| Tobacco leaves are harvested, and aged using a process that combines use of heat and shade to reduce sugar and water content without causing the large leaves to rot. This first part of the process, called curing, takes between 25 and 45 days and varies substantially based upon climactic conditions, as well as the construction of sheds or barns used to store harvested tobacco. The curing process is manipulated based upon the type of tobacco, and the desired color of the leaf. The second part of the process, called fermentation, is carried out under conditions designed to help the leaf die slowly and gracefully. Temperature and humidity must be controlled to ensure that the leaf continues to ferment, without rotting or disintegrating. This is where the flavor, burning, and aroma characteristics are primarily brought out in the leaf.
Once the leaves have aged properly, they are sorted for use as filler or wrapper based upon their appearance and overall quality. During this process, the leaves are continually moistened and handled carefully to ensure each leaf is best used according to its individual qualities. The leaf will continue to be baled, inspected, unbaled, reinspected, and baled again repeatedly as it continues its aging cycle. When the leaf has matured according to the manufacturers specifications, it will be used in the production of a cigar.
The creation of a quality cigar is still performed by hand. An experienced cigar roller can produce hundreds of exceptional, nearly identical cigars per day. The rollers keep the tobacco moist - especially the wrapper, and use specially designed crescent shaped knives to form the filler and wrapper leaves quickly and accurately. Once rolled, the cigars are stored in wooden forms as they dry, in which their un-capped ends are cut to a uniform size. From this stage, the cigar is a complete product that can, to the best of anyone's knowledge, be kept indefinitely - under the proper conditions. (Indeed, Sotheby's recently auctioned off cigars kept in the damp basement of an Irish castle for centuries. Reportedly, they still smoked well.) Cigars are known to have lasted for decades if kept as close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and 70% relative humidity, as the environment will allow. Once purchased, this is usually accomplished by keeping the cigars in a specialized wooden box, or humidor, where conditions can be carefully controlled for long periods of time. Even if a cigar becomes dry, it can be successfully re-humidified so long as it has not been handled carelessly.
Some cigars, especially premium brands, use different varieties of tobacco for the filler and the wrapper. "Long filler cigars" are a far higher quality of cigar, using long leaves throughout. These cigars also use a third variety of tobacco leaf, a "binder", between the filler and the outer wrapper. This permits them to use more delicate and attractive leaves as a wrapper. These high-quality cigars almost always blend varieties of tobacco. Even Cuban long-filler cigars will combine tobaccos from different parts of the island to incorporate several different flavors.
In low-grade cigars, chopped up tobacco leaves are used for the filler, and long leaves or even a type of "paper" made from tobacco pulp is used for the wrapper which binds the cigar together.
Historically, a lector or reader was always employed to entertain the cigar factory workers. This practice became obsolete once audio books for portable players became available, but is still practiced in some Cuban factories. Legend has it that it was because of one of these lectores' choice of reading material that one of the best known brands earned its name. At the H. Upmann factory in Havana, the lector had the custom of reading the works of Alexandre Dumas. So loved were Dumas' works by the workers, that they asked the factory owner to let them produce a cigar as homage. The new cigars were branded Montecristo, in reference to The Count of Monte Cristo, and the boxes that carried them bore the image of three swords, in reference to The Three Musketeers. The Montecristo brand continues to be one of the most popular in the world to this day.
In fact, the Montecristo brand was created when Alonso Menendez purchased the Particulares factory in July 1935, as Min Ron Nee documents in "An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars." In that book, he reproduces an August 1935 issue of Habano magazine which announces the purchase of the factory and the launch of new cigar brand, Montecristo.(The first Montecristo cigars were made in the Particulares factory, not H. Upmann. The magazine does not mention the romantic story of the workers demanding a homage to Dumas. The logo (three swords surrounding a fleur de Lis) was designed by a British cigar importer John Hunter Morris and first appeared in print in August 1936. The cigar was made, for a time, in the H. Upmann factory, after Menendez bought it in 1937.
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