Cigar Trading and the Best Cigars

A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of tobacco leaves that have already been dried and fermented, which is lit for the purpose of inhaling, or merely drawing into the mouth rather than into the lungs, its smoke. The word "cigar" is from the Spanish word cigarro, which is possibly derived from the Maya language word sik meaning tobacco. The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, suggests that it is from cigarra, the Spanish word for cicada, due to its shape (specifically of what is now called the perfecto). Some kinds were called puro cigarro (pure cigar), and for this, in some languages the cigar is just know as puro.

Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in such nations as Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, and of course, the United States.

Cigars manufactured in Cuba are considered by many cigar smokers to be without peer. At one time, this may have been unarguably true, but in the present day, even the most elite of cigar cognoscenti have admitted that the best of non-Cuban cigars have come up to the quality level of Habanos. Some believe this decrease in cigar quality is due to the number of master cigar-makers that fled Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power.