A Bunch of Leaves II

One of the most important things we teach Tobacconists [getting Certified] is the amazing and unparalleled nature of the premium cigar. Great works of art, crystal, furniture, and architecture are created in less time than a great cigar; and they last lifetimes! ...While the destiny of a cigar, through combustion, is to return to dust. Cigar lovers and Tobacconists can appreciate the value of a cigar because there is no other product like it on earth!

But few of us have had the opportunity to see cigars and tobacco as HIGH ART (in a way that transcends their use). Many of us have seen extraordinary cigars that seem like sculptures (i.e. bats, pipes, multi-colored figurados), but few of us have actually seen cigar tobacco sculptures. This amazing work of art (and others) were created by Janio Nunez Leal, an artist I had the privilege of meeting in the late '90s. He sculpts with tobacco and uses only a light infrastructure which he covers with cigar leaf; using hybridized bunching and wrapping techniques he learned as a cigar roller in Cuba.

(I must divulge that I have a company called ArtistaCuba which collects and imports (when legal) Cuban art. I met Janio in Havana many years ago and have never gotten over his amazing creations. He was a cigar roller turned master sculptor and I am sure he has never received the acclaim and success he deserved. To my knowledge, no one on the planet has ever accomplished what he has.)

Top Picture: Janio Nunez Leal, Alejandro Robaina, and lifesize tobacco sculpture of Winston Churchill, circa 1999.

TU vs. CCU

Internet traffic is a funny thing. Today I woke up to see that we got hundreds of visits from Sweden. Some days we are big in Europe, Asia, Latin America, but mostly our visitors come from the north eastern part of the United States. Since we haven't really marketed TU, we rely on word of mouth and passionate individuals to spread the word. But there is always a bit of mystery when people in the middle east or far off countries find TU. Fortunately, once they find us, they are hooked and we see them coming back regularly.

Between Sweden and the cigarfamily website today, I noticed we get lots of hits/links to Cuban Cigar University (CCU). Frankly, I'm just glad people visit, but I thought this would be a good time and place to clarify the relationship and differences between TU and CCU.

I started CCU as the in-house training college for my retail Tobacconists, following a research and educational trip to Cuba in 1996. It became so popular that we started giving public courses and Certifications to consumers as well as Tobacconists. By 2003, we incorporated CCU into TU and the TU website. CCU was cigar focused. TU is a much broader and more ambitious project intended to benefit ALL retail Tobacconists, consumers, and the industry. Ultimately, it just seemed selfish to hoard all of the CCU work just for ourselves, so the concept of TU emerged. Today there is a CCU website (address) and people all over the world find it and use it on a regular basis: I think the word "Cuba" carries a lot of weight in consumers' minds. But that site is really just the Tobacconist University site. So, in case you are wondering why the content is the same, that is because Tobacconist University emerged from Cuban Cigar University. And hopefully, one day, the word TOBACCONIST will carry as much weight as Cuba...