The island of Hispaniola is allegedly the first place on earth that tobacco was ‘discovered’ by the early explorers. Columbus has been credited with introducing tobacco to the Europeans, along with Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced pipe smoking after his voyage to America. Cigars differ from cigarettes in that they are simply made from tobacco which is rolled into a cigar shape with layers of tobacco leaves. Cigarettes contain tobacco which processed, shredded and placed inside the cigarette paper tube and smoked with a filter.
According to the medical profession both cigarettes and cigars are equally damaging to the health of those who indulge in the habit of smoking. This is a more modern knock-on effect of those who considered smoking to be ‘evil’, back in the day when it was first invented. King James I of England and Philip II of Spain both denounced the notion of smoking as bad, but it made little impact. In those days it was the elite and well-off who had the money to indulge in such habits, whereas nowadays the trend on smoking as flipped around and it is associated far less with the rich as it is with the less well-off.
A Short History
Cigars were initially made by hand, with makers working from their own homes in places such as New York. They would produce discount premium cigars that would be sold retail, with the maker earning a wage per cigar or per hour. As the cigar trend took off in the late nineteenth century New York became of the principle cigar centers of the United States, employing almost two thousands families and almost eight thousand individual workers in the cigar industry. The hand rolled cigar faded out eventually, replaced by machine rolled. However, Cuba still preferred the hand rolling experience and is now the central manufacturing point for hand rolled cigars in the world. However, because of the controversy of the area, Cuban cigars are not commonplace and in some areas of the United States are still considered as contraband. The peak for cigar making in the United States was around 1905 when there were around eighty thousand cigar related operations around the entire country. That has now dwindled considerably.