The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Miami’s high-end cigar rollers create niche industry for top smokes Posted: 27 Sep 2013 12:43 AM PDT She cuts a teardrop from a broad tobacco leaf then glues, wraps and twists it onto the end of a near-finished cigar, forming the small fan that's the signature of high-end Cuban cigar rollers. More than five decades after a trade embargo banned imports of cigars from Communist-ruled Cuba, the majority of US cigar imports come from other Caribbean countries as well as Central America. Yet in Miami a niche industry is growing, centred on a few dozen elite Cuban rollers who make special edition cigars that sell for as much as US$700 per box in Europe. Cigar Aficionado, the industry's leading glossy magazine, recently highlighted Miami's cigar industry describing the city as a "a new hot spot for creative cigarmakers". Sierra, at age 18, was one of 30 Cuban women selected from thousands to learn the craft from Fidel Castro's personal cigar roller Eduardo Rivera. Women entered male-dominated factories at the urging of Cuban revolutionary Celia Sanchez, a close confidant of Castro's in the 1960s and 1970s. "We would start with one little cigar and they would watch over us very closely, removing those who didn't do well enough," said Sierra, now 64. "A group of 30 or 40 women would come in to learn and after a couple of days only one or two were left." Sierra is one of 10 rollers working at El Titan de Bronze (The Bronze Titan), a Little Havana store named after Antonio Maceo, a general in the war for Cuban independence from Spain. Other rollers came from Cuba's respected Partagas and H. Uppman factories. Some were arrested several times trying to escape before they made it to Miami. "We're basically a boutique," said owner Sandy Cobas, whose father Carlos opened the small shop about 20 years ago. "We don't produce in mass quantities and the cigars are done exactly like they are in Cuba." In Miami, Cuban rollers are prized for their rigorous training. Unlike rollers in other cigar-producing countries, each is responsible for his or her cigar, from start to finish. "A lot of the families of plantation owners left for those countries with (Cuban tobacco) seeds in a handkerchief," Cobas said. "None of those countries were known for making cigars." Tropical Tobacco, which produces Casa Fernandez cigars, opened a small factory in Miami in 2012, hiring a dozen or so Cuban rollers who produce about 1,200 cigars a day. At the company's factory in Esteli, Nicaragua, Fernandez employs 50 to 60 rollers who work in pairs – with one bunching tobacco and wrapping the cigars and another applying the cap – to make 15,000 cigars daily. In 2012, the bulk of the nation's cigars came from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras, with imports from those countries totalling almost US$600 million, according to the US Department of Agriculture. "The Cuban rollers that are available in the Miami market are the best in the world," said Tropical's owner Eduardo Fernandez. "We saw a niche where we can respond quickly to the market and make high-end cigars on premises." In Miami's specialty cigar factories, bunches of cured tobacco sit in black garbage bags in walk-in humidors to keep them pliable. They're marked with the country of origin – from Brazil to the Dominican Republic – and whether they are to be used as the cigar's filler or final wrapper. George Rico's G.R. Tabacaleras Corp, a Miami distributor, opened a small suburban factory in 2012, offering enthusiasts the chance to learn everything about the cigar-making process. The company does the bulk of its manufacturing in Danli, about 80.5 kilometre south of Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa. In Miami it offers the deluxe G.A.R. Deli experience for customers who can afford to spend US$250 on a box of 25 cigars. In a two-hour session with Rico, smokers learn that soil and seasons can affect the flavour of tobacco, and also how cigars are made. They sample dozens of tobaccos and finish by creating their own blend, which is handed off to a Cuban roller. Despite the Cuban rollers' lofty reputation, Rico said there are more of them than there is work available. At the same time not all rollers are as passionate as El Titan's Sierra, who retired from cigar making in Cuba in 2011, but returned to it after moving to Miami to be near her daughter. "You can make a decent living," Rico said, "but some rollers... want to move on to other jobs." – Reuters, September 27, 2013. |
| Fossil fish find in China fills in evolutionary picture Posted: 26 Sep 2013 11:18 PM PDT An international team of scientists in China has discovered what may be the earliest known creature with a distinct face, a 419-million-year-old fish that could be a missing link in the development of vertebrates. The fossil find in China's Xiaoxiang Reservoir, reported by the journal Nature yesterday, is the most primitive vertebrate discovered with a modern jaw, including a dentary bone found in humans. "It finally solves an age-old problem about the origin of modern fishes," said John Long, a professor in palaeontology at Flinders University in Adelaide. Scientists were surprised to find that the heavily armoured fish, Entelognathus primordialis, a previously unknown member of the now extinct placoderm family, had a complex small skull and jaw bones. That appeared to disprove earlier theories that modern vertebrates with bony skeletons, called osteichthyes, had evolved from a shark-like creature with a frame made of cartilage. Instead, the new find provides a missing branch on the evolutionary tree, pre-dating that shark-like creature and showing that a bony skeleton was the prototype for both bony and cartilaginous vertebrates. "We now know that ancient armoured placoderms gave rise to the modern fish fauna as we know it," said Long, who was not part of the team in China. Long described the discovery as "the most exciting news in palaeontology since Archaeopteryx or Lucy", referring to two fossil discoveries that are crucial to our understanding of the evolution of birds and humans. The journal did not detail when the fossil was found. – Reuters, September 27, 2013. |
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