Plasencia’s picture-perfect plot. Nestor Andrés Plasencia poses with some of his Criollo ’98 leaf at a farm known as La Caridad. Sunflowers at the end of the row attract bugs to keep them away from the tobacco.
For a cigar lover there’s nothing quite as educational as touring tobacco fields and factories, and the Puro Sabor festival in Nicaragua offers plenty of such tours. On a recent morning our journey started in the tobacco fields of Plasencia Cigars, guided by Nestor Andrés Plasenica. He is the largest grower of premium tobacco in Central America and is also known for producing his Alma series, which includes Alma Fuerte, Alma del Fuego and Alma del Cielo. With its unfettered access to tobacco and vast inventories of leaf, Plasencia also makes cigars for other companies looking for Plasencia’s consistency and quality.
The next part of the day continued at the Joya de Nicaragua factory. Joya is the oldest manufacturer of premium cigars in the country and its history is impressive, having been owned at one time by the Samosa government before the Sandinista Revolution. Now, it’s in the hands of Dr. Alejandro Martínez-Cuenca, who purchased the factory in 1994. Because it’s been around for so long, Joya de Nicaragua is the quintessential reference for Nicaraguan cigars.
Waiting for the worms. Vermicompost—fertilizer from earthworms—is the secret to Plasencia’s soil. Thousands of worms inhabit this organic mixture that includes tobacco stems, manure, and leftover material from harvests of corn and beans.
Young leaf under shade. At the San Benito farm, this field of Connecticut-seed tobacco will be used for wrapper. It’s grown under a mesh tent to filter the sun’s rays, keeping the wrapper lighter in color and more pristine. You’ll find this wrapper on the Romeo y Julieta 1875 Connecticut Nicaragua line, which Plasencia makes for Altadis U.S.A.
An upbeat performance. The tour was treated to “El Güegüense,” a Nicaraguan folklore dance beautifully enacted in front of the factory.
Working as a team. Like most factories in Nicaragua, the cigarmakers at Plasencia cigars work in teams. You can see a worker creating the bunch before it goes into a cigar mold. The other worker, the roller, applies the wrapper leaf.
Up the stairway of history. The entrance to the Joya de Nicaragua factory leads to the rolling room. This is the oldest premium cigar operation in the country.
The quintessential Nicaraguan factory. Joya de Nicaragua has survived a revolution and continues to produce an entire suite of its namesake cigars. During the Nixon administration, Joya was the official cigar of The White House.
Removing the veins. Called “despalillo” in Spanish, the vein removal process is essential. Some factories use machines, but these workers take out the central stems from each leaf of tobacco by hand in one swift motion.
Crafting a prestigious smoke. Rollers here are making the Joya de Nicaragua Número Uno L’Ambassadeur. It’s covered in an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper and was Cigar Aficionado’s No. 6 cigar of 2020.
Quality control. Before these Número Uno L’Ambassadeur cigars are sorted for color they are checked for consistency of shape. Each cigar is put through a gauge to be sure they are all at the same 44 ring thickness. This is one of Joya de Nicaragua’s highest-rated smokes in the history of Cigar Aficionado.
