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| THE TIGER BEHIND TE-AMO |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: Our Register & Win winner of the weekLos Angeles, April 16 – There was a time when Mexico’s Te-Amo brand was one of the largest-selling cigars in the United States. That time has passed, but not for a lack of any effort by the Turrent family, now in its sixth generation in tobacco and still hard at work in the San Andres Valley. Profiled in the trade journal Smokeshop, Alberto Turrent IV noted that the first Alberto Turrent came to Mexico from Spain all the way back in 1880 to grow tobacco, but the region’s famous cigars didn’t show up for another 80 years. Wrote story author William Kaliher, “Turrent IV took over the company in 1960 at a time when most Mexican tobacco was shipped to Europe. In 1964, he first started exporting cigars, targeting the American market which as still adjusting to the loss of embargoes Cuban cigars. Turrent’s Te-Amo brand would go on to become a market-leading blockbuster.” Among its other claims to fame, Te-Amo was the brand which helped to popularize the now-essential Toro format – originally called No. 19 – of six inches and 50 ring gauge. Turrent is especially attentive to his tobacco farms, with about 1,500 acres being seeded annually and producing wrapper, binder and filler. “We have the same conditions as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua,” he said, “but World War II finished most of the Mexican tobacco growers. Almost all of the tobacco had been shipped to Europe but the war ended that export business. Most cigar factories folded and the owners turned to bananas for export to the United States. Only five or six families survived in the production of tobacco.” Today, the Nueva Matacapan Tabacos – that’s the factory name – produces five to six million cigars per year and sells worldwide, although U.S. premium imports have slid from a high of 25 million in 1997 down to 1.36 million in 2007. That hasn’t stopped Turrent and his team from introducing new blends, almost always created from exclusively Mexican-grown tobaccos. But in 2007, a totally new style of cigar was introduced, called the Te-Amo World Selection. There are three different blends: Dominicana, with a Connecticut Shade wrapper, Mexican binder and Mexican and Dominican filler; Honduras Blend, with a Mexican wrapper, Mexican binder and Mexican and Honduran filler and Nicaragua Blend, with Mexican wrapper, binder and Mexican and Nicaraguan filler. It’s a new concept and time will tell how well it will be accepted. But it shows a willingness to work outside the traditional boundaries of the Mexican cigar industry and that has to be good for the future. Turrent has his eyes on the future, as his company recently introduced the A. Turrent Sixth Generation brand, a tribute to the birth of a grandson who may well become the sixth Turrent to work in tobacco. Although now 65, Turrent has no interest in retirement. He told Kaliher, “I couldn’t stop working with tobacco. If I retired I’d probably go to work for one of my daughters. They run tobacco shops Monterrey. I’d tell customers about tobacco.” |
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Did you know?
“A Macanudo Baron de Rothschild cost you $2.60 in 1975, $3.70 in 1995 and $5.20 in 2005, a 100% increase in 30 years!
