Welcome back to our third piece in our series of Puff Profiles, where we take a look at not only the cigars, but the people behind them. In this episode we look at a true legend in the industry, Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia, the great house of Arturo Fuente, known around the world for having some of the finest cigars known to man. We’ll take a look into the company’s rich history, and then sample its flagship cigar line: the Fuente Fuente Opus X.

This is the third article in a series studying the life and products of the biggest names in the industry. As you may recall, to date we have peeked inside the background of the J.C. Newman Company and the Alec Bradley Cigar Company.

In this artice, I’ll be using my typical rating scale of 50-100 for this article, with the majority of the cigars falling in the mid 80’s to low 90’s. But before we get there, let’s look at the history of this great company.

A History Steeped in Tradition

I often say that to understand any business, you must understand the people that run it. Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia was founded by Arturo Fuente, who was born in Cuba in 1887 and taught the time honored traditions of Cuban cigar making by his father. At the age of nineteen he moved to Key West, Florida. After working there for a while, he moved onto the infamous Ybor City (Tampa, Florida), which at the time was a central hub for Cuban tobacco imports (it remained so until the 1960s and the Cuban Embargo). There he began his own company and created the first cigars bearing his family name.

Carlos Fuente Sr., who presently runs the business, was born shortly thereafter, and lived and breathed the cigar business. He literally had no choice, as his grandfather, uncles, and father made cigars in his home. He himself took cigar making lessons after school each day, learning the Cuban methods from his own family.

The factory in Ybor City burned to the ground in 1924, causing the family to take a hiatus from the cigar industry until 1930, when they reopened shop. Another blow befell the family when the Cuban Embargo took place in the 1960s, forcing them give up Cuban tobacco in exchange for Dominican.