Cigar rolling at Matasa, Dominican Republic

Skilled hands make great cigars. Watching this torcedora at the Matasa factory in DR is mesmerizing. Her fingers seem to dance as she massages the wrapper onto the cigar. At a rate of one cigar per minute, she can crank out around 400 cigars a day. Some work even faster yielding up to 600 cigars per day.

Cigar rollers work in pairs.  Next to this torcedora is someone who bunches the tobacco and inserts the hand-formed cigars into a cigar mold.  Once pressed into its cigar shape, the roller takes a cigar from the mold and applies the wrapper.

Cigar buncher.

Using a Leiberman machine, this cigar-buncher forms cigars, then places them into the cigar-mold. (Davidoff, DR)

Cigar Press

Cigars being pressed into perfect shape. The wrapper is then applied. (Davidoff, DR)

Before and after cigar pressing.

A cigar before and after pressing. (La Flor Dominicana, DR)

 

 

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