Cubans

[chefchris]

Cuba grows and exports what, sugar cane (sugar), coffee and tobacco? Not much else. Although Cuba still sells many cigars to the rest of the world wouldn't you think that a lot (I mean mucho grande quantities) of surplus tobacco is regularly sold to Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, etc.? What is sold as "Cuban seed tobacco" is exactly that. Only it is actually grown in Cuba, shipped to another country where it is processed and then exported to the US.
Am I dreaming here? If so, wake me up and tell me why not?

From what I understand as Cuban Seed is that the original crop came from Cuba in the exodus of all the farmers many years ago. They loaded up as much seed as they could get and high tailed it outta there. So almost everything is cuban seed. However, soil plays a HUGE part in the taste of a cigar as well where (globally) it's grown. Try a Sumatra wrapper and tell me that taste like a Cuban wrapper. It's a much spicier wrapper due to the conditions it's grown in. Same thing with many others, Conneticut, Cameroon, etc.

And if I remember correctly, I'm almost positive Cuba does not sell their tobacco to other countries for their own cigar blends.

[ashauler]

From what I understand as Cuban Seed is that the original crop came from Cuba in the exodus of all the farmers many years ago. They loaded up as much seed as they could get and high tailed it outta there. So almost everything is cuban seed. However, soil plays a HUGE part in the taste of a cigar as well where (globally) it's grown. Try a Sumatra wrapper and tell me that taste like a Cuban wrapper. It's a much spicier wrapper due to the conditions it's grown in. Same thing with many others, Conneticut, Cameroon, etc.

And if I remember correctly, I'm almost positive Cuba does not sell their tobacco to other countries for their own cigar blends.

From everything I have ever read or seen, I think Chris is correct here. Cuban tobacco is tightly controlled by the government.

While it sounds plausible that some tobacco could find its way out of the country, I highly doubt that any "organized" way of secretly using cuban origin tobacco in cigars exists.