Vuelta Abajo. Pinar del Rio, Cuba
The Dazzling Land of Habano
When it comes to making Habanos, leaves hailing from this region –home to the world’s best black tobacco and the only one which produces all leaves for filler, binder and wrapper– are basically used. And this is owed to the exceptional properties of its soils, special climatic conditions and the deep-rooted planting traditions of its population, which have been handed down from generations to generations.
If there’s an undisputed truth that has lived out for centuries is that no other place on the face of the earth grows better black tobacco than Cuba. But it’s also true that just a handful of regions and selected plantations in Vuelta Abajo produce the most selected leaves good Habanos require. And that place is in the vicinity of San Luis and San Juan y Martinez, two small towns of southwestern Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s westernmost province, famous for its spectacular scenery and historic ties with tobacco. Since there are two ways of planting tobacco –depending on the final destination of the leaves used in making Habanos– the local landscape shows off both sun-grown plantations and shade-grown varieties. In the latter, the fields are covered with thin white cheesecloth to protect the plants from weather impairment and straight sunlight, thus allowing for taller stems and thinner leaves. Sun-shade plantations engulf the largest surfaces and churn out four different leaves that make up a Habano’s filler –volado, seco, ligero and medio tiempo. They also provide the raw material for the binder, used to bind together that preliminary bundle –the basic body of a blend– that on a case-by-case basis clings to an old formula that singles out and makes a difference for each Habano brand and its vitolas. The shade-grown plantations produce wrapper, very thin and delicate leaves of soft texture used for hand-rolling Habanos. They are the leaves that give the final elegant look these centennial kings of the good taste and glamour boast. But they are the result of patient dedication and the expertise of Cuban tobacco industry workers both in the field and in the factories. San Luis Some of Vuelta Abajo’s fine tobacco plantations are precisely located near that peaceful village. Its dwellers have made tobacco their livelihood for centuries and that tradition still defines them today as centerpieces of Cuba’s tobacco industry. A very special place over there is Cuchillas de Barbacoa, where larger-than-life tobacco planter Alejandro Robaina lived and worked. This Habano Man of the Year Award winner was an extraordinarily humble man, a pureblood farmer and tobacco grower whose strength and spirit seem to come closer together around the myth of resurrection, a man who continues to reap respect like only people of his stature and standing actually deserve. All of San Luis conveys a profound feeling of natural vigor, of invulnerable tradition in the face of modernity. It looks like a sleeping paradise, like a painting sprinkled with many green brush touches and where tobacco –like a mighty king– lords it everywhere. Therefore, even though an ascending Christ and chaste virgins can be worshipped, for these men or women dedicated to the plantations there’s nothing else but fields and hard work from dawn to dusk for as many as 90 days. Nothing in their hearts and minds could actually break that stride from the moment the first tiny plant is sowed till the last leaf is collected. By a location called La Esperanza, we happen on Luis Barcelo Briche, who has developed an excellent plantation of shade-grown tobacco with a staggering 42,000 plants. “This is hard work from dawn to dusk, from the moment we step into the farm and no matter what,” he says.
The shade-grown plantations produce wrapper, very thin and delicate leaves of soft texture used for hand-rolling Habanos, these centennial kings of the good taste and glamour boast. But they are the result of patient dedication and the expertise of Cuban tobacco industry workers both in the field and in the factories
He was president of the “Eusebio Gonzalez” cooperative for ten years, but in 1996 he resumed his life as a tobacco grower, something that to him “is his passion and the happiest time of his existence.” He’s now the leader and teacher of a small posse of workers. He moves swiftly through the plants, up and down the furrows, having memories of his childhood and recapping some secrets, a few “knacks” of the crop which, in addition to being a tradition, is also a form of culture. “Involved once again in this I feel my life is back to the times when I was a kid –a long time ago– when I used to come to the field with my father, who was a tobacco planter just like me,” he concludes as he marches on and vanishes inside a sea of green leaves. Though Mother Nature is the mother of everything good San Luis has to offer, it can also play bad tricks or just be vulnerable to certain “evil spirits”: plagues, fog and rainfall. A lovely tobacco plantation in El Corojo sports a red ribbon tied up to one of the poles that prop up the cheesecloth. In front of him stands Adelaida Garcia Garcia, a mother of two and a tobacco-planting wife, daughter of Orestes Tarancon’s, an outstanding grower from the area and longstanding chief of vegetal sanitation in the municipality, a genuine authority on the topic of tobacco plantations. “It’s clear to me that superstitions and spirits are worthless here. Efforts and hard work are what really count. You do whatever you have to do without stopping, from day one all the way till the end,” he beams, propping the hoe on his shoulder, as we stood there staring at the abovementioned amulet. High noon closes in. The sun shines brightly on the surface of every single thing and another tobacco-laden town is waiting just for us. San Juan y Martinez On the way to San Juan y Martinez, the tobacco plantations look dazzling from the road as they stretch out all the way into the horizon. In those patches of land where no tobacco is grown, nature germinates amid a peace that’s only broken by buzzing insects that flutter past us, galloping horses or children yelling and playing on the roadside. If all this is owed to a bunch of lucid businesspeople who came up with tobacco rather than spices and went out to sell it around the world, centuries have fortunately gone by without the slightest change in this atmosphere of freedom, of simple living, aloof from the concerns and urgencies of the modern world. But, could it actually be different when today –like in the past– the cradle of Habano continues to be a region of exceptional nature? Could it be any different when love for the land, sense of perseverance and the willingness of the tobacco planters are this nature’s best allies and aides? That’s a lesson learned and passed on from generations to generations through time. The magnificent valley on the right side of San Juan y Martinez is carpeted with over 100,000 tobacco plants. This is no less the celebrated Hoyo de Monterrey plantation –very photographed as a visual icon of Vuelta Abajo and a benchmark of the centennial history of Habano and its brands– that for many years has been under the supervision of Felix Osorio, a young and outstanding local planter who’s barely 28 years old. “What I learned from my grandpa has always been useful for tobacco and I kindly take his rules of perseverance and hard work like a religion,” he told us. This new breed of harvesters has replicated the DNA of their ancestors and it’s good news to see them out in the fields of San Juan y Martinez. Some of them have even been vested with the most honorable recognition of the tobacco industry guild: the Habano Award. Hector Luis Prieto is a good case in point. He lives in Obeso, by the bank of a river called Quemado de Rubi and he grabbed the high distinction back in 2008. Prieto, 39, has spent 15 years of his life in this world and, in addition to working in the plantation, he also attends to the Encantos de mi Conuco cultural project that seeks to foster local hick traditions, culture and environmental protection around tobacco. “It’s something that must be protected because this is no doubt a privilege Nature has bestowed on the people of Vuelta Abajo,” he adds. Such living legends as Habano Award winners Gerardo Medina or Antonio Maria Paz Valladares –major tobacco planters from Monterrey and Las Maravillas, respectively– and the so-called King of Ash, Francisco Milian Diaz –a.k.a. Pancho Cuba– share a common thought: “the more you live next to tobacco and the more attention you pay to it, the more precious it grows.” And Antonia Maria wraps it all up in a simple countryside phrase: “being pitirrero,” which means being perseverant. Nothing but this fits in this landscape. We stop at El Palmarito. Yosvany Concepcion Alonso, 37, shouts out at a black ox that hauls a plow as a dazzling world destined to stay here for forever more serves as a perfect backdrop. It’s just another view of Vuelta Abajo and another of its young tobacco planters… Congrats!.
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