Visit to Santa Clara Cuba
This summer I decided to go to Santa Clara and relax for a week in one of the resorts and enjoy some Cuban music and Cuban Cigars. Santa Clara is famous for Che Guevara museum and the revolution battleground.
Upon arrival at the resort, I light up a Cohiba Siglo I right at the entrance. I immediately noticed that cigars taste better in Cuba as the humidity makes the flavor rounder and somewhat sweeter. The resort was great including its beaches as I always say, Cubans have one the most beautiful beaches in the world. Next day I went to the tourist information desk and asked the tour operator about Santa Clara Tours and Cigar Factory. He mentioned I can go with the bus with rest of the people or get a taxi, round trip which gives us a private tour with less price for 5 people. We signed up and next morning we left early in the day.
Our tour guide, Livan, was waiting for us in Santa Clara city center and took us around the churches and important buildings. At the local church I noticed this Cuban guy smoking cigar which I took a quick picture.
The local church kept birth certificates from 1700s.
After the city tour we headed for the cigar factory in Santa Clara which apparently makes 33 brands from rolling to boxing. Unfortunately I was not able to take pictures in the factory so instead I decided not to worry about the pictures and enjoy the environment. Upon entering the factory, this beautiful aroma of cedar and Cuban leaf just opens up your senses and creates this beautiful experience. They were rolling everything from Partagas to Cohiba including the Edition Limitadas. We walked through the rolling tables and onto the sorting, boxing and packaging and the lady showed me some of the 2010 Edition Limitadas such as Paratas Serie D and Romeo Jullieta Wide Churchils. You heard it right, Wide Churchill and not Short Churchills. After the tour was over the lady offered us some under the table cigars for $5 each which turn out to be fake.
Afterwards we head to a government store to buy Cuban cigars. Here is the video of the lady showing me the La Gloria Cubana Deleciosos which I ended up purchasing for $233. This is the first Cuban Regional Edition Cigar released in 2010 and contains 25 beautiful cigars. Rest of their selection was regular cigars which you can find everywhere but prices were excellent.
La Gloria Cubana Deleciosos Jar
Cuban Regional Edition Cigar 2010
Next, our friends asked the tour guide to find them some under table cigars from sources he has. Livan took us to this strange looking house which apparently was the fake cigar hub. The guy took out some fake cigars including some original authentic cigars which I think was stolen from the factory before their final stamp. See pictures below.
Fake House
Fake Cigars
Real Cigars
I smoked one of the fake cigars which was really bad and tasted like green leaf and one real one which was Montecristo Open Eagle which was excellent and you can see from the burn that the cigar was packed.
Overall it was a great trip and I am planning to go back in November. I will post more reviews on my trip later on.
Filed under: General Cigar Topics
Oh boy! Fake cigars! Hey, I’ve asked my friends (who don’t know a thing about cigars) to bring me back some cigars when they go to Cuba. So, guess what? They ALL brought back fake cigars, each and every time over the years! I mean, I don’t mind, I know what’s real and what’s fake. At the very least, you’re smoking authentic Cuban seed tobacco when you’ve bought a counterfeit cigar! I simply share them with my friends who are new to cigar smoking–it’s kind of going easy on new cigar smokers. I realize that the ligero leaf, which gives the cigar it’s characteristic ‘kick’, is missing. To a true Cuban cigar smoker, this might be evident but to a novice, it’s not a big deal. I save the real cigars to share with my more experienced Cuban cigar smoking friends. No one’s angry if you tell them what they are smoking in advance.
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first time poster here. Really excited to find out you haven’t abandoned this blog afterall. The La Gloria is a true beauty and I regretted not bringing one of those back from Havana, let us know how those cigars taste!
I think you will like this site. I haven’t found anything so original. They buy from the airport and all payments are through Pay Pal. Check it out. I have friends who have been both Providers and Recipients. The best thing to happen to smokers in a long time! http://www.olacigars.com
I completely agree with the above poster, he made alot of valid points, especially the first one. Also Admin, ive tried to subscribe to your RSS feed but I am getting an error? I hope you dont mind, but I went ahead and linked to your website through my blog. You dont have to link back to us if you dont want to. Thanks again for the great post! – Brooklyn NY Boxing Gym
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