Fonseca

Fonseca is recognisable before it is even lit: each cigar is wrapped individually in white tissue paper, a presentation that Habanos says is still distinctive of the brand, and that Wikipedia describes as tin foil covered with Japanese paper, to protect the cigar from atmospheric variations.

The founder, Don Francisco Fonseca, is presented by Habanos as an elegant man, careful of appearance, who passed that taste on to the presentation of his Habanos. Habanos writes that the filler and the binder come from the Vuelta Abajo area, that all the cigars are totalmente a mano, some long filler, others short filler. The house calls it light in strength, ideal to accompany light meals; a British retailer describes it as rich but smooth.

According to Wikipedia, the hand-made range has four formats: Cosaco (5 3/8 inches with a cepo 42, about 137 mm), Delicia (4 7/8 by 40, the only short filler format), No. 1 (6 3/8 by 44) and KDT Cadete (4 1/2 by 36). A British retailer gives the same dimensions for the Cosacos (5 3/8 by 42) and calls it long filler, while noting, on the same page, that Don Francisco Fonseca founded the brand in the 1890s and developed it in 1906: the date is still to be recorded as a variance.

Wikipedia dates the brand to 1892, by Francisco E. Fonseca, and records it in 1907. A brand of the same name exists outside Cuba: the trade press (18 February 2013) places the Fonseca Cubano Exclusivo at the MATASA factory, in the Dominican Republic, while Wikipedia speaks of a Nicaraguan brand — another homonym, another box to read carefully.

Where is it rolled? In Cuba the question has a two-storey answer. Since 2002 each Habanos brand has had a mother factory, responsible for leaf selection and blend, and its cigars may be rolled in any of the island's few dozen factories under the mother's supervision; Habanos does not publish that map, the trade press reconstructs it. Habanos does not name its mother factory, and the trade press (2011) does not cite Fonseca in its tour of the factories; Wikipedia says only that production is still done at the Lázaro Peña factory, in Havana. In October 2026 habanos.com places it among the 13 other brands of the portfolio (21 portfolio brands, 27 in all with the 6 global ones). The official page dates the founding only to the last decade of the nineteenth century and says the range is hand-rolled, part long filler, part short filler, wrapped in tissue paper.

Range Depth

• Cosacos

  Wrapper Wrapper not specified · Strength Mild

  Cosaco: 5 3/8 inches with a cepo 42 (about 137 mm) according to Wikipedia and a British retailer, who calls it close to a petit corona, in long filler and totalmente a mano, of light strength, wrapped in white tissue paper.

  Cosaco

• No.1

  Wrapper Wrapper not specified · Strength Mild

  No. 1: 6 3/8 inches with a cepo 44 (about 162 mm), lonsdale, according to Wikipedia; the house gives no dimensions.

  No. 1

• Delicias

  Wrapper Wrapper not specified · Strength Mild

  Delicia: 4 7/8 inches with a cepo 40 (about 124 mm) according to Wikipedia, which calls it the only short filler format; a British retailer gives 4 3/4 by 40.

🥃 Pairings

• Light filter coffee

  Coffee

  A suggestion for a brand that Habanos says is light in strength.

• Blanc de blancs champagne

  Wine

  A suggestion; Habanos says the brand is ideal to accompany light meals.

👤 Associated figures

• Francisco E. Fonseca

  Habanos names him Don Francisco Fonseca, founder of the brand in the last decade of the nineteenth century, elegant and careful of appearance, which he is said to have passed on to the presentation of his Habanos. Wikipedia, which cites the New York Times of 26 October 1929, says he was born in Manzanillo and died in Havana in 1929.