cigars made many businessmen interested in this industry and they started numerous factories.

A major turning point in the cigar industry came in 1860 when the cigar pioneer Vincent Martinez Ybor moved his Key West cigar business to a part of Tampa. Now it is known as the Ybor City. There he started the Principe de Gales factory. The Principe de Gales stands for Prince of Wales. His major rival in the business, Flor de Sanchez & Haya was already there and these two companies changed the total cigar business. That zone became one of the most important business centers for cigar making. Being so close to West Indies and Cuba made America a quick catcher of the business. The first generation American cigars were homemade where the workers use their hand to roll the cigars from their home. Along with the workers, the families of the workers were also doing the job. According to a report, there were about 7,924 cigars workers from 1,962 families in New York in 1883. The workers were distributed in 127 apartments which was the first industrial attempt at cigar manufacturing in America. Later in that year, a law banning the business was introduced. The trade unions had problems with the suppressed wages of this home based business. So they pressed for reform laws, although these were cancelled four months later as being unconstitutional.

As a result, the homemade cigar industry started again and enlarged quickly. There were about 80,000 cigar making actions running in different parts of America in 1905. Most of these operations were running on small home based industry where the cigars are created and sold from the home. The handmade tradition of cigars is still popular. Many well known brands use workers to create handmade cigars. The pioneering business of cigars is in Cuba and Central America where cigars made by hand are very popular and they are exported all over the world. The hand rolled cigars contain the phrase totalmente a mano or hecho a mano, which means totally by hand or made by hand, on their boxes.

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