As the info on the website that Graham has provided the link to suggests, if you are offered cigars on the street then they will almost certainly be fakes but not always. Workers in the factories are partly paid in kind in that they get a free cigar 'ration' as part of their wages. Great if you are smoker - 'dead' money if you aren't and so some non-smoking cigar factory workers will try selling the real thing on the black market. It can be the way to secure a real bargain as long as you are prepared for the fact that they might get confiscated as you leave Cuba as they aren't supposed to be selling their ration.

If interested in doing this then bear the following in mind:

- Is there a Partagas, Cohiba etc factory in the town where you are staying? If there isn't, then if you are offered some then it's unlikely they are genuine. But if there is then there is a chance that you are being offered the genuine article. They should still have the same official seals on them etc but won't necessarily be offered for sale in sealed boxes - if they are, be wary because the genuine article in these circumstances are more likely to be wrapped in cellophane bundles of 10 or 25 but they should still have the factory seal on them.

- If you are going to buy outside of the official shops then the chance of being openly offered the real thing on the street or the beach by a stranger are very slim. Workers in the factories receive their allowance as a personal perk (and to cut down on the chance of them stealing cigars for their own consumption) and selling them on is not encouraged. So if someone is openly selling them on the streets then that is a warning sign in itself because they are doing so safe in the knowledge that if challenged by the police, then they can easily prove that they are selling low grade and/or fake cigars and not the real deal on the black market. Someone selling part of their or a relative's allowance needs to count on your discretion as much as you need to count on their honesty. While not a guarantee, a genuine seller is likely to have taken time to suss you out beforehand as much as you will be trying to suss them.

- Not all 'fakes' are of poor quality or bad value for money. Tobacco farmers are allowed to make cigars themselves from their surplus tobacco production that is not bought by the national marketing board for the factories. Think of these as 'homemades' rather than fakes and you might be surprised at the quality for the price. This can be especially true in the Vinales/Pina del Rio region where there are a lot of small scale tobacco farmers who are legitimately allowed to make and sell cigars from their own tobacco crop. It can be worth taking a punt on a few just out of curiosity and most will sell you a sample one to try and if you like it, you can buy more. In these circumstances, they might tell you that they are as good as Cohibas but there will be no attempt to try and persuade you that they are one of the well known branded makes.

- I've brought back cigars on every trip to Cuba, some I've bought (but never from the official shops) and some I've been given as gifts but never more than my UK duty free allowance. I've always packed them in my checked-in baggage and never had a problem - either with them being stolen from the cases or with the Cuban authorities. I've never been asked to produce a receipt either but was always ready to bluff that they'd been given to me as gifts for my father if challenged - easier for me to do because I usually stay with families rather than in hotels and travel in circumstances where it would be usual to exchange gifts. But as I say, it's never been put to the test.

SM

Thanks SM just the kind of helpful information I was hoping would be posted, keep up the good work

Hi
We went to the cigar factory near Holguin,where all the top cigars are rolled, big mamma's smoking a big cigar while they are rolling them.
Hundreds of people work in the factory,when you go the security is strict, You are inside a compound with your coach,the gates shut after you come in.
The factory lays on pedicurists,chropodists etc for the workers,they take it in their turn to go.
They don't allow you to try them,you have to go to a shop outside in the compound to buy,I paid £4 each for what was £12 at home.
They get a cigar each has a bonus once a week I think,the best employee of the month gets a box of 10.
What the workers used to do was put their cigars together,then someone would sell them on the beach.
You have doctors / nurses working there because it is better money than the hospitals.
A good trip to do.

I was in Cuba last year, and bought some sub-grade cigars in Havana. I learned my lesson! But a "Canadian" (I think he was a Yank, but had a Canadian passport to allow him in to Cuba) bought quite a quantity of cheap cigars which were then confiscated by customs/Police/Army at the Airport in Havana, because they didn't bear the Government seal on the
m!

"Canadian" (I think he was a Yank, but had a Canadian passport to allow him in to Cuba)

If he had a Canadian passport then it is most unlikely that he was anything other than a Canadian citizen. It is a fallacy that Americans aren't allowed to visit Cuba (by either the US or the Cuban authorities). The US embargo on trade with Cuba used to mean that there it wasn't possible to travel directly between the two countries and so most people who did want to visit Cuba from the US would fly in via connecting flights from Mexico. The hassle of having to do this meant that few US travellers bothered and the Cubans tend to assume that anybody who talks with a North American accent and doesn't look like a Cuban ex-pat is a Canadian but I have met US citizens in Cuba. Though they do tend to keep quiet about it unless they are openly supporters of the Revolution because the US Government is unpopular because of the effects of the trade embargo.

