Cuba Cigar Factory May 2009

     On our way to Viales we visited a small cigar factory where everything is done by hand.  Approximately 50 workers are each able to turn out 100 cigars a day as they sit at tables and wrap treated tobacco leaves while a reader sits at a lectern and reads the newspaper or other literature.  No photos were allowed.
     I saw the play, “Anna in the Tropics,” in New York where the “reader” read “Anna Karenina.”  A more famous example of a cigar factory worker is found in the opera, “Carmen.”
     After cigars are rolled and put into presses, they go through quality control, are grouped according to size and boxed.
     In the gift shop I bought a small replica of a typical tobacco worker’s one room bamboo thatched home and took a photo of the different sizes of cigars.