"February 2025. To visit a cigar factory in Cuba, you need to buy tickets in advance from a major hotel concierge desk. There are four factories in Havana. The process of buying tickets is quite complicated and you need to provide passport and travel details. The price per head was $10 For the partagas Factory. The factory is open Monday to Friday 9 am to 1 pm. We turned up to the factory at 11am and joined a guided tour of approximately 10 people, the tour took approximately 30 minutes. At the end of the tour we went to the neighbouring factory which was the H Upman Factory to look at the cigar shop. This partagas factory is the temporary location for partagas, as the main factory has been undergoing renovation for the last decade.

Our tour guide was a lady called Amanda who was highly knowledgeable and spoke excellent English. She explained to us all facets of the cigar production line process. She explained the rollers joined between the ages of 18 to 35, and it was a lifetime career for them. Paid approx 10K CUP pcm, their working hours are 6 am to 5 pm, however, they each have a specific quota to roll per day between 80 and 120 cigars, and when done they can leave. Each roller has a grade between one and nine, with nine being the highest skilled worker. The shorter cigars are easier to roll and are so given to the less skilled rollers, the longer more complex cigars being given to the skilled workers. Each worker owns the cigar for the whole duration of its production line from rolling to final presentation. Once the cigar is rolled the cigars go to a quality testing team where they are either accepted or rejected. The rejection rate is approximately 10 to 15%. They are then banded. Each roller gets six reject cigars a day to take away with them. At the partagas Factory they produce 10 of the 29 Habanos brands. Including Cohiba, partagas and H upman. The tobacco for the cigars comes from one small region on the island of Havana. The cigar comprises of five leaf types; wrapper and fillers. Each cigar brand has its tobacco blend chosen by the master blender, and the blend is unique to that brand and is what gives the brand its profile flavours. The rollers are then handed the correct leaves and given instructions on what to produce that day."

Hugh Christensen

"One of the highlights of my trip! I don't smoke cigars, but I found the Partagas cigar factory a fascinating place to visit. It is housed in an old building with an interior atrium. The smell is amazing and to watch the cigar being hand rolled is so interesting to watch. Side note: Cohiba is the only brand of cigars in Cuba started after the revolution. It was created at the request of Fidel Castro. The local Indians rolled tobacco leaves into what they called "Cohiba" and the rolled leaves were stuffed into the pipe called a "Tobago"."

Shawn

"Well worth a visit to the Upmann cigar factory the guide was very good and knowledgeable. No photos on the factory floor allowed, only in the lobby"

Derrick Lee