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Article from Granma regarding the newly accepted (16-17 campaign) Corojo 2012 Strain. No mention as to the qualities of the tobacco as a finished product, only that it will be more resistant to disease, and most importantly, yield two more leaves per plant. Only 200 Hectares planted this year, but if results are good this new strain could begin arriving on our doorsteps in 4-5 years. So, a reach back to the old Corojo, or another step away from the cuban black tobacco of old? http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-01-25/new-variety-of-tobacco-grown-in-pinar-del-rio-and-artemisa

Came across this on the net. A per Province breakdown of total tobacco revenues across all tobacco product types from 1990 - 2016. In short. For a country of ~30 million, taxing tobacco has brought in billions per years to government coffers. In 2016 total Provincial and Federal taxes have brought in $8.3 Billion. Link to PDF Tables Page 3 has a breakdown of cigarettes, cigars, pipe, etc.

I often read the cigar "forum" on reddit known as /r/cigars. I came across an interesting post from a food scientist that works with things such as mold and various types of vermin. (@CanuckSARTech) excluded. I approached the OP to provide a link back to the thread and the OP was fine with it. So, please read through the link and feel free to discuss here. I found it very interesting. FYI. Some of the responders to the OP also had some good info which some of you may/may not be already aware of. So without further ado. Read On Thanks to user "Aulm" on reddit..

I am not sure if i can go into much depth with this question so I hope this thread starts to snowball off itself.. -What are the different leaves of the tobacco plant? -What role does each type of leave play during the aging process ( I understand certain parts get better with age, and others don't change much with age) -Is there a certain correlation between leaf length and the length of the intended cigar? -How are different leaves rolled to produce a finished product? After reading through a lot of forums I understand that certain cigars benefit from age more than others.. Different leaves bring out different tastes and I am just curious as to how the tobacco works. Cigars are not just burning leaves and it is really interesting to learn how all these different factors come together to create a work of art.

Greetings all. Haven't posted much lately. Thought I'd try to stir things up a bit. As I sit here enjoying a 2009 P2, I've been thinking about what cigars I've enjoyed these past few years and from what year they came from with less concern on the specific box codes. If we treat Cuban tobacco crops the way vintners do with their grape harvests; which years in the last 10 years stand out for you? Don't dwell on the marcas but the overall sampling of cigars you've had from specific years that make you think. "This was a good year for Cuban tobacco." I've broken down the poll into two questions to cover two five year spans. As we are in 2015 now, I'll cite 2014 as the cutoff year for recent vintages going back to 2010. The second period covers 2005 - 2009. From each question, please select only two years that stood out for you. If you've been smoking for at least 10 years or have access to older boxes or singles in a fair quantity and have smoked your share, please chime in on Question 1 & 2. Question 2 is meant to cover the "newbs" with 1 - 5 years of CC smoking. If you're a new smoker but have had a good share of pre-2009 CC's then feel free to answer Question 1. Cast your votes, feel free to post follow up comments & questions in this thread too. I hope everyone is doing well.

