Cuban Tobacco

Cuba is synonymous with the best tobacco in the world and is internationally acclaimed as the finest producer of cigars. It enjoys a rich history of tobacco production that goes back to the 15th Century. Christopher Columbus discovered the extensive use of tobacco that had been employed by the Indians for religious and medicinal purposes. 
 
The usage of tobacco spread amongst the Colonists too and a systematic cultivation of the same was adopted. Tobacco farms became known as 'Vegas' and the tobacco planters called 'Vegueros' were mostly immigrants from the Canary Islands especially from the seventeenth century onward. They cultivated the land by themselves, without any slaves.

The use of tobacco has seen many changes over time. Large cigars also called 'Vegueros' have been smoked in Cuba since the sixteenth century, but only a few were manufactured for export. Cigars were rarely used as snuff was more popular then, however, it became unfashionable in the early 19th century when cigars were regarded highly and became famous.

The cigarettes rolled in corn husk, called pajuelas or small straws began being produced during the eighteenth century. This was however, soon substituted by paper and this version came to be known as papelitos or little papers. These cigarettes gained huge popularity only around the mid nineteenth century with the usage of a thinner and easier to smoke paper to became widely available in sufficient quantities for industrial production.

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