【Smoking is harmful to health, minors are not allowed to smoke】
People know that cigars are not cheap, but many people don't know that the most expensive cigar can cost 7.82 million yuan per cigar!
Each puff is equivalent to 20,000 yuan gone, which is still a slow pump. Such a unit price can even buy a decent small house in Shanghai, where the price is ridiculously high, as a cigarette, this price is really high from the world!
Why is it so expensive?
The most expensive "Liqun Fuchun Mountain Residence" cigarette in China is 20,000 yuan a piece, and it costs 100 yuan to smoke one, but such a price is completely small in front of cigars, so why are cigars so expensive?
Cigars were actually a daily commodity of Cuban Indian peoples in North America. As Columbus came to the Americas and found that the local Indians had the habit of rolling up tobacco leaves with palm leaves or plantain leaves, he brought this tobacco seed back to Europe for cultivation, so smoking this cigarette became a trend of European aristocrats, and then with the colonial expansion of Europe, this tobacco was also brought around the world and gradually became a cigar that swept the world.
It can be seen that the "hometown" of cigars is Cuba and other places located on the Caribbean coast of North America. To understand why it has such a high value, we have to go to its most famous "hometown", Cuba, to find out.
Even though cigars are known and sought after around the world, Cuba is still at the forefront of cigar production, and in addition to the local climate and temperature, there is also an exclusive secret to the region's unique mineral-rich red soil, in which the tobacco leaves used to make cigars are cultivated to achieve such high quality.
When you go to Cuba today, you will see about 25,000 hectares of tobacco plantation, and the total annual production of tobacco leaves in these areas can reach 27,000 tons. It sounds like a lot, but compared with the annual output of 2.1534 million tons of China Tobacco, you can instantly understand how scarce it is.
The limitation of raw material origin and low production is one of the reasons why cigars are expensive.
Let's take a look at the ingredients for this cigar tobacco.
The leaves on the whole plant will be used.
During the harvest season, tobacco farmers divide tobacco leaves longitudinally into seven small layers and three parts for picking, and then divide them into six categories according to the thickness of tobacco leaves, so that they can undergo complex processing such as fermentation and drying to obtain tobacco leaves that meet the standard cigar production.
The structure of the cigar is wrapped, covered and core. When making tobacco, adjust the dosage ratio of the upper, middle and lower parts of the tobacco, and use them to make different structural parts of cigars, you can get a variety of different tastes and smells, and different brands and different types of cigars are born.
The shallow leaves at the top are of the highest quality and require the longest fermentation time, 2 years to meet the requirements; The dry leaves located in the middle are of medium quality, and the fermentation time is about 1 and a half years; The light leaves at the bottom are of the lowest quality and also require 1 year of fermentation.
After the completion of fermentation, it enters the formal cigar production process, it is worth mentioning that cigars have always maintained the production method of artificial cigarettes throughout the ages, and the rate of this operation is completely incomparable with the domestic assembly line production.
To grasp the ratio of tobacco leaves and the size of each cigar is the biggest test of hand-rolled cigarettes, and the whole process is completed by the workers according to experience and all by feeling. High-end cigars will have higher and more refined requirements for this work, so that a cigar needs to be manufactured by workers in a fixed order of tobacco leaf placement, through 80 processes and more than 500 manual operations.
Therefore, the production period has also become the main factor affecting the production of cigars, the more cumbersome the process, the longer the construction period, the lower the output, the higher the price.
What is the difference between it and the cigarettes you smoke every day?
Understanding the reasons for the high price of cigars, many people may still be curious, how different is such an expensive cigarette from the cigarettes you usually smoke? Let's light a cigar and a cigarette to feel it.
First, let's take a look at a cigarette in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Most obviously, cigarettes come with a filter, while cigars do not; In cross-section, cigarette leaves are broken into tobacco and wrapped inside, while cigars are wrapped in layers of intact tobacco leaves.
This difference results in a completely different smell and taste between cigarettes and cigars.
In the planting process, cigar tobacco leaves adhere to the complete physical way of insect repellent, and the whole tobacco leaves are directly used for cigarette when making tobacco, which is to ensure the original and rich taste of the tobacco leaves.
