Before the tour, Frank and I had a look around the factory shop, they had all the brands of cigars that the factory produced, plenty of tobacco paraphernalia and rums. Frank got himself this big fat cigar, it was unbranded but was a very good quality one, it had just failed some inspection of some kind so had to be sold on cheap, nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't up to standard. When he smoked it he really enjoyed it, it was the best cigar he had ever had.
There was probably about ten people on the tour, including me and Frank so not a big tour so it would be more personal and better than a really large group like some of the others we saw going around. Our tour guide was a local, a former cigar maker turned guide and was a really friendly guy who spoke very good English, he was a much better guide than the one at the Havana Club distillery, he didn't waste our time making crap jokes and was very clear. The first place we were taken to was the sorting room where we saw men and women sorting out the tobacco leaves into specific piles, grouped by size colour and quality. The guide told us that the factory has been making cigars the same way since 1845, a little about the practises and said that it used to be just women who worked there, now there is about 80% women and the remainder being men. As the tour went on we got taken to different areas of the factory, it was a bizarre feeling to be walking and talking amongst the workers making there cigars, listening to music and even smoking. We were taken past the school where new employees are trained to roll cigars, from start to finish, it takes nine months to learn how to roll properly and get taken up to the factory floor. The workers are under a lot of pressure to complete their weekly and monthly quotas of rolling cigars, plus the cigars are all inspected and if they do not meet the standards are either taken apart and re-rolled or give to the staff in their free three cigars a day benefit for being employees of the factory.
All the areas of the factory received the same scrutiny and went through similar quality control procedures, even the labelling and packaging. The tour went on for about forty five minutes and was like nothing I would have expected, it was very good and I will be recommending it to anybody who comes to Cuba.