Little cigar

A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaf, produced in a variety of types and sizes to be smoked. All cigars are made up of three distinct components, the first being the tobacco itself which fills the center. The second is a binder leaf which holds the filler together. Finally there is the outer wrapper, which is rolled around the binder to complete the cigar, this is often printed with the cigar companies logo. These components make up the cigar and enables the user to smoke the tobacco easily.

Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities primarily in Central America and the islands of the Caribbean, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, and Puerto Rico; it is also produced in the Eastern United States, the Mediterranean countries of Italy and Spain (in the Canary Islands), and in Indonesia and the Philippines of Southeast Asia.

The origins of cigar smoking are still unknown. A Guatemalan ceramic pot dating back to the tenth century features a Mayan smoking tobacco leaves tied together with a string. Sikar, the Maya term for smoking, 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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Wikipedia