Puros Artesanos Julio

The family has been in tobacco since 1950; the firm itself bears a first name and dates from 2000. Julio and his brother founded it then, with the trade learned from their father.

The workshop is at Breña Alta and the plantation is opposite, across the road. That is what sets the house apart: half its leaf comes from its own field, the other half from Sumatra, Cuba and Brazil. Growing, curing, fermenting, rolling — all of it happens within those few hundred metres.

Breña Alta was not picked at random: the town has a long tobacco tradition, owed to a microclimate and to the Palmeros who came back from South America with the craft. The house has opened a themed shop there and shows visitors round its workshop.

Two lines hold the catalogue, and they differ by wrapper rather than by format: a mild Connecticut, balanced in the burn, and a dark Brazil with reddish tones, medium to full.

Range Depth

• Connecticut

  Wrapper Connecticut · Strength Light-Medium

  The mild line, which the house describes by its balanced burn and its soft feel. Half the leaf from the plantation across the road, half from Sumatra, Cuba and Brazil.

• Brasil

  Wrapper Brazil · Strength Medium-Full

  The dark wrapper with reddish tones, and the house's stronger side: medium to full, on a taste the workshop claims as intense.