Santa Bras
- Founded in
- Années 1990 (essais) — George ; famille Snyman
- Factories
- Atelier propre à George (Western Cape) ; Jaco Snyman, propriétaire, roule lui-même — effectif non publié
- Countries
- Afrique du Sud
Santa Bras is a workshop in George, on South Africa's southern coast, which presents itself as the country's only cigar manufacturer — and the farming press of 2023 repeats the sentence from its roller's mouth. The story, as the house tells it, begins in the 1990s as a hobby: the founder tries local tobacco, fails with the Lowveld's, in the north-east, then finds a Western Cape valley, between the Swartberg and the Outeniqua, from which he takes his wrapper and binder; the filler comes from Eastern Cape farms. It does not date the move from pastime to business, and does not name the founder; the entry stops there.
What more is known holds in two names: Jaco Snyman, owner, who rolls himself and whom the press calls a torcedor, and Annerie Snyman, presented as the entrepreneur behind the house on a business radio show. The leaves are aged two years, he says; air-cured makes only a fifth of South African tobacco, on which three to four hundred growers live, and it is that share that makes cigars.
The Navigator series — Escobar, Goncalves, De Coimbra, De Alenquer, names of Portuguese navigators who rounded the Cape — is the premium line, in entirely local tobacco; the flavoured Nonnies and the De La Rey are short filler, and the atlas leaves them. One valley, one house, and a source that is mostly the house itself: this atlas opens South Africa with what it has, and says so.
Range Depth
Navigator Series
Escobar (petit corona), Goncalves, De Coimbra, De Alenquer — the premium line, in entirely South African tobacco, says the house.
Source : foodformzansi.co.za « Tobacco farmers: Exciting times for SA cigars » (28 mars 2023 : Jaco Snyman, torcedor de Santa Bras, George ; le séché à l'air fait environ 20 % du tabac sud-africain ; 300 à 400 planteurs ; feuilles vieillies deux ans ; il se dit la seule société du pays à faire des cigares) ; masculinecollective.com (17 août 2023 : Jaco Snyman propriétaire ; l'Escobar, petit corona de la série Navigator) ; omny.fm, The Money Show (Annerie Snyman, entrepreneuse derrière Santa Bras) ; santabrascigars.com (essais du fondateur dans les années 1990, tabac du Lowveld abandonné ; cape et sous-cape d'une vallée entre le Swartberg et les Outeniqua, tripe de l'Eastern Cape ; série Navigator — Escobar, Goncalves, De Coimbra, De Alenquer)