Cuban cigars without HSA


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I'm sure this has already been talked about before, but I haven't been able to find a thread about it. Do you think Cuban cigars would be that much better if private companies were allowed to produce cigars on the island (let's imagine companies like Davidoff and Dunhill were allowed to setup factories in Cuba and grow their own tobacco on the island)? Would you expect a far superior product (taste-wise, quality-wise, and in terms of vitola diversity)? Interested to hear your guys' thoughts. My opinion is that some large global brands would most likely try to buy their way in, but if there was not the case, I'm thinking boutique brands could do some marvelous things and make a far superior and consistent product. I doubt this will ever happen though as the tobacco industry is a huge source of income for the government and the Castros.

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What incentive would there be for the Cuban gov't to permit this?  They already have a monopoly on Cuban cigars.  It's been argued plenty that private enterprise would improve quality control, etc.  It's also argued that they could jeopardize some cultural aspect of cuban cigars by incorporating Cuban leaf into blends (which after much thought I'd have to say that I'd reserve judgement until after smoking one to decide for myself). A private company may be able to improve quality control/consistency, but I don't think a they could come into Cuba and make the tobacco better tasting.  It's all for naught in the end since it won't happen under the current government.

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Guest Nekhyludov

One aspect of this hypothetical that I would be curious about is, supposing it happened (which it won't. Ever), and private companies moved in as you describe - I suspect they would implement modern farm management tools and methods. Synthetic fertilizers, GMOs and strain hybridization (beyond what Tabacuba has already done). What I wonder is whether, under hypothetical different management, Cuban tobacco would lose its terroir and would, in time, come to taste, smell, and perform totally different. 

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If you draw the comparison between a family run restaurant. Where the kitchen might not be so tidy, and the recipes are measured in handsfuls and by touch. You get a very warm loved product.  Conversely in high end dining. The kitchens are spotless and everything is measured to the milligramme. But you quite often get a very cold, clinical product.

I would rather the people that are doing it now, simply be paid properly. If it was real socialism, all the workers should have bloody shares in HSA and be paid out dividends on their hard work. 

Communism or Capitalism, they are both the same thing in the modern day. Some rich dick in a palace, putting the squeeze on those at the bottom of the ladder. 

Cubans are more than capable of the same accuracy and quality as zee Germans, just look at their medical profession/research. They just need money and motivation, like we all do

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It wouldn't be a good thing for Cuban cigars to be private. The protected legal domain of the Cuban tobacco and culture is what is keeping as good as it is. I would a imagine is would spiral down hill quickly if it allowed to run by private entrepreneurs.

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I, too, would love to see the workers’ conditions greatly improved.

It sits very uncomfortably with me that I enjoy a luxury product produced in a culture where the people who do the hard work see none of the profit.

If private companies improved the lives of the workers, it would seem churlish, and shamefully selfish then, to worry about the effect on the tobacco itself.

 

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Competition makes everything better. Real competition, that is, between private owners of the means of production with no special privileges to any.

I don't believe the Dunhill/Davidoff deals in the 1970s and 80s were anything more than licensing deals, effectively. They were not "producers" in the true sense of the word. They paid Cubatabaco a fee and the tobacco was provided to them or possibly still purchased on top of the licensing fee. They were only tangentially involved in any kind of QC or production. They may have had representatives on the island but how much control they had was almost certainly minimal and was probably just a nominal role. 

If they had had any active role in production Davidoff certainly would not have felt the need to destroy thousands of boxes already produced that were below his standard in 1989. There had been years of QC and ownership conflicts between Cubatabaco and Davidoff, which I read as Zino telling Cubatabaco to raise QC or give him more control in production or he's out, both of which Cuba refused to do.

When the land, tobacco and production facilities of Cuba are returned to totally private hands I have no doubt the cigars will be better in general in the long run.

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I, too, would love to see the workers’ conditions greatly improved.
It sits very uncomfortably with me that I enjoy a luxury product produced in a culture where the people who do the hard work see none of the profit.
If private companies improved the lives of the workers, it would seem churlish, and shamefully selfish then, to worry about the effect on the tobacco itself.
 

Totally agree but I also think you could put smart phones and probably all components that go into them into the same category of the ones doing the hard work making them see none of the benefit. And they are from some of the biggest and most cash rich companies in the world.


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My first thought when thinking about private enterprise into Cuban cigar trade is "where do they fall short currently."  Is it at the fincas, the curing, processing, construction???  In general, Cuban cigars fall short today on the construction.  Could there be improvements in other areas?  Perhaps, but if they could just roll them as well and consistent as the best NC's; this would not even be a thread...

