Cigar Rolling

It is the process of rolling cigar filler in a cigar binder and wrapper to produce the finished product of a fine, premium cigar.

The best cigars are still hand rolled. Cigar rolling by hand is an art as much as it is a skill. In fact, the Torcedor, the old term for cigar roller, was regarded in the early days as being more of an artist than an employee.

You might even say it’s almost like a craft whose very practice commands a respect beyond assembly and production. It takes years of on-the-job training to become a Master roller.

For the new craftsmen, it takes at least a year for a roller just to learn the basics of cigar rolling. These basics appear remarkably simple at face value. This is not the case. Each step requires pinpoint accuracy and must be done correctly in order for each brand of cigar to have its own unique flavor, burn, aroma, and true quality appeal.

The roller must learn to take the filler and pack it evenly for the cigar to burn smoothly. The wrapper must also wind about the cigar in a spiral. Both of these aspects of cigar rolling require insight, intuition, and skill with the hands that does not come overnight.

Hand cigar makers like this sit at small tables in cigar factories. He or she has a tray with sorted tobacco leaves on it and enough room for cigar rolling. The first step in the process is the selection of the leaves for the filler.

They must be placed on top of one another and rolled in a bunch. The binder then goes around this bunch cylindrically, and the half-finished cigars are then placed in wooden molds that keep their shape until they can be wrapped.

The binder, though a flavorless part of the cigar, is crucial to rolling the more famous and sought-after brands because it literally helps hold the cigar together.

Cigar rolling requires all rollers to keep the tobacco moist—especially the wrapper—and to use chavetas, which are specially designed crescent-shaped knives to shape the filler and wrapper leaves quickly and accurately.

After the partially finished cigars are placed in a wooden mold, the press is turned by hand until the roller feels that enough pressure has been placed on the tobacco leaves. This gives the cigars their shape.

After this, the rollers in training carefully take the cigars from the molds and pass them to the Master roller, who then completes the finishing touches of cigar rolling and puts the head on the cigar.

A Master will produce hundreds of cigars a day that look almost identical.

Prior to the cigars being aged, an examiner inspects the cigars for imperfections and checks them for quality assurance.