By Dale Scott

"I just stared at the burning ruins for hours ... we lost everything," reports Luis Sánchez. Pablo Romay adds, "I went to the beach near Santiago and cried. There was nothing else to do." La Tradición Cubana Cigars, Inc., a 12-year-old Miami-based manufacturer of Cuban-style premium cigars, was suddenly, without warning and, completely destroyed. Last November 19th, a morning fire leveled the business, along with several other Calle Ocho businesses in the Little Havana district. Arson was the cause, but there were no arrests. Retailers knew Sánchez from his booth at every RTDA trade show, as well as his familiar ads featuring street scenes and 1950s cars from Old Havana, Cuba.

Smokeshop had heard Sánchez, the Cuban-born founder of La Tradición Cubana, had scaled back cigar production at his Little Havana factory, expanding manufacturing by adding a new factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The new facility is owned jointly with Romay, a former employee in Miami. In a case of especially bad timing, I had unknowingly called Sánchez the day after the fire for an interview on the company's new Caribbean factory. In typical Sánchez understatement, he said, "You need to hold the article a while."

Sánchez, in his early 40s, founded Miami-based La Tradición Cubana in 1995. He developed it and its reputation as a maker of top-quality boutique cigars, in the Cuban tradition. He found his niche with his original La Tradición Cubana cigars. When interviewed for a Smokeshop article some years back, Sánchez had expressed dissatisfaction with growth deterrents: high costs of obtaining labor and tobacco in Miami. He saw he could compete better in Europe, if he didn't need to import tobacco to Miami first. Circumventing those costs mandated an offshore factory.

Romay, 42 joined La Tradición Cubana as a roller in 2000. A native of Cuba, he began work at the Romeo y Julieta factory in Havana in 1983, training for nine months under a master roller. "Seńor Pedraza taught me everything," says Romay. "I was hungry to learn the entire factory process. I love to roll cigars, and still sit at the bench and roll, just for the enjoyment. Too many workers in Cuba only love the money, not the cigars."

Romay left Romeo y Julieta in 1990, and has some surprisingly candid observations on the vaunted Cuban tobacco and cigar. "I don't like the typical Havanas, as they're too 'heavy,'" Romay Says. "Their overfilled bunches make them draw with difficulty. Cuban workers would over-moisten the filler leaves, which also led to a tight draw. They did this to make it easier to bunch the filler in the entubado method (see sidebar). Cuba says they bunch using this method, but more often, they were using the inferior estrujado method. So, although the smoker gets less satisfaction, estrujado bunching is cheaper and easier for the worker, so they like it. I also saw bad conditions in the factory, especially broken leaves and green tobacco."

By 1994, Cuban life worsened, and Romay emigrated to Miami. After a couple of years of odd jobs, he was amazed to discover cigar factories in the U.S. He rolled at now-defunct Caribbean Cigars, then for Moore & Bode Cigars, the latter company making him a production manager in only months.

Romay started rolling for Sánchez, who promoted him to supervisor after a few months, then production manager, demonstrating his management abilities. The factory was a small operation, with perhaps 10 workers. The difficulties and expenses of running a cigar factory in the U.S. continued to gnaw at Sánchez, and in 2005, he approached Romay with the idea of opening a jointly-owned factory in the Dominican Republic. Upon being approached by Sánchez, Romay did not hesitate, knowing this would fulfill his lifelong goal of becoming a career tabacalero.

Romay shows passion and determination, immersing himself in the new 50-50-owned Real Tabacalera Sánchez-Romay, S.A. Sánchez began running the three-person sales and distribution facility in Miami, while Romay managed all operations at the 20,000 square-toot factory in a duty-free industrial park. It's a bit jarring to enter the new Dominican facility and see only small stacks of tobacco and 16 workers clustered in the center of an immense 120- by 180-foot expanse, but expansion is planned as soon as the workers can be trained and new ones hired. One woman prepares the tobacco for the three two-person bunching/rolling teams, one person packs and ships, and two are quality control inspectors, showing Sánchez' and Romay's commitment to quality, not quantity. Each rolling team averages 350-400 cigars daily, and neither Sánchez nor Romay want to boost that number, feeling quality would suffer.

After the Calle Ocho fire, the company moved its Miami office to suburban Kendall. "Within the month," reports Sánchez, "we were back in full operation. We were lucky. Although we only salvaged back-up computer disks and our cigar store Indian, the very first shipment of cigars from the Dominican factory was delayed, or it would have been destroyed, too." Sánchez pays extra in maintaining continuity, keeping the same contact info he's had since opening the business - phone and fax numbers, as well as Web address, having all remained unchanged after the move from Calle Ocho.

With a year behind them in the new factory, both men feel it was a wise move and that they have a good working arrangement and combination of personalities. Sánchez affirms, "Pablo earned his way to the top of La Tradición Cubana, becoming more valuable step by step ... first as a roller, then supervisor and production manager in Miami, now as plant manager in Santiago." Sánchez visits the factory only a half-dozen times per year, confident of Romay's abilities. Romay, feels his skills lie in blending, training and supervision, and says, "I enjoy finding new ways to make better cigars, and in developing new products to introduce."

RTDA attendees will have an introduction to two of those new products. The first, "JML 1902," was introduced on a limited basis last March, and it sold out immediately, reports Sánchez. It honors Sánchez's grandfather, José M. Losa, born that year. "We looked for a new flavor profile for this cigar," says Romay. "It has a dark, colorado-maduro Pennsylvania wrapper. We started with only three shapes, but it is now offered in seven shapes, with suggested retail from $4-$8 each. It is a full-bodied cigar." New for the show will be the new "El Botin Dominicano," (The Dominican Booty, referencing a Caribbean pirate's cache). This cigar, according to Sánchez, is medium-full bodied, in three shorter shapes, and all about five inches in length. "I don't know what the blends or wrappers are," he says, only half-joking. "Pablo is keeping it secret, and won't even tell me." Also slated for re-introduction is the "ABC," for American Born Cubans, a tribute to the new generation of Cubans, born in the U.S. to Cuban-American parents, who strive to maintain their Cuban heritage and traditions, regardless of the industry they are in. ABC was introduced originally in 2005, but the Miami factory fire aborted production of that cigar.

The company still offers its original La Tradición Cubana line, some sporting pigtail heads, with suggested retail from $4 to $16. Medium-bodied, it incorporates an Ecuadorian-grown Connecticut wrapper. The line's nine cigars include the Great Pyramid, an 81/2 x 80 behemoth, and the 5" x 38 Lunchour, in natural and eight flavors. Sabor Cubana is a three-shape, naturally-fermented maduro line, ranging from $5 to $9 retail. Full-bodied Las Memorias Cubana is a three-shape line, retailing at about $6.

I asked Sánchez about the Cuban-American former workers in the Miami factory. "They passed on or couldn't work any longer." Later, I scanned faded, black-and-white photos of their venerable faces in the "Our Factory" page on the company's Web site, www.tradicion.com. Those faces were once young and energetic...full of hope in this, their new land, with their lives ahead. It brings one to meditate on the honorable tradition they perpetuated, and to honor the memory of their weary hands and the cigars they created for decades.

La Tradición Cubana, Inc., 13375 SW 128th St., Suite 103A, Miami, FL 33186, Toll-free: (877) 643-2427, Tel: (305) 643-4005, Fax: (305) 643-2527, Email: cigars@tradicion.com, Web: www.tradicion.com.