However, one of the quiet reforms brought in by Obama once he became US President is that charter flights - mainly organised by Cuban ex-pat associations - are now allowed to fly direct. It was really strange to see flights to Miami listed on the departure boards at Havana airport the first time I went to Cuba after this change!

SM

A few of my American friends visited Cuba during the years when it was somewhat frowned upon, one friend especially wanted to go there.
Before Guantanimo Bay became (in)famous as a terrorist prison camp it was for many years a very large US Naval Base and a safe posting for the servicepersonal and their famililies. Cubans were allowed to work on post and passed through security everyday but Americans were not allowed to leave the base other than to fly back to the USA or visit islands such as Jamaica, but definitely not allowed to go into the surrounding country. It was a huge base and like most US bases well equiped for families to enjoy life in a safe warm environment but unfortunately apart from the few Cubans working there it could have been anywhere. At the end of his two year posting there my friend who was teaching in the base school, returned to the USA. Within a few months he returned to Cuba (via Mexico) for a holiday to see what he had missed over the two years that he had been living (?) in the country. He loved the place and has visited numerous times since.
I have only visited Cuba once when I did a pretty intensive tour and I can fully understand Sma's love affair with the country, I'd love to return.

Back to the OT, When I was in Havana I visited the Real Fábrica de Tabacos Partagás which is the oldest cigar factory in Cuba, I thought the factory tour well worth doing.

Back to the OT, When I was in Havana I visited the Real Fábrica de Tabacos Partagás which is the oldest cigar factory in Cuba, I thought the factory tour well worth doing.

And I don't know about you, Judith, but I loved the fact that in the cigar rolling rooms, the factory employs someone to read alound the newspaper in the morning and a novel in the afternoon.

SM

I'm trying to remember the book that was being read to the employees when I visited, it was one of the classics. I read somewhere that one young woman working there had never read a book other than school work and that hearing the readings had awakened a real interest in literature.

A great tradition, I'm hoping even in these modern times that it will continue.

SMa- thanks for that I stand corrected. The chap in question said he had "dual nationality" but he was a bit of a B-S and started every sentence with "The F Yes..." or "The F No.." He also had an amazing tattoo across his entire back of the First Santana album cover (Black and white Lion's head and mane) which attracted a lot of comments. The Cuban ladies avoided him because they thought he was a gay prostitute! Lol!

We're going a bit but U suspect that they might have suspected him of worse things than that! I cannot recall ever seeing a Cuban in Cuba, male or female with tattoos - if they have them they don't make a point of displaying them. I know some Cuban ex-pats in the UK who do have them but they were done here after they arrived. I was once told that older Cubans associated tattoos with the pre-Revolutionary Mafia presence on the island but I've no idea how true this might be.

SM

I'll get back on topic but just re-reading the above thought that it might interest others to know that tattoos are now becoming fashionable amongst younger Cubans, including women. Nothing too big and usually sentimental in nature.

But getting back on topic, this week I brought cigars back as usual from my latest trip. One of the female dancers has a relative who works in the Partagas factory in Santiago and was able to get hold of Cohibas for me - a box of 25 Esplendidos for 35 CUCS which works out at approx £1 per cigar. A bargain if ever there was one! But if it had come via anybody else rather than someone I've known for nearly 8 years now and bought from before without any problems then I would have thought that it s too good a bargain to be true and wouldn't have chanced it.

They were for my neighbours whose son is getting married this summer and they thought that it would be a nice touch for him to be able to offer any smokers a really good cigar to smoke after the reception dinner. So as yet I can't confirm the quality but the box looked genuine and had the standard lead seal on the catch. I didn't want to break the seal and check that the individual cigars had the official seals on each of them but have asked them to check this when they do open it.

Also, as usual, I packed them in the checked in case and had no problems with either Cuban security or UK. Customs. Slightly off topic but anybody buying cigars or rum at the airport should note that at the shop after security at Holguin they now put them in a sealed bag which should mean that you are OK to carry them on as hand baggage for any connecting domestic flight from your international flight as long as you don't open the sealed bag. Important for those of us up in Scotland who are arriving inbound at somewhere like Gatwick and then flying on to Edinburgh etc.

SM