The leaves
Thirty tobaccos, terroir by terroir: where they come from, how they grow, and what they give the cigar.
🇧🇷 Brésil 3
Arapiraca
Dark and oily, it burns evenly and leaves a very white ash. Where Mata Fina goes towards flowers, it goes towards chocolate and spice — hence its use…
Mata Fina
A fine leaf of pleasant scent and restrained, rather floral taste.
Mata Norte
Fuller-bodied than Mata Fina, it serves to give blends depth rather than to dress them. It is the leaf of the frame, not of the façade.
🇨🇲 Cameroun 1
Cape du Cameroun
A fine leaf with pronounced tooth, sought after as much for its rarity as for its look.
🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire 2
🇨🇺 Cuba 3
Corojo
A fine, even wrapper whose name outlived the plant: it turns up in Honduras and in Cuba's Corojo 99, its resistant offspring.
Criollo
A leaf of substance rather than of surface: it carries the blend's taste without seeking to dress it.
Habano 2000
It was asked for the look and taste of Corojo with resistance added, and that is what it gives. A stand-in wrapper that ended up standing on its own.
🇪🇨 Équateur 3
Ecuador Connecticut
A pale wrapper with discreet veining, prized for its mildness. It is the choice for gentle morning blends, where the Ecuadorian Habano aims at body.
Ecuador Habano
A supple, even wrapper, among the most widespread on premium cigars today. It brings body and spice where its Connecticut neighbour brings mildness.
Ecuador Sumatra
A fine wrapper with all but invisible veining, darker than the Connecticut without reaching the body of the Habano.
🇺🇸 États-Unis 2
Connecticut Broadleaf
A thick, oily, heavily veined leaf of deep colour once cured. It burns slowly and carries a pronounced taste — the very opposite of its shade-grown ne…
Connecticut Shade
A thin, supple leaf of golden brown, with very fine veins and a silky feel. It gives a mild body: this is the wrapper for blends meant to stay light.
🇭🇳 Honduras 2
Connecticut Shade
A pale, mild wrapper, the opposite of the Corojo next door. Both grow in the same country and serve opposing blends: that is Honduras's palette.
Corojo
It kept the power and spice of the original strain — that is what people come for, and what Cuba lost when it replaced it with resistant hybrids.
🇪🇸 Îles Canaries 1
Tabac de La Palma
A leaf Cuban by seed and Canarian by soil. This is the first turn of a loop the atlas already tells the other way round: a century later, after 1960…
🇮🇩 Indonésie 2
Besuki
A mild, aromatic leaf, supple enough to serve as a wrapper and neutral enough to go into the filler. It is this double calling that sets it apart.
Deli Sumatra
A dry, spicy smoke of recognisable character. It is most widespread in Europe, where it dresses a large share of cigars and cigarillos.
🇮🇹 Italie 1
Kentucky
A thick, veined, dark leaf. It serves as both wrapper and filler, which is rare: the Toscano is made of a single kind of leaf, where a Caribbean cigar…
🇯🇲 Jamaïque 1
Cow Tongue
A leaf that is told mostly in the past tense. Jamaica was, in the 1960s and 1970s, the leading cigar country of the Caribbean outside Cuba, and still…
🇲🇽 Mexique 1
Negro San Andrés
A dark leaf cut by the stalk, like Connecticut broadleaf. It withstands high fermentation temperatures, which makes it a leading maduro wrapper.
🇳🇮 Nicaragua 4
Corojo 99
A longer leaf than its parent: width is only 55 per cent of length, a proportion that suits a wrapper. From Corojo it keeps the spice and the cedar.
Criollo 98
A short leaf: its width is 65 per cent of its length, which suits it to filler and binder rather than wrapper. It brings aroma and strength.
Habano
What the word promises is a lineage rather than a profile: spice, body, and the character associated with Cuban tobacco, tempered by the soil that rec…
Havana 92
Sources mention it as a seed still in the ground without describing its profile.
🇵🇦 Panama 2
Corojo Panamá
It bears the name of a line the atlas already tracks in Cuba and Honduras. What Panama makes of it owes to its heights and its volcanic soil.
Habano Panamá
What the name promises is a lineage rather than a profile, as everywhere the Cuban seed has travelled.
🇵🇭 Philippines 1
Tabac natif de Cagayan
Not a cultivar but a local strain, Isabela, which gave its name to the house of La Flor de la Isabela: here, the brand and the plant are one and the s…
🇩🇴 Rép. Dominicaine 3
Olor Dominicano
A leaf of structure: it wraps the filler and holds it, without imposing its taste. It is the binder of most Dominican cigars.
Piloto Cubano
It is the strength leaf of Dominican blends, the one mixed in for taste rather than structure. Its Cuban lineage comes through.
San Vicente
Milder than its forebear, supple in texture and creamy in taste. It serves as binder as much as filler, where Piloto stays in the filler.