The 10th Habano Festival Comes to a Close in Havana

With thousands of Habano connoisseurs and lovers from around the world, the 10th Habano Festival rolled down its curtains last Friday in Havana.

With a turnout of some 1,500 attendants from 75 nations, the largest powwow in the world devoted to premium cigars gathered aficionados and experts for a weeklong event of new product presentations, a tradeshow, theoretical debates, lectures, visits to cigar factories and tobacco plantations, as well as contests among sommeliers, and the matching between Habanos and a variety of other produces.

This time around, the Habano Festival marked its first decade of positive outcomes that certainly accrue with each passing year, a milestone that was highlighted during the opening ceremony by Habanos S.A.’s co-presidents Oscar Basulto and Buenaventura Jimenez.

Habanos S.A. finished third in 2007 among the island nation’s top asset exporters and it keeps strengthening its stance as one the leading companies in the sale of premium cigars worldwide, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade Raul de la Nuez said.

Minister de la Nuez expressed confidence that this new edition “has also contributed to forge closer ties among those of us who belong to the realm of Habanos and has eventually became another major milestone in the historic and cultural traditions that we share with friends from around the globe.”

Visits to cigar factories, tasting sessions, lectures and meetings with artists linked to the world of Habanos set the tone of the event. La Corona and H. Upmann were the two factories included in this grand tour in which foreign visitors took a firsthand look at the making process of world-class Habanos.

Meanwhile, the halls of Havana’s International Conference Center welcomed experts who talked about such interesting topics as the architecture of cigar factories and women’s participation in the cigarmaking industry, and taught participants how to roll a Habano.