by Mike Sabine
This could stir international controversy, but it is apparently provable that Cuba has imported Nicaraguan tobacco to make its internationally famous cigars. Cuba’s reputation as the cigar capital of the planet is being challenged by its neighbor to the west and it all started with the most famous of Latin stogie chompers, Fidel Castro.
When the Spanish first arrived in Nicaragua, the native people were already puffing away on rolled tobacco leaves, the potent wild chilcagria plant. But the birth of the fine Nicaraguan cigar would originate with the exodus of Cubans during the revolution of the early 1960’s. Men such as Sixto Plasencia and Jose Orlando Padron came to Nicaragua with tobacco seeds in their pocket seeking fertile volcanic soil and ideal climatic conditions.