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I would love to be in the vanguard with my mates Hamlet/Jose/foxy. What a period it would be!

In the end however, ownership and control will be dictated by distribution and that will mean one to two multinationals running the show.  That appears to be capitalisms natural end game. 

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14 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

My first thought when thinking about private enterprise into Cuban cigar trade is "where do they fall short currently."  Is it at the fincas, the curing, processing, construction???  In general, Cuban cigars fall short today on the construction.

That's only what the end consumer notices. They fall short on most levels of the production chain. Starting with low incentives for farmers to cultivate tobacco at all, now they are not even able to procure enough yaguas (dried Roystonea crownshaft for packing raw tabacco and wrapper leaf).... Article I stumbled across lately (in Spanish)

 

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2 hours ago, LLC said:


Totally agree but I also think you could put smart phones and probably all components that go into them into the same category of the ones doing the hard work making them see none of the benefit. And they are from some of the biggest and most cash rich companies in the world.


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Indeed, and that hypocrisy weighs heavily, too. However, there are no microchips in CCs. Yet. ?

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6 minutes ago, JR Kipling said:

Would the cigars be better if produced by top NC companies with Cuban leaf ?  Probably, IMO.

Where do government monopolies do a good job ?  

Exactly. Give Henkie Kilner and Dion Giolto control of farming, aging leaf, blending and manufacturing and you'd get unbelievable cigars. The ONLY reason I smoke CC's is Cuban tobacco is superior to NC tobacco IMO. If HSA was given only Nicaraguan tobacco, you'd get a pretty horrible product. 

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Would the cigars be better if produced by top NC companies with Cuban leaf ?  Probably, IMO.
Where do government monopolies do a good job ?  
If NC producers had access to HSA bails of aged leaf it would be an extremely good thing for us as cigar lovers. I would imagine the blends would be amazing.
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I smoke both CCs and NCs.

There are boutique NC blenders who produce fantastic cigars. I sometimes crave the complex flavor transitions and power often found in the best NCs. 

Some of the best cigars I ever smoked were Cuban. And, some of the most frustrating cigars I have ever smoked were Cuban. I cannot recall the last time I smoked a premium NC with construction issues. The cigar may have needed more humidor time. It may have not had a flavor profile that I liked. But it was rolled right & wasn’t plugged.

So yes, I wonder what the best NC guys could do if they ran the show in Cuba.

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 *I'm with the bulk of you in your observances to this: our corporate masters cannot  get their fingers on ANYTHING WITHOUT cheapening it, mass producing it, and then spreading a vastly inferior product out there supposedly to meet more demand...which it will no longer be if it's turned into HTL (homogenized *cuban* tobacco leaf) crap, and indeed become a not even passing take on the fakes out there. It always happens. Whether MacDonald's quarter pounder with cheese: Hardee's cinnamon biscuit, et.al., which when they originally came out were BIG, FILLING, somewhat quality product - again, when they FIRST came out. Then they'll have their "special" going on, where they offer The Big Mac, the Cinnamon biscuit, like 2 for a dollar: and when you get them they're SIGNIFICANTLY smaller, stale and hard in texture, very much not as appetizing as they were....and you're waiting for the special to come off so they can resume their normal appearance/condition: and when they're back to normal price - they stay that undersized, less quality-laden version of themselves. You see it in soft drinks that had originally offered 30% REAL juice in it: and when it's been on the market for awhile...the juice disappears, a cheapened less quality laden version is the norm...they can skip and skimp on the original attractive "natural" offer after they've reeled you in with a good version of it. Boxes of cereal, rolls of terlet paper, etc. originally a particular size...after some little time passes, the same item; SAME price; but SMALLER portion(s) of it. 

  I shudder to think what would happen to our beloved Cubans if they fell into this "corporate structure" clutches: I have all kinds of very large expectations if a REAL cigar and/or blending master like A.J. Fernandez, Arturo and Carlo Fuente, Jose` Padron, Jr., even "Tatoo" Pete Johnson were instead involved in operating outside of (or in addition to) HSA because we know that THEY'LL fashion, create and form their product lovingly, attentively, and very careful for quality and detail in its manufacture. My 2 cents.

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I would imagine if full privatization were to occur things would probably move substantially back to the way they were pre-Rev with much of CCs rolled abroad with Cuban tobacco or some hybrid. Most CCs in the US by the early 20th century were using Cuban filler and Sumatra or Connecticut wrapper to cut costs. 

The market for Cuban puros was quite small, at least in the US. The fincas exported almost all of their tobacco abroad as that's who paid top dollar for it. 

Most of the Cuban puros and marcas were very small and considered niche cigars and could be very expensive. This was the time when ERDM was Cuba's flagship brand and considered quite a premium luxury cigar. 

