Field Report from Honduras...

The Cigar Guru recently returned from a trip to Honduras . Having been to the Dominican Republic with Davidoff, I asked my hosts from Indian Tabac if I should bring my golf clubs, snorkel mask or whatever. After the laughter subsided, I was told shorts, t-shirts and old sneakers!

The group of us flew from Miami to the capital of Honduras , Tegucigalpa . The airport was small and customs was very quick. Here we saw two-dozen men, some uniformed, some not, and all with assault rifles. From the airport to everywhere we went, there were men with these rifles.

We boarded a mini-bus that comfortably held the 10 of us, our driver, our luggage plus of course the cooler for water and beer. The Honduran beer, of which we had three to pick from, all fell short of the Dominican “Presidente.” No golf and so-so beer. I surmised this would really be a working trip.

The bus was headed deep inland to the city of Danli and the Jamastran Valley known for its outstanding tobacco. The estimated time was two hours over several mountain ranges. The ride from the airport for the first three blocks was like a typical big city anywhere, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and municipal buildings. After three blocks, poorly constructed shacks, lots of dirt, mud and garbage everywhere. The next 100 miles was more of the same. The once beautiful mountains we drive through, over and around were not only roadside garbage dumps but the mountains had been stripped by the locals for firewood for cooking.

The roads were full of potholes, missing one side or the other due to washouts, and hundreds of old US school buses, very, very old Toyota and Datsun pick up trucks, horses, donkeys, chickens, bicycles and big trucks, none of which seemed to bother our driver as he was hell bent on setting a record on getting us to Danli. One of the guys, the one with the white knuckles from squeezing the daylights out of the seat in front of him, asked the driver to slow down so we all could take some pictures. The driver didn’t set a new personal record but we all arrived in Danli in one piece.

We arrived at a very nice large hillside house, lots of bedrooms, bathrooms and a pool. We were told it was only one of three this size in the entire region. We went into the city of Danli to restock the water and beer, and pick up some snacks. The market, the only one in the city, was surrounded by armed guards. Inside the market were overhead walkways – and you guessed it – with more patrolling guards. The prices were very reasonable, I am sure based on the local economy, and they gladly accepted US dollars, an indication the tobacco industry is helping and appreciated.

After a dinner of chicken and rice, actually every night’s dinner was chicken and rice, and every lunch was chicken and rice, we retired in anticipation of our cigar adventure.

We visited the storage facility of Nestor Placentia. Nestor is the largest grower and supplier of Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco. At peak times, he employs 5000 people. At the factory we saw the trimming, sorting and fermenting of the leaves all by younger women.

As dirty as the roads and streets are, there were older women with brooms and hoses in hand everywhere, keeping the building spotless. What amazed me was the closeness and speed of workers, especially the young men who worked in the curing room, where the ammonia smell just outside brought tears to our eyes. What really blew me away were the bales and boxes of tobacco in storage. The building was the size of a NFL football field, 18 to 20 feet high with row after row of tobacco, many dated in the ‘90s. Bring on another cigar boom, Nestor is ready for it!

We visited several rolling factories. The rollers were mixed between males and females and again on the younger side. I would guess between 18 and 28. Rollers typically get enough filler, binder and wrapper to roll 52 cigars per batch. When done the cigars get weighed and visually inspected by a supervisor.

All of the same sizes and blends end up in trays of 250 to 300 cigars. The employees who impressed me the most here were sorters, all female in every rolling factory, who picked the 25 exact cigars to go into one box.

I got to try my hand at this in the Dominican and got rejection after rejection. Having seen the variations in cigars and opening thousands of boxes for display in my humidor, the ladies eye for consistency in color and variation is extraordinary. The other employees I found interesting were the young ladies shrink-wrapping the finished boxes. They took individual sheets of wrap folded precisely around the box and did the sealing with a GE Electric Steam Iron.

An automation engineer would have a field day in Honduras , but as at the cost of thousands of manual labor jobs. We were told the average pay is around $30 US per week, everybody gets paid on Wednesday and everybody gets paid in cash.

The old US School buses mentioned earlier were brought in by the Honduran government and given to locals to maintain and use to transport all the workers to plant the fields.

All the fields, most are set way into the valley edges, off the main roads and paths. Nestor was harvesting a field and we were invited to visit. The first thing you wonder is if our mini bus is going to make it back to the fields – No problem. We’ve got ten guys to push when needed.

The first thing you notice is the temperature is 20 degrees hotter and much more humid deep into the valley and the second thing you notice is you are up to your ankles in mud!

Here in the fields, the workers, pickers and transporters are a mixture of young males and females, toiling at speeds that embarrassed us just standing around watching and sweating. Large plastic bins were filled with the freshly cut leaves and transported to the aging barns. Those barns are 40 wide, 40 feet high and 200 feet long. The tobacco leaves are tied to long sticks, with all having different colored ribbons for the different types of tobacco and suspended from racks all the way to the ceiling. We saw at least 100 of the barns as we traveled into and then out of the Jamastran Valley .

And oh yes, at all the factories, plantations and aging barns there were more armed guards.

The last stop of our cigar adventure was the box-making factory. Outside were big saws cutting the cedar to the appropriate sizes. All have young men working feverishly. Inside were hundreds of young men, fitting, sanding, gluing, nailing and applying the hinges, latches and paper to finish boxes. Then back outside for varnishing, surprisingly not by hand but by a power paint sprayer!

The saws made sense to keep up with the demand of wood required for the assemblers. The power sprayer was a big surprise after seeing thousands of people doing everything by hand, at a pace that would have union stewards salivating.

At every stop the people were always smiling, upbeat and their pride in their contribution to these beautiful hand-made cigars for our consumption came shining through.

I have always felt that the Honduran cigars were the closest to classic Cubans. I also thought it was geography, similar soils, weather, topography, etc.

Now I believe from my visit that the people of Honduras are so knowledgeable and so committed to the historic ways of growing, aging, fermenting and rolling that they truly give us cigars in the classic Cuban traditions of yesteryear.

Thank you and God bless the wonderful people of Honduras .

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