All About Habano Wrappers

Habano cigar wrappers are a common feature on many of the best handmade
cigars. The rich golden-brown cigar wraps are popular for their Cuban-seed
origins, spicy flavor, and warm aroma and have been grown in places like Esteli,
Nicaragua, for several decades now.

Short History of the Habano Cigar Wrapper

There are really two strains of Habano wrapper leaf, the Habano and the
Habano 2000. They both hail from Cuba and are hybrids created to resist disease
that wiped out the Corojo leaf in the late 1990s. The Habano seeds made their
way to different tobacco growing regions outside of Cuba and are now grown
very successfully, especially in Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Flavor
More important than the pronunciation are the reasons we like Habano cigar
wrappers. Mainly we like the Habano wrapper’s flavor. It’s spicy, rich and the
color is generally dark. Chocolate is commonly tasted in Habano wrappers. And
the Habano cigar wrapper is going on many of your favorite cigars.

Quality
Jose ‘Pepin’ Garcia, the maker of My Father and other premium cigars, calls
Ecuador Habano grown by the Oliva family “the best cigar wrapper in the entire
world.” You can find the wrapper on Garcia’s Flor de las Antillas Maduro,
which used to be all-Nicaraguan. The Torpedo, 6.125 x 52 is an excellent
representative of the Habano wrapper that delivers medium-full flavor.

“It has all the characteristics such as a thick, rich and oily structure,” Garcia
told Cigar Aficionado. “It’s also great tasting in flavor and the veins are hardly
seen, which makes for a unique type of wrapper.”

Ecuador Habano also covers the San Cristobal Quintessence, another medium-
full product of the Garcia factory in Nicaragua. The blend received ‘#3 Cigar of
the Year’ honors for 2021 and a 95-point rating in Cigar Aficionado.
The Epicure in this line, 6 x 52 ($9.00) conveys a balance of sweetness and rich,
silky aromas. There’s a good bit of molasses, coffee and black pepper coming
through. Sweet notes of dried fruit and sugarcane are also present.

Nicaraguan Habano can be found on Rocky Patel The Edge Habano, an all-
Nicaraguan offering that is full-bodied. You’ll enjoy notes of black cherry, figs
and earthy spices with a lot of cocoa, common to Habano cigar wrappers, in
the Toro, 6 x 52 (about $7.00). There’s a lot of complexity in this cigar.

Ecuador Habano
The Oliva family (not to be confused with Oliva cigars) has grown tobacco for
many, many years and is respected as among the best to ever grow some of the
finest wrapper leaf in the world. So, it’s no surprise that, having begun in 2001,
the Olivas grow some of the best Habano wrapper in the world in Ecuador where
a constant cloud cover filters the sun’s rays and creates a Goldilocks moment,
helping create leaves that don’t get too rough and aren’t too thick but just right.

The Habano plant’s leaves are kind of limp as they hang on the tobacco stalks.

“How it looks when it comes out of the barn,” John Oliva, Jr., explained while
on his farm about three hours north of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s industrial center,
“that’s the important part. Once you cure it in the barns, that’s when you
know how good the leaf is. Or isn’t.”
Today, Oliva grows more Ecuador Habano wrapper leaf than any other.

Nicaragua Habano
While Nicaragua Habano is less common than Ecuador Habano, the varietal
can be found on a handful of stronger cigars.

The bold and beefy profile of Cain relies on Cuban-seed tobacco grown in
Nicaragua for popular blends like the 90-rated Cain Habano and the 92-
rated Cain F. Notes of wood, cayenne, leather, and black pepper stand out. The
brand is handcrafted at the award-winning Oliva factory in Estelí, Nicaragua.

The 90-rated Alec Bradley Nica Puro and the boutique brand, Asylum, also
feature earthy and zesty tasting notes courtesy of Nicaraguan wrapper leaf
grown from Habano seeds.

Taken from https://www.holts.com/clubhouse/cigar-101/habano-cigar-

wrappers