Cuban cigar

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaf, rolled in a series of types and sizes, that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth.

Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Canary Islands (Spain), Italy and the Eastern United States. The origins of cigar smoking are still unknown. In Guatemala, a ceramic pot dating back to the tenth century features a Mayan smoking tobacco leaves tied together with a string. Sikar, the term for smoking used by the Maya, may have inspired the name cigar.

The word cigar originated from the Spanish cigarro, which in turn probably derives from the Mayan sicar ("to smoke rolled tobacco leaves" – from si'c, "tobacco"). There is also a possible derivation, or at least an influence, from the Spanish cigarra ("cicada"), due to their similar shape. The English word came into general use in 1730.

Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of tobacco to Europe. Three of Columbus's crewmen during his 1492 journey, Rodrigo de Jerez, Hector Fuentes and Luis de Torres, are said to have encountered tobacco for the first time on the island of Hispaniola, in what is present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, when natives presented them with dry leaves that spread a peculiar fragrance. Tobacco was widely diffused among all of the islands of the Caribbean and therefore they again encountered it in Cuba where Columbus and his men had settled. His sailors reported that the Taínos on the island of Cuba smoked a primitive form of cigar, with twisted, dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves such as palm or plantain.

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