How a Cigar Is Made: From Seed to Smoke

How Are Cigars Made, Step by Step?

A premium cigar passes through the hands of growers, curers, sorters, blenders, and rollers before it reaches a box, on a journey that can take years. The film below follows tobacco from a seed to a finished cigar at a farm and factory in the Dominican Republic. It was filmed by our very own Paul Anthony, via his men’s lifestyle magazine Bespoke Unit.

Play video · 1 h 35 min

Select a time to jump to that part of the film.

1. Seeds (6:07). Every cigar starts as a tobacco seed. The seeds are sown in greenhouse trays and grow into small plants, called seedlings, before they move to the field.
2. Fields (15:58). In the field, the plants grow until their leaves are ready to harvest. The leaves are then carried to curing barns.
3. Fermentation (34:36). Cured leaf is stacked in warehouses to ferment and mature. Depending on the leaf, this takes months to years, and it smooths the flavor before the tobacco is used.
4. Sorting (45:00). Before it goes to the factory floor, the leaf is sorted, the stems are removed, and it is prepared for rolling.
5. Blending (1:09:50). The blend is the recipe: which leaves make up the filler, which one is the binder, and which one is the wrapper. The film includes a conversation with a master blender about how those choices are made.
6. Rolling (1:16:01). Rollers bunch the filler, place it in the binder, and finish the cigar with the wrapper by hand.
7. Bands, boxes, and cellophane (1:26:20). Once the cigars have rested, they are sorted by color, banded, sealed in cellophane, and boxed.

See each stage on our site

The tobacco in the film grows in the Cibao Valley. Read about Dominican tobacco, or compare it with the leaf from our other tobacco regions. Our guide to cigar tobacco explains what the wrapper, binder, and filler each do.

Blending is where a brand’s cigar takes shape, and our custom blends are built in The Lab, our purpose-built blending room. Rolling happens at our factories in Estelí, and our quality control team checks the cigars throughout production and again once they are finished.

The last stage is the part your customers see first. Learn about custom cigar bands, boxes, and packaging.