Kolumbus

Kolumbus is a small house on La Palma that rolls longfiller — whole leaves — from a wholly palmero tobacco: the Breña variety, born of the volcanic soils of the island's eastern side, where its fields also lie. The leaf ages several years in Spanish cedar cellars before rolling.

Three friends founded it. The house publishes neither their names nor its year of founding, and this atlas does not invent them. It is sold from Switzerland by Stefan Baltisberger.

Its recent history says something about the whole Canary scene. The European Track & Trace regulation, written against cigarette smuggling, was extended to cigars: every piece must carry a unique identifier and security markings, which requires certified label printers, dedicated software and a monthly licence. The online magazine zigarren.zone puts the investment at over seventy thousand Swiss francs, plus some two thousand a month, and reports a full year with no exports at all.

For a workshop hand-rolling a few thousand cigars, that is a burden with no relation to its volumes. The rule was not written against houses like this one; it reaches them all the same, and that is the kind of reason a scene disappears without anyone having decided it.

Range Depth

• K-Azul

  Wrapper Palmero, Breña variety · Strength Medium

  One of the house's three blends, told apart by the colour of the band rather than by the format. Wholly palmero longfiller, aged in Spanish cedar cellars.

  Robusto

• K-Negro

  Wrapper Palmero, Breña variety · Strength Medium-Full

  The darkest of the three, in the short format. Same Breña leaf, same ageing — it is the blend that changes, not the origin.

  Robustito

• K-Rojo

  Wrapper Palmero, Breña variety · Strength Medium

  The third of the series, also a Robustito. The Breña variety gives a floral register, which the house describes through notes of rosemary, berries and nutmeg.

  Robustito