I originally wrote this for a thread on the embargo. I am not going to edit all that out, but in the event that this thread gets whacked or closed, I figured it would be better it be on its own and not bring down the thread of another member. Let the melee commence! …as I stated, the opening comments are regarding questions about the embargo! From a slightly different angle… Not all US Americans like CC's. The draw is too stiff for them and they don't have that tin can, metallic twang that they appear to love. I am not putting down, NC cigars, I just don't like them. Having shared CC's with many American smokers, many have been unimpressed with the nuance that they could apparently no longer taste. There are Coke and Pepsi followers… and for those that distinguish the two, they are not alike… You guys hear of the gray market? Well every US buyer knows it like it or not. You think that would stop? You see, like it or not, every legit CC delivered into the US is sent by a 'gray market' supplier. This is not a jab at any of the places you buy your cigars but you must understand that if you are buying cigars from 'illegitimate' sources, MEANING ILLEGITIMATE TO YOUR GOVERNMENTS TAX POLICY, YOU ARE BUYING CIGARS IN THE GRAY OR BLACK MARKETS. PLEASE, bear in mind I am not taking about legitimacy of the the provenence of the product, I am talking the legitimacy of the market supplier from the perspective of the "OFFICIAL." Legitimate therefore is not the issue, but legitimate to whom is the issue? Just to get this straight, if you are buying cigars around your government's taxation system, or 'other' laws, therefore from 'illegitimate' sources, you are buying gray market or black market. Do you think that is going to stop? No way! I think what people are not realizing here, is that the cigar business is largely going gray market because host countries for these businesses are killing their local business men (and women) by politicizing the cigar business (and others) and simply driving that trade offshore. So it is not really the evil business man that moves offshore because he is greedy. He often moves offshore because he wants to stay in business. It may be that the brick and mortar fails, that is the goal of PC driven 'lefty' legislation to control "behavior." People still want their products so they take some risk and go elsewhere. Is this not what many of us do? As each of our countries finds this popular tax stream of taxing sin, typically as justification to support medical welfare programs, we will all begin a move to bring in our cigar illegally and simply support businesses of countries other than our own. You might find that the US mail orders, if allowed, will simply be shipping cigars to Canada, or Australia…! This is government master planning at its finest! I know that we recently came off a rather exhausting 'gun' thread. Hopefully some of the gun haters have taken a few Xanax and fresh off the couch they read through the article without exploding. I have posted it so that some, not so intrenched in ideological hate, can get an understanding of how they and others are manipulated by ideological 'hate groups' as a tool to forward their larger political agendas. That these topics and positions are neither random nor separate. While many of you might believe they are, they are not. Our governmental enemies that are killing our smoking rights are killing the rights of other business that 'they' deem inappropriate. Some of these movements can pick up a little civil libertarian push by legalizing things like MJ, but they are only in it for the money… The tax revenue. Once established, these same groups will be bashing the trade, trying to tax the hell out of it and control it. It is only a matter of time. These apparent libertarian pushes only last until the long arm of the tax man gets his hooks into that trade as well. The taxation begins with a campaign of 'hate' against the group. The public hate, pushes the tax man to do his job. We come full circle. The main question should be whether there will still be tobacco stores when the two countries settle their differences? Cuba, since it officially also takes a leftist anti-smoking stance and the US may look very different by the time this happens, if it does. With most of our governments looking to put tobacco out of business, the matter of embargo begins to look less important, at least to me. My point basically, is that there exists a political ideology that primarily backs these "anti-this and anti-that," for your health and welfare positions. Some of you are sympathetic to their position on other topics. Yes topics change and with them so do opinions. Many will find out that the people that they supported on one day, due to one topic, are the same folks that are not attempting to put you out of business the next day because you have become their next target. Doug here is a political pundit, gun lover and cigar smoker. He owns a cigar company. For those of you on the left that hate guns yet love cigars, you might take note that to your leftist peers, you are as bad as gun owners…! You are not separate nor different. You are the same to them! You are targeted for extinction just like the rest of us! And when you consider how vile and hateful you are of gun owners, well, you can see how you are thought of as a cigar smoker by your own peers. Cheers. -Piggy OPERATION CHOKE POINT: Why Gun And Cigar Lovers Should Detest The Left Written by Doug Giles on August 10, 2014 In the last couple of weeks my cigar company has had hell trying to find a credit card processing company that’ll do recurring revenue charges for my customers who’d like to get an automated, monthly dose of one of the finest cigars on this planet, our Safari Cigar. As my team and I were going back and forth trying to find a company to handle our transactions, I started redlining, getting a wee bit pissed, about how ridiculous it has become to do trade. My business boys tried to calm me down by telling me it was normative now for banks to crap on our enterprise, given that cigars have been deemed a “high risk” business. Their explanation and well-meaning solace made me even more annoyed, causing me to yell, “What is this, Russia?” And then I said, “No … it can’t be Russia because Russia wouldn’t do stupid, PC junk like this.” Fast forward to this past Wednesday when my publicist called me and said Newsmax TV wanted me on to talk about “Operation Choke Point” with JD Hayworth and Miranda Khan on their show, America’s Forum. Having a new book to plug, of course I said, “Yes” even though, and I hate to admit it, I had no clue what Operation Choke Point (OCP) was. I thought it was some kind of organized rescue effort to try to save Rosie O’Donnell if she ever started gagging on nachos again during a lesbian cruise to Nassau. So, I googled OCP and, low and behold, did I find a little treasure trove of backdoor control that has come to characterize BHO and his boys’ modus operandi for the last six years. Essentially, Operation Choke Point, launched in 2013 in partnership with the DOJ, is a program that makes a financial institution’s life a living hell, with insane audits and investigations, if they provide services to clients who are a part of an “offensive industry” that is rife with “fraudulent activities.” Sounds good and noble on the surface, eh? So, I started to dig a around a bit to see what they deem “offensive” because it’s always interesting in Obamaland to see what they brand as bellicose. Offensive businesses, according to OCP, are porn sites and prostitution. Also, included were online gaming, Ponzi schemes, payday loans, bogus MLM sites, and check cashing stores. Okay, I can see how those are gross, some illegal, but I really don’t know that they demand an “Operation” to quell them. Continuing on, I started running into offensive things like fireworks, as in firecrackers. And I’m like … huh? Fireworks? Really? And then it started getting really good, as I saw in my ham-fisted online research that OCP also targets banks that work with online gun and ammo sales and tobacco. Yahtzee. There it was … buried deep in the dastardly heap of porn, pirate hookers and bottle rockets are the nefarious, oh-so-offensive, guns and cigars. It took awhile, but I found ‘em. Lets see: firearms and cigars are a “high risk” and an “offensive industry?” To whom? Mary Poppins? Not to the millions that own and use both. Also, someone help me here, since when did gun and ammo sales become fraud laden? That industry is more regulated than Bill is when Hillary’s in town and in one of her “moods”; and yet, the DOJ is going to lump them in with porn and Ponzi schemes and threaten banks with unannounced audits? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? According to Alden Abbott of Heritage.org- “The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for firearms and ammunitions manufacturers, said that several of its members have had banking relationships wrongfully terminated as a result of Operation Choke Point. The group argues the federal government is discriminating against businesses simply because they are engaged in the lawful commerce of firearms.” And cigars? Cigars? Cigar companies are “filled with such widespread deception” that they demand being squeezed out of existence with a special-op via the DOJ? I bet George Burns, JFK and Winston Churchill are spinning in their respective graves so fast they could light up all of Vegas. Pardon me, but my BS detector is pinging on that claim. Here’s what it boils down to with me and my little cigar company, my love of guns and this thing called freedom: Obama and his ilk’s freakish control fetishes have failed so miserably in the last few years that they have resorted to bullying banks to punish people they’ve deemed enemies and make it impossible for legitimate businesses to operate. That’s what you call a “fundamental transformation” of America. I don’t know how a gun owner or a cigar lover can still support such liberty-abusing louts like Obama and his clowns. For more on Operation Choke Point go to: StopTheChoke.com BTW, we don’t have the recurring rev feature up and running yet, but you may still purchase our amazing smokes online via SafariCigar.com.

So some Scientists in Germany have found a way to make Tobacco plants seemingly grow indefinitely and continue to grow reasonable looking young leaves. Could we one day be smoking cigars made from a Tobacco plant older than the curing of the leaves etc?