Columbus's scouts found Cubans smoking rolled leaves, and Europe soon followed
When Christopher Columbus sent scouts inland in Cuba in 1492, they met Taino people inhaling smoke from dried herbs wrapped in a leaf. Within four decades tobacco was on sale in Lisbon, and the plant went on to drive colonial trade and the use of enslaved African labour.
The word itself travelled with the habit. It goes back to the Mayan sikar, meaning to smoke rolled tobacco leaves, passed through the Spanish cigarro, and settled into common English use in 1730. The friar and historian Bartolomé de las Casas left a vivid account of those first encounters, noting that Spaniards on Hispaniola who took up smoking insisted they could not stop.
Spain brought tobacco to Europe around 1528, and a Lisbon tobacco merchant appears in Diego Columbus's will of 1533. The French, Spanish and Portuguese at first called it the sacred herb, believing it had healing powers, though Philip II of Spain and James I of England both condemned it. Spanish planting began in earnest on Hispaniola in 1531, and in 1542 the first cigar factory opened in Cuba. The French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, who lent his name to nicotine, probably helped spread smoking into France; Walter Raleigh's voyages carried it to Britain, where pipes were preferred.
A modern cigar is a bundle of dried, fermented tobacco built in three layers: filler at the core, a binder leaf holding it together and an outer wrapper, usually the finest leaf of all. Bands carry the maker's logo, and some Cuban cigars wear a second band marking a limited edition and its year. The leaf grows mainly in Brazil, Central America and the Caribbean, with smaller crops in the eastern United States, the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia; Cameroon has recently started producing wrappers.
Smoking cigars carries serious health risks, including higher chances of several cancers, lung, heart and stroke-related disease, gum disease and tooth loss. In the United States, cigar brands have aimed tailored advertising and lifestyle magazines at particular groups of consumers since the 1990s.
Source: Cigar
