Here are a couple of Qs that have always played on my mind. Maybe some of you can provide a little insight. Otherwise, perhaps we can all have fun just speculating together.

Since the '60's, the NC industry has made no small business of convincing us all that (some of) their product is just like CC product in every way we can imagine.

Hey- check out this one! It tastes like CC!

Hey- check out this one! It looks like CC!

Hey- check out this one! It has the same name as CC!

Hey- check out this one! It's packaged like CC!

So... this considerable effort not having gone unnoticed by me, down the years, I've spent many of them wondering:

1. Why did it take 'til the 21st century before we saw NCs with Corojo wrappers?

and

2. Why did it take 'til the 21st century before we saw (any significant number of) NCs with triple-caps?

I mean... DUH! Right?

Can anyone shed any light? :-)
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I think it has alot to do with the fact that there is such a demand for CC's in the states. As we all know, CC's are our fordidden fruit. If the Non-CC brands can make a cigar appeal to those wanting a CC, it becomes more appealing. I would imagine they also want to honor the tradition and culture of the CC. :-)
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I think you misunderstand my questions, Jaime. I'm not wondering why they do it; I'm wondering why it took them so long to do it.
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Ahh. :-) Got me there!
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more competition!


I think the internet has a lot to do with the recent rise in the quality of NCs. It sounds weird (I'm pretty young and don't claim to be an expert) but it seems like in the 90's and prior to that, the industry was dominated by a few large companies. For this reason I believe that these larger companies did not have as much incentive to produce a superior product. They might not be as good as smaller, boutique brands but the majority of B&Ms and smokers were still buying their cigars and thus there was not threat of losing a large percentage of their customer base.

Today, cigar enthusiast have so many resources for cigars and cigar related information that the average smoker is much more knowledgeable and discriminating than in years past. They simply won't settle for the same old JR/Altadis/General cigars because there are so many better choices out there.

I'm only 30 but I've noticed a large shift in what B&Ms carry in the last 10 years. You still see the Altadis type brands but much more floor space is dedicated to smaller independent manufacturers. I remember when I first started shopping for cigars it was hard to find any boutique brands at all. Fuentes were expensive and often sold out. Now, even Fuente, who used to be top dog among discriminating aficionados must be feeling the pressure to improve what they produce or lose smokers to more exciting brands.
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I might just be talking out of my ass completely, but- From what I know, true Corojo only grows in the Jalapa Valley of Nicaragua. It wasn't until recently (I think) that tobacco growers have developed a corojo that will grow in other places (kinda like a corojo look-alike). Corojo has only become abundant enough now that we see it in many cigar blends (that is, the new "engineered" corojo, not the stuff originally grown in the Jalapa Valley.)

Atleast that was my reasoning. If anyone know about corojo, please chime in!
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I think JJG pretty well has it nailed. In a nutshell, better informed consumers created increased demand for better quality and more variety. A similar scenario has occurred in micro brew beers in the last decade or so. People bought the major brands because that was what was available. Once some of the micro brews started becoming more available, people "woke up" to the varieties that were available. Competition increased, and quality went up, selection went up, even the quality of the hops, malt, etc. increased.
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To add to that Nicaragua was in internal turmoil for much of the 80's and 90's due to the sandanistas and their aftermath.
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If the Corojo only more recently (with an investment, I'm sure) became feasible for the broader market (ie. could be planted more widely), the 'more educated consumer base of today' explanation makes some sense.

However, I still don't get the triple-cap thing. I remember the efforts to convince me that 'cigar x' was indistinguishable from a CC back in the years leading up to the boom. Certainly the market was less diverse at the time, but there were still a lot of brands on the shelves! It only would've taken one of them to produce a stick that looked more accurate to anyone with actual CC familiarity. I would think the word-of-mouth value of those customers' reactions would've provided an undeniable market edge. Why didn't Davidoff do this, for example, when they moved to the DR? It just seems kind of illogical to me that no one really bothered until Pepin showed up 20 years later. So many marketers sitting around asking themselves "How can we convince people that ours is more CC than the other guy's?" and it's staring them in the face like a neon sign. I mean, saying "This cigar is just like a CC!" without a triple-cap on it is like saying "This record is just like a Michael Jackson album!" without any drums on it.
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Because it takes alot of time and training (money) to teach a roller not from Cuba to learn how to roll in the Cuban style. It's not only the triple cap that is Cuban style but they actual way they are rolled which involves rolling the leaves in small tubes and bunching instead of folding and bunching.
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Do you have any more information about this? As far as I've always been informed, the Cubans always used corojo for all of their wrappers.
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True, but this aspect of construction is much less obvious to the casual observer (someone browsing in a shop, for example).
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Well Said Jeff.
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