RoMa Craft Tobac
- Founded in
- 2012 — Estelí, Nicaragua
- Factories
- Fábrica de Tabacos NicaSueño, Estelí, Nicaragua
- Countries
- Nicaragua
RoMa Craft refuses the word "boutique" and prefers craft. The name comes from its two founders — RO for Rosales, MA for Martin — and the house was formally created on 24 January 2012.
It began in a garage, and that is not a figure of speech. In 2010 Mike Rosales and Skip Martin went to Estelí, met the blender Esteban Disla there, and the three men made the first CroMagnons at his home, in his garage. The following year Rosales and Martin built their own workshop: Fábrica de Tabacos NicaSueño, two hundred and twenty square metres.
Everything has come out of it since, and that is what sets this house apart from most boutique houses: it has walls. The catalogue reads like a prehistory — CroMagnon, Aquitaine, Neanderthal — and the blends are more composite than the size of the workshop would suggest: a Cameroon binder in the first two, a Pennsylvania double ligero in the third.
The distinction the house insists on — craft rather than boutique — is about scale and about control: small runs, direct dealing with retailers, and leaf chosen one at a time.
Range Depth
CroMagnon
The first range, born in Esteban Disla's garage in 2010. Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper, Cameroon binder, Nicaraguan filler.
Anthropology · Mandible · EMH
Aquitaine
CroMagnon's counterpart under a thick, oily Ecuadorian Habano ligero wrapper. Same Cameroon binder, visos and secos from three Nicaraguan farms.
Gran Perfecto · Mode 5 · Knuckle Dragger
Intemperance
The most affordable range, in a choice of two wrappers. Indonesian binder, Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers — the house's most international blend.
Virtue · Charity · Justice
Neanderthal
The strongest in the catalogue. San Andrés wrapper, Connecticut Broadleaf binder, fillers from Condega, Estelí, Jalapa and Pueblo Nuevo, a Dominican olor ligero, and a Pennsylvania double ligero called Green River Sucker One.
HN · SGP · LH
Baka
2019 — a Cameroon wrapper, and the name of a people of the forests of that country's south-east. A thousand boxes per size per year.
Source : halfwheel.com « Rosales and Martin Launch RoMa Craft Tobac » et tobaccobusiness.com (le garage d'Esteban Disla, NicaSueño) ; halfwheel.com « RoMa Craft Tobac Plans Baka for IPCPR 2019 » (Baka, cape du Cameroun, du nom d'un peuple des forêts du sud-est camerounais ; environ mille boîtes par vitole et par an)