Cubans

[basil]

Ummm... No...

"Cuban Seed" tobacco means that the seeds used to start the plant were originally from Cuba. However, the seed is now planted and harvested outside of Cuba. Supposedly these seeds were taken out of the country at the time of the Cuban revolution (or sometime thereafter) by Cuban tobacco growers looking to make a better life for themselves outside of the Cuban society.

The idea that "excess Cuban tobacco" being sent to other countries and making it's way into US destined cigars is a myth. Just as the "Pre-Embargo" tobacco that's "been stored in warehouses since before the Cuban revolution and forgotten until now" stories are myths.

Nope - Cuban tobacco makes it into Cuban cigars. "Cuban seed" tobacco grown in the DR, Nicaragua, Honduras, etc. makes it into the NC cigars...

...it is a nice dream, though... Although I personally tend to like to dream about blondes on the beach...

Chris, George, and maybe others have suggested that tobacco grown from Cuban seed outside of Cuba is from seed that was taken when the country transitioned to being virtually state-run.

I'll bet not. While seeds can remain viable for decades and even centuries, after a half century the (inevitable decrease of) viability would not sustain commercial purposes (enough to annually plant a few or many acres). And, after a Cuban seed is sprouted in non-Cuban soil, seeds from the resulting plant would then be non-Cuban.

Without researching it, I'm thinking that the only way non-Cuban brands can maintain that their tobacco is from Cuban seed is to buy that Cuban seed in order to use it for each new crop.

If this is accurate, I guess it follows that the US embargo of Cuban products stops at the gene.

To answer DeeDubya, I think the illegality of the Cuban cigar is a huge draw. Especially for folks who don't really smoke cigars. As others above have said, there are good, bad, and ugly cigars from any country that produces them, including Cuba. What's kinda fucked up in my mind is that an authentic Cuban, even if it is limited edition, aged 10 years, grown at the foot of a sacred, ancient volcano, and from Fidel's personal stash, it is completely goddamn wasted on a non or very occasional smoker because this person doesn't know a decent cigar from an over-hyped piece of CAO (or what have you) shit.

Now for a cigar smoker, well, and again, this is just me speculating, the real McCoy - one of any number of brands and fucking spare me the ko-hee-bahs too, with 3-4 years on it, on the strong side of medium, a good draw, with a diet Dr. Pepper in the back yard on a Sunday afternoon (and hell yeah it would add to the experience if somewhere on the band were the words "Cuba" or "Habano") . . . Well, fuck me. That would be fucking perfect.