Cuba's cigar industry badly hurt by hurricanes

Cuba's cigar industry badly hurt by hurricanes
Posted on Wed, Sep. 17, 2008
BY MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Cuba@MiamiHerald.com

SAN JOSE y MARTINEZ, Cuba -- Alejandro González spends an average day
touting the intricate craft of tobacco growing to tourists here on the
western reaches of the island, which produces the world's premier cigars.

But when Hurricane Ike blew through the island eight days after
Hurricane Gustav, the 35-year-old tobacco engineer turned plantation
guide at the Hoyo de Monterrey cooperative joined in an intense effort
to move the delicate tobacco plants from their drying barns to stronger
buildings in hopes of shielding them from the storm's fury.

Even so, more than half the crop was lost, according to González, along
with more than 3,000 drying sheds and 8,600 homes for tobacco workers in
the region, which lies about 180 kilometers southwest of Havana.

''It was very, very bad,'' he said in halting English.

According to the daily newspaper Granma, Gustav alone destroyed 3,414
tobacco houses (used for drying) and damaged another 1,590. More than
800 tons of tobacco product was affected by Gustav.

It's unclear what the impact of the crop loss will eventually be on the
production of top-quality cigars -- the process of making and aging a
cigar can take two to five years -- but it's likely a scarcer supply
will fetch higher prices.

Cohiba, Robaina, Quintero, Partagas and Romeo y Juliet brands of cigars,
among others, are all hand-rolled with the region's premium tobacco in a
process that has changed little over hundreds of years.

Besides being widely hailed as the world's best, the Cuban cigars have
taken on an extra mystique in the United States, where the long-standing
trade embargo makes them forbidden fruit.

''That's going to be billions in losses,'' said veteran cigar maker
Ramon Serafin. ``Billions with a b.''

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