When planting domestic tobacco leaves, chemical methods will be directly used to carry out protection work such as pest control, and tobacco leaves will be broken into tobacco during the tobacco making process, and chemical additives such as fragrances will be added, which will lead to a lot worse than cigars.
Let's light these two cigarettes and take a look.
Ordinary cigarettes can be easily lit with a lighter because the tobacco leaves are beaten into tobacco shreds, and the smell will not be affected by the fuel used by the lighter.
The cigar is wrapped thicker because of the whole tobacco leaves, so if you want to light it, you must first use a special cigar knife to cut off some cigarette butts, and then light it, and in order not to destroy its purest taste in this step, you need to use matches, wooden strips or special lighters, and spend a long time to light it.
After lighting it, you can start tasting the cigar, because there are no additives, so you need to keep smoking to keep it burning, in the same way, if you smoke enough this time, you can let it extinguish itself, and order it again next time. But when tasting cigars, don't forget the cigarettes you lit earlier, because cigarettes are added with combustion promoters, and if you don't smoke them, they may be exhausted by air.
Also note when smoking, cigars and cigarettes are smoked differently.
People who smoke know that smoking is divided into two inhalation methods, one is to let the cigarette turn in the mouth and spit it out, the other is to inhale the cigarette into the lungs, let it slip in the lungs and then spit out, which is the so-called "but lung" and "over the lung". According to the habits of many "old smokers", smoking is to pass through the lungs, otherwise it is like not smoking.
However, it should be noted here that cigar smoking does not require lungs. This has nothing to do with the aforementioned cigarettes with a mouthpiece, while cigars have nothing to do with it. Everyone knows that tobacco contains tar, carbon monoxide, nicotine and other harmful substances that will make the human body uncomfortable, and domestic cigarettes have filters to isolate some harmful substances and reduce the harm of smoking to the human body.
However, cigar tobacco leaves have neither been treated nor filtered, so the inhalation of harmful substances during smoking will be much larger, so it may cause people to feel dizzy and other discomfort, which is the so-called "drunken smoke" in the cigar circle, so cigar smoke can not pass through the lungs.
But this does not mean that smoking cigars is not interesting, according to custom, many people will smoke cigars with high-end wine, etc. to taste together, different combinations may also get completely different feelings.
But after all, smoking is harmful to health, so whether it is cigars or cigarettes, it is better to smoke as little as possible, and it is best not to smoke.
From planting to the consumer's mouth, so many ritual blessings, the cigars that the audience really likes in addition to its unique taste, smoking cigars is actually more of a style and atmosphere, so unlike the positioning of domestic cigarette "consumer goods", cigars are more as a "luxury" to highlight identity and status.
What do cigars look like in China?
Cuban cigars taste pure, and with the emergence of different brands, they also produce more than just high-end products at high prices, which gives more people the opportunity to experience this "luxury" experience.
But at home, it's not so easy to buy genuine Cuban cigars. Because of the strict control of the tobacco industry in China, a control directory has also been set up for imported cigars from Cuba, which contains a limited number of cigar brands, and there is only one legal import channel for Cuban cigars in China. Therefore, the number of cigars that can be purchased from formal channels can be said to be very small.
Illegal smuggling is certainly undesirable, but it has persisted because of the demand. However, the state has cracked down on this very strongly, and news of the success of relevant agencies in cracking down on illegal cigar smuggling gangs also appears in our field of vision from time to time.
Illegal smuggled cigars intercepted by authorities
Formal channels are difficult to buy, illegal smuggling cannot be done, then there is only the road of self-sufficiency.
Cigar varieties have been introduced to China many years ago, and have found several suitable planting sites in China, and after this period of development, we have our own cigar factories and brands.
At present, there are four major cigar manufacturers in China: Anhui China Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd., Sichuan China Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd., Hubei China Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd., and Shandong China Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd. They have a total of nine major cigar brands, Anhui's Crown, Sichuan Great Wall and Lion, Hubei's Yellow Crane Tower, Maoda, Three Gorges and Shun Baili, Shandong's General and Taishan, and prices ranging from a few yuan to thousands of dollars. It is much cheaper than imported ones, and it is much easier to buy.
There is definitely a certain gap between the quality of domestic cigars and Cuban cigars, but if you just want to try them out of curiosity, domestic cigars are undoubtedly a good choice.