That being said, since the source of the tobacco for the Cuban blends is such a guarded secret it would probably die with Tabacuba and would take quite some time to figure out what was what. I wouldn't be surprised if no one at HSA/Imperial knows that. So even if Imperial wanted to continue Montecristo, for example, they'd have to figure out what regions and fincas the tobacco for Monte blends came from which could take some time. 

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1 hour ago, Whisky91 said:

I have a bit of a hard time believing that quality wouldn’t improve under a non-government entity. However, I could be totally wrong. 

If success base on higher sales (or some other metric that awards the entity on success) it would for sure improve.

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While I’d certainly be very interested in what some producers would put out, I’m not sure that they would be far superior taste wise. I would expect that quality control, specifically when it comes to construction, would be better with some of the rollers/private companies. As far as vitola diversity, I would actually thing it may get worse. Lots of 60 rg monsters. 

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On 12/17/2018 at 1:36 PM, dangolf18 said:

I'm sure this has already been talked about before, but I haven't been able to find a thread about it. Do you think Cuban cigars would be that much better if private companies were allowed to produce cigars on the island ? 

I haven't read everyone else's responses but I will say, this context already exists. There are certain farms that have the best of the best tobacco who roll cigars. Those frankly are some incredible cigars and can (but not always) rival the best of the best from the factories. Cheers and great question!

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On 12/18/2018 at 2:23 AM, cigcars said:

 *I'm with the bulk of you in your observances to this: our corporate masters cannot  get their fingers on ANYTHING WITHOUT cheapening it, mass producing it, and then spreading a vastly inferior product out there supposedly to meet more demand...which it will no longer be if it's turned into HTL (homogenized *cuban* tobacco leaf) crap, and indeed become a not even passing take on the fakes out there. It always happens. Whether MacDonald's quarter pounder with cheese: Hardee's cinnamon biscuit, et.al., which when they originally came out were BIG, FILLING, somewhat quality product - again, when they FIRST came out. Then they'll have their "special" going on, where they offer The Big Mac, the Cinnamon biscuit, like 2 for a dollar: and when you get them they're SIGNIFICANTLY smaller, stale and hard in texture, very much not as appetizing as they were....and you're waiting for the special to come off so they can resume their normal appearance/condition: and when they're back to normal price - they stay that undersized, less quality-laden version of themselves. You see it in soft drinks that had originally offered 30% REAL juice in it: and when it's been on the market for awhile...the juice disappears, a cheapened less quality laden version is the norm...they can skip and skimp on the original attractive "natural" offer after they've reeled you in with a good version of it. Boxes of cereal, rolls of terlet paper, etc. originally a particular size...after some little time passes, the same item; SAME price; but SMALLER portion(s) of it. 

  I shudder to think what would happen to our beloved Cubans if they fell into this "corporate structure" clutches: I have all kinds of very large expectations if a REAL cigar and/or blending master like A.J. Fernandez, Arturo and Carlo Fuente, Jose` Padron, Jr., even "Tatoo" Pete Johnson were instead involved in operating outside of (or in addition to) HSA because we know that THEY'LL fashion, create and form their product lovingly, attentively, and very careful for quality and detail in its manufacture. My 2 cents.

That's a great point, I think we all have a romanticised view of what would happen if for whatever reason the Cuban tobacco industry was privatised; the old families coming back, young entrepreneurs pushing exciting new products and business models etc. In reality it will probably just be a cold hard multinational corporation that turns the product into a very consistent but very soulless piece of manufacturing, you see the seeds with what has happened since the 50% buyout 

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On 12/18/2018 at 7:42 PM, CaptainQuintero said:

That's a great point, I think we all have a romanticised view of what would happen if for whatever reason the Cuban tobacco industry was privatised; the old families coming back, young entrepreneurs pushing exciting new products and business models etc. In reality it will probably just be a cold hard multinational corporation that turns the product into a very consistent but very soulless piece of manufacturing, you see the seeds with what has happened since the 50% buyout 

I don't know--that's not what happened in the early 20th century. There were huge tobacco conglomerations back then and no one "owned" the Cuban tobacco industry. It doesn't happen now in Nicaragua or the DR. 

If Cuba was privatized it would be in everyone's best interest that the fincas continued to be run by the vegueros that know Cuban tobacco and how to produce it. 

Perhaps that would include the possibility of corporations owning the land and the vegueros working for them on it, but again, that never happened in the old days. 

The only reason a large multinational owns 50% is because the industry is owned by the government and could sell off 50% of its marketing and distribution arm which is what HSA is. Tabacuba still owns and controls 100% of everything at the end of the day. 

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