J.C. Newman Cigar Co. Ships First 2023 Release of Yagua.
1,250 boxes are being shipped to premium cigar retailers.
“It continues to shock me that Yagua has developed a cult-like following,” said fourth-generation owner Drew Newman. “I didn’t make Yagua to sell. In fact, I didn’t think that cigar enthusiasts would like Yagua because it breaks all of the cigar-making rules. Yagua is misshapen and unattractive. We roll it with underfermented tobacco, and no two Yagua are alike.”
Yagua is a recreation of a farm-rolled cigar that Lazaro Lopez, general manager of the J.C. Newman PENSA cigar factory in Nicaragua, remembers his grandfather making at his family’s tobacco farm in Cuba in the 1940s. Over dinner in 2019, Lopez shared this story with Newman:
“At our family farm, my grandfather would take fresh tobacco leaves from the curing barns and roll cigars without any molds or presses,” said Lopez. “In an attempt to give his cigars a traditional shape, he would tie a handful of them together using pieces of the Cuban royal palm tree, known as the yagua. When he was ready to enjoy his personal cigars, he untied the bundle. He loved how every cigar had its own unique shape. I still remember the rich aroma and taste of my grandfather’s cigars.”
Shortly after being rolled, 20 Yagua cigars are bound together while still wet using a Yagua palmiche palm leaf. Each box of Yagua contains a bundle of 20 cigars still wrapped in the palm leaf. Yagua cigars measure 6×54.
“Yagua is a difficult cigar to roll because we use an under fermented Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, blend the filler tobaccos differently, and do not use the usual tools and techniques of a cigar factory,” said Newman. “As the wrapper is not fully fermented, we have age the cigars for a full year after they are rolled.”
About J.C. Newman Cigar Co.
Founded in 1895 by Julius Caeser Newman, J.C. Newman Cigar Company is the oldest family-owned premium cigar maker in America. J.C. Newman rolls its El Reloj, Factory Throwouts, and Trader Jacks cigars by hand-operated, vintage cigar machines at its historic cigar factory in Tampa, Florida. It also hand rolls its Brick House, Perla del Mar, El Baton, and Quorum cigars at the J.C. Newman PENSA cigar factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. J.C. Newman’s Diamond Crown, MAXIMUS, Julius Caeser, and Black Diamond cigars are handmade by Tabacalera A. Fuente in the Dominican Republic. With its longtime partners the Fuente family, the Newmans founded the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, which supports low-income families in the Dominican Republic with education, health care, vocational training, and clean water.
Categories
The Average Joe's Cigar Media View All
The mission of The Average Joe’s Cigar blog is to provide trusted, high quality and unbiased reviews of everything related to the world of cigars. You can count on us to be authentic and unbiased in our assessments. We are committed to providing our readers with the best information to learn and to grow in their understanding of cigar smoking. At The Average Joe’s Cigar, we welcome feedback and input from our readers so that it is a mutually beneficial relationship that will allow this blog to continue its expansion.