Puff, Puff Costa Rican Cigar Factory Tour

What to do in San Jose? Hum?? Yeah we could do a walking tour around town and visit all the museums or go to the nearby volcanoes, Paos or Irazu, which usually have very little visibility because of the heavy clouds by mid morning. But what else, what would be interesting, unique and fun for three guys and me? First thing that comes to mind is zip lining, a coffee tour or hey what about a cigar factory tour. YEAH, that would be fun. So I searched around on the internet and found a cigar factory only 45 minutes drive from San Jose. Perfect.

On Tuesday morning Steve, Brandon, Ryan and I drove west from San Jose and up into the mountains to a small town called Santiago de Puriscal. The drive was beautiful. Lush green trees, rolling grass covered hills and mountains and one small traditional Costa Rican pueblo after another. Even though Chiquimula was wearing down from the steep incline we finally arrived at Vegas Santiago Cigar Factory

Vegas Santiago Cigar Factory

just as our tour was scheduled to start, 1pm. Our tour guide Antonio came out to greet us. The tour started with a display and explanation between the different types of tobacco leaves at the factory: Costa Rican, Honduras and Cuban. Then we entered the mid-size workshop where there were people sorting the tobacco leaves by size, color and thickness; de-veining the tobacco leaves; forming, cutting and pressing the tobacco leaves into cigars; and finally wrapping the cigars with carefully selected leaves cut to size and hand rolled into the final product. It was so interesting seeing the people move so fast and with perfection.

Costa Rican and Honduras tobabbo leaves

Sorting the tobacco leaves by type, color and size

De-vining the tobacco leaves

Forming, cutting and pressing the cigars

Wrapping the cigars

As part of the tour they let us try to roll our own cigars. I tried the forming, cutting and pressing stage but my cigar ended up looking like a giant messy medieval torch. Brandon on the other hand did the final stage of hand wrapping the cigar which turned out very well I might add.

Debbrial selecting, forming and rolling a cigar from scratch

My lose rolled tourch cigar

Brandon doing the final wrapping of the cigar

Brandon's finely hand rolled cigar

After our debut as cigar rollers the tour guide led us into the cigar storage room. Woohoo! Boy does it smell strong in there. There were thousands of cigars big to small, thin to fat, strong to mild. It was so impressive and we were in awe but after about 6 minutes the sinking in our eyes and nostrils was about unbearable.

Steve with a handful of Cuban cigars

Oh our eyes and noses are stinging. Just take the picture

Ryan sortying and smoking the cigars

We left the store room for the last part of the tour: hand selected packaging. After the tour we sat down for a good cup of Costa Rican coffee and a Puff, Puff on our souvenir cigars.

Vegas Santiago Costa Rican Cigars in the storage room

Puff, Puff Costa Rican Cigar Factory Tour

San Jose, Costa Rica