Leite & Alves

Leite & Alves is the Cachoeira factory, on the bank of the Paraguaçu facing São Félix, and one of Brazil's oldest cigar houses — but its age depends on what one counts. The house traces its origin to 1854, in Niterói, across from Rio, where a cigarette factory, São Domingos, was born; a cigar history handbook dates that same imperial factory to 1881; the entry writes both. What does not differ: in 1881 the company is in Salvador and starts making cigars, and in 1936 it settles in Cachoeira, where it still is.

Everything is hand-rolled there, long filler, with the Recôncavo's tobaccos — Mata Fina, Mata Sul, Mata Norte — under three brands: Talvis, which the house presents as one of the country's oldest cigar lines, Le Cigar, and Leite & Alves. The factory houses a tobacco museum, documents, photographs and tools of the history of Bahian cigars, which visitors of the Recôncavo festival cross before the rollers' gallery.

The business press of 2012 saw it seeking a niche — cigars for religious ceremonies — in a Bahia whose production was collapsing. Dannemann, across the river, has its own entry.

Range Depth

• Talvis

  Wrapper Mata Fina (Bahia) · Strength Mild-Medium

  One of the country's oldest cigar lines, says the house; Corona and Petit Corona in long filler.

• Leite & Alves

  Wrapper Mata Fina or Mata Norte (Bahia) · Strength Mild-Medium

  The line in the house's name — Petit Corona, Rothschild; Mata Fina, Mata Sul and Mata Norte, whole leaves.

• Le Cigar

  Wrapper Mata Fina (Bahia) · Strength Medium

  The Cachoeira factory's third brand.