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A HABANO IS MUCH MORE THAN A MASTERFULLY HANDMADE LONG-FILLER CIGAR. FIRST, WE THOUGHT ABOUT IT, THEN WE SPELL ITS NAME —SIMILAR IN ALL LANGUAGES AROUND THE WORLD— AND ONCE WE HEAR ITS NAME, WE KNOW IT IS A GENUINELY CUBAN PRODUCT

The Protected Appellation of Origin (DOP is the Spanish acronym) defines, above all things, the origin of products. This characteristic determines the origin of a place, region, and exceptionally, a country, which gives unique features to a product due to its particular geography, the natural and human elements determining each production stages that take place in the demarcated geographical area.
DOP is applied to agricultural products whose quality and characteristics are exclusively determined by the geography where it is originated, produced and transformed —in the skilled hands of inhabitants within the site. This appellation makes them different to those similar, existing products in the market produced in other regions; indeed, they sometime substitute some of the stages of the original producing process with industrialization techniques.
Each producer assuming DOP is committed to maintain the highest quality of the final product. Likewise, there are regulatory authorities of the appellation of origin dedicated to guarantee and authorize the exhibition of such category.
Clearly, DOP main advantage for consumers is the guarantee of a sustained level of quality and the unique features of the product. DOP provides legal protection against the making of the products in other regions even though similar ingredients and procedures may be used.

DOP around the World
Known worldwide, the Protected Appellation of Origin catalyzes the prestige of different products such as the Roquefort cheese: a sort of French blue cheese produced in the region of Causses del Aveyron, which got its Appellation of Origin in 1925.
The same applies to the wine of Xerez, produced in the Spanish city of Jerez de la Frontera, province of Cadiz. To the list of selected products, we can add the Venezuelan Rum, Mexico’s tequila, Peruvian pisco, Chilean pisco, and Colombian coffee…among others.

Habanos
In the westernmost side of Cuba, Pinar del Rio —particularly in the area of San Luis and San Juan— there are unique features that provide cigars from the early stage of the plant growth and its drying process, with unrepeatable characteristics you cannot find anywhere in the world, even within Cuba.
A Habano lover recognizes from the very first puff the cigars made in San Luis and San Juan. The process starts with the harvesting of tobacco. Afterwards, the leaves are hung in air-curing barns. There, tobacco is allowed to dry and leaves experience a natural fermentation. Then these leaves are tightly packed and experience a second fermentation process where they remain well-ventilated, moistened and then put into the barn for a third fermentation and aging.
At every stage, Habano leaves achieve a superior organoleptic complexity that provides special taste like the creamy flavor in the mouth, unctuosity on the palate as well as an embracing bulky smoke. As for the aroma, you can feel the nuts in the form of peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts whereas coffee, cocoa, and unique tobacco features are found in the aftertaste.

LAWS AND D.O.P.
The Habano production includes slightly more than 500 manual processes and all of them are subjected to tight controls set by the Regulatory Council of the Protected Appellation of Origin Habanos, to deserve the long-hoped title of being regarded as Habanos.
There is no unified theory concerning the treatment of geographical indications. In his thesis of master’s degree in Management of Intellectual Property Yatelier Hernández Santana states: “the Cuban laws regulate the legal framework of the geographical indications in the Decree-Law 228 where the treatment of both the Indications of Source and the registration procedure of national and international Protected Appellation of Origin is set. In addition, it expects the control of the Geographical Indications remain with the Cuban Intellectual Property Office.”
“By means of edaphoclimatic variables, the countries of Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico were compared. It was then found that the characteristics of the Red Ferralitic tobacco soils in Artemisa, Cuba, have excellent hydro-physical properties, which are perfectly adjusted to the biological needs of tobacco growing. Likewise, it was identified that the Dominican Republic has very similar weather conditions to that of Artemisa, in view of the geographical proximity as well as its insular nature. It was not the case of the other areas analyzed. However, Cuban cigars do not exhibit similar organoleptic characteristics and qualities.”
Habanos benefits from a well-deserved exclusiveness, a sign of distinctiveness and good taste.
The Cuban Black Tobacco was regarded as the best tobacco in the word due essentially to the exceptional conditions for its growing that still remain five centuries later.