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| THE AGE OF ECUADOR |
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Page 1 of 2  Checking out the newest issue of the European Cigar-Cult JournalLos Angeles, April 21 – David Perez is not a household name among cigar lovers, but perhaps he should be. Perez and his brother Joseph run ASP Enterprises, the firm from which most cigar makers get their Ecuadorian-grown wrapper leaf. The new Spring edition of the indispensable quarterly, the European Cigar-Cult Journal profiles the critical role that Ecuador plays in the production of cigars worldwide. The ASP story starts in Cuba, of course, way back in 1880, when Jose Perez planted tobacco at the La Pequeria Cabana farm in San Antonio de los Banos, south of Havana, still one of the richest growing areas in Cuba today. In 1960, the family had to move to Miami to escape the Castro regime and it looked like their tobacco legacy might be finished. But General Cigar needed a wrapper expert and Silvio Perez and son Alfredo Perez were back in business, creating candela wrappers and soon founded ASP, an acronym for Alfredo and Silvio Perez. Headquartered in Nicaragua, ASP’s business was vaporized when the Sandanista government took over and the Perezes looked for a new and hopefully more stable home. They found it about 10 years later in Ecuador. David and Joseph are the sons of Silvio, who passed away in 2000. They now oversee a leaf-growing and sales operation that supplies tons of wrapper for both handmade and machine-made cigars. David Perez notes to writer Sebastian Zimmel that of the 5,930 acres available for growing, ASP is growing on only 1,730 last year. “Rotating the crop allows the land to recover,” says Perez. Each tobacco plant will yield an unusually high number of 20 leaves and as much as 95 percent of the crop will become wrapper leaf, an amazing high percentage. After harvesting, there’s the curing process that lasts a month, between 75-90 days of fermentation, sorting, aging for 60-180 days and finally the tobacco is packaged in bales weighing about 130 pounds apiece. The repetitive cycle of the growing and processing of leaves is accented by the “experimentation lab,” where different varieties of seeds and tobacco styles are developed. There are hundreds of seed varieties derived from Connecticut and Havana-seed tobaccos. Zimmel reports that “Ecuador wrapper leaves are supple, thinner, with a light lustre; they easily turn yellowish, they have a fairly nuetral taste – the ideal apparel for a cigar. As far as volume is concerned, tobacco from Ecuador appears to have outstripped its mentor Connecticut quite considerably.” That’s good for ASP and for other growers like Paul Magier and his Puros de Armando Ramos operation, and – despite the constant rain and cloud cover – make the future of Ecuadorian tobacco appear bright. There are plenty of additional highlights on this issue, including: |
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Did you know?
“Cigar-making machines were introduced in the U.S. in the 1920s, but were banned in Cuba until 1937.
