Joyas de Panamá
- Founded in
- Février 1986 — La Pintada, Coclé
- Factories
- Joyas de Panamá, La Pintada, Coclé — roulage entièrement à la main
- Countries
- Panama
Joyas de Panamá is the house Panama kept. Miriam Padilla founded it in February 1986 at La Pintada, in Coclé province, and the Panamanian press calls it the country's first permanent cigar factory — which says a good deal about what came before: workshops that opened and closed.
It did not come out of nowhere. In March 1981, Gilberto Oliva and Nestor Plasencia brought Cuban seed to Coclé; the Coclé Tobacco Factory opened at Peñonomé that same year, Tabacos Panamá S.A. at La Pintada in 1984. Miriam Padilla had been production manager at Oliva's company before setting up her own: what she took with her was not a brand but a craft, and this entry says it that way because that is what the sources establish.
The rolling is entirely by hand, on Cuban seed, in the manner learned from those masters. The tobacco comes from the volcanic ground around La Pintada, Sonadora, and a place called Sortová. On that last point the sources diverge, and the atlas does not settle it: there is a Sortová in the Bugaba district of Chiriquí, while the Panamanian press places the tobacco-growing Sortová in Coclé. Both provinces grow; the same name may designate two places.
The house stopped in 2023 — covid, then Miriam Padilla's retirement. Her son, Braulio Zurita, reopened the workshop and runs it. That is why this entry exists in the present tense, and also why it stays careful: a report that went looking for Panamanian cigars in 2025 found the other Coclé workshops idle, an industry undermined by mismanagement, accusations of tax-credit fraud and unpaid wages. Joyas de Panamá is what survived that.
No line names are given here, and that is deliberate: the house publishes none that can be verified. Fourteen entries in this atlas are in that position. Naming lines one has not seen would repeat what has just been removed from Panama — a whole entry built on nothing.
Range Depth
Joyas de Panamá
The 1986 brand, rolled at La Pintada on Cuban seed acclimatised in Coclé.
Flor de Panamá
The factory's second brand, with varied profiles, says the 2025 report — under Braulio Zurita, the founder's son.
Source : newsroompanama.com « Joyas de Panamá Cigars: History of Cigars in Panama » (14 septembre 2025 : « In February 1986 Sra. Miriam Padilla founded the Joyas de Panama Cigar Factory in La Pintada de Cocle » ; première fabrique permanente du pays ; semence cubaine, techniques cubaines de roulage ; tabac de Sortová, Sonadora et La Pintada ; activité jusqu'en 2023, reprise par son fils Braulio Zurita) ; dopanama.com (Miriam Padilla directrice de production chez Gilberto Oliva avant de fonder la sienne) ; lonelyplanet.com pour l'atelier de La Pintada ; dopanama.com « Joyas de Panama: Cuba's Cigar Legacy in Volcanic Coclé » (15 septembre 2025 : Coclé Tobacco Factory de Peñonomé, mars 1981, Gilberto Oliva, fermée ; Tabacos Panamá S.A., La Pintada, 1984, Nestor Plasencia, fermée ; Joyas de Panamá rouverte sous Braulio Zurita ; seconde marque Flor de Panamá ; tout à la main, trois à six mois de fermentation)