Haitian Tobacco?

[Dom]

I was looking at cruises earlier today and saw that there was one to the western carribean.

When you look at a map of the area, you have Cuba (which is widely considered to be the model for perfect tobacco growing environment), and jamaica just below it.
To the southwest there's honduras, nicaragua, Mexico etc and to the east of cuba you have the Dominican Republic, but inbetween the DR and Cuba is Haiti, which is closer to cuba than any of the aforementioned. So If Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic all have good soil and climates to grow tobacco, then Haiti should be even better.

Anybody else ever wonder about this? I mean Haiti is right ontop of cuba but you never hear about Haitian cigars or tobacco

http://www.caribpro.com/Caribbean_Ma...ibbean_MAP.gif

[DBCcigar]

Your post was cut short....

[Snake Hips]

You never hear about it because it isn't grown. Where are they going to grow it? And in what? And why? The Haitian people are starving, and there isn't any land to devote to any agriculture at all, much less tobacco. The entire country is vertical, basically; no flat land that isn't urbanized. And Haiti is the poster child for conservationists because it has some of the worst soil in the world. People would rather attempt to wrestle what little food they can from the ground than a plant as basically useless as tobacco. Use Google Earth and look at Hispaniola; you can see the Haitian-Dominican border in the greenery. Haiti is grey and rocky, and the Dominican Republic is green and lush. There's an arrow-straight line right where the border is. It's strange to see.

And the Dominicans only wrought good tobacco from their soil after a lot of hard work and determination. They couldn't even grow wrapper tobacco at all for the longest time. The Fuente vegas were the first to produce a useable wrapper crop there.

[tonyrocks922]

to grow tobacco, you need things like soil, money, an economy, knowledge... none of which Haiti has.

This web site claims to sell them, but I wouldn't believe it unless I saw the tobacco farm.
Haitian Cigars: An exotic touch to your smoking!

[Snake Hips]

Originally Posted by tonyrocks922

to grow tobacco, you need things like soil, money, an economy, knowledge... none of which Haiti has.

This web site claims to sell them, but I wouldn't believe it unless I saw the tobacco farm.
Haitian Cigars: An exotic touch to your smoking!

Interesting...that's something I won't be buying...

[Stinkdyr]

I contacted Yaquiba thru that website you posted. I asked them for a sample cigar from Haiti, and you can see in my pics what they sent. Yes, in a plain envelope with no padding. The dark colored one crumbled when I tried to remove its cello. The light colored one is plenty cracked and peeling, but I will try to smoke a bit of it this weekend and report back here. If I don't survive the experience, well...

[ericb13]

Wow..that's amazing! It looks like the cello is yellowed as well, so I wonder if these were "rescued" some time ago from some kind of defunct factory or something. Very interesting...

I can't wait to see the review.

[Amlique]

Wild!

[jadeg001]

Originally Posted by Stinkdyr

I contacted Yaquiba thru that website you posted. I asked them for a sample cigar from Haiti, and you can see in my pics what they sent. Yes, in a plain envelope with no padding. The dark colored one crumbled when I tried to remove its cello. The light colored one is plenty cracked and peeling, but I will try to smoke a bit of it this weekend and report back here. If I don't survive the experience, well...

Tell me they didn't charge you for those....

[Cigary]

I have often wondered the same thing, Dom but kind of knew that the resources in this 3rd world country were probably so poor that any enterprise like tobacco and cigars would probably never get off the ground even though the climate would be perfect. There is so much graft and corruption there that cigars are probably the last thing that would survive. Not even a private enterprise would work because that government would take all of the assets or tax it to death.

You can do a search for Gov't corruption in Haiti and get this caption: Haiti has been ranked as the most corrupt country in the World by Transparency International (TI), followed by Burma and Iraq.

[SmokeRings]

Hey Stink, on the envelope it says those sticks came from Hallandale Florida, which is right around the corner from me. Can you make out the address on that envelope and post it up for me, I would love to go see where these came from, if it is some sort of B&M. I would also like to see if the sticks they sent you are the same quality they are displaying in the store.

Thanks

[ekengland07]

Originally Posted by SmokeRings

Hey Stink, on the envelope it says those sticks came from Hallandale Florida, which is right around the corner from me. Can you make out the address on that envelope and post it up for me, I would love to go see where these came from, if it is some sort of B&M. I would also like to see if the sticks they sent you are the same quality they are displaying in the store.

Thanks

Please let me know if you find anything out. I've been to Haiti twice and would be interested in trying some if you'd pick them up for me. I don't have high expectations, but would still be interested.

[Stinkdyr]

Originally Posted by jadeg001

Tell me they didn't charge you for those....

Nope. I got what I paid for! zero for zero.

[Stinkdyr]

Originally Posted by SmokeRings

Hey Stink, on the envelope it says those sticks came from Hallandale Florida, which is right around the corner from me. Can you make out the address on that envelope and post it up for me, I would love to go see where these came from, if it is some sort of B&M. I would also like to see if the sticks they sent you are the same quality they are displaying in the store.

Thanks

I think that is his home address. You can email him here:
yaquibacigars at yahoo
His name is Franck.

[Stinkdyr]

As promised, I smoked what was left of one of the Yaquibas this weekend, and here is my review.

Recall that one of the two stix was completely shredded and unsmokable. The remaining one was double corona size and cracked almost in half. so I went ahead and split it in half making it about the size of a robusto. The wrapper had completely come undone and fallen off, so I can't comment on any flavor that the wrapper might have. The bare binder/filler stick seemed well rolled, so I lit it up. And it did light, even without the wrapper. The aroma/flavor was definitely made of tobacco and tasted a bit cedarish. There was some sort of a slightly unpleasant aftertaste, but not horrible. I did smoke it down to about 1.5" and it behaved well. Never got hot or harsh. While it will not climb near the top of my faves list, I would actually recommend it to the adventurous, so you can brag at your next herf about smoking a Haitian!