Cuba and Cigars | The stripping house |
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The stripping
process, next to the rolling of tobacco, is like the soul of the creative
process of a Cigar. In this place tobacco is received in packs of yagua
that come from a warehouse where tobacco is received selected and by grades
from the sorting houses. A part of the bales, whose content is used for
wrappers, goes directly to the factories; others are taken to the stripping
house, shops located in several cities, like Havana, Pinar del Rio and
Consolación del Sur. To those places go the sun grown tobacco (strung)
of fine plantations of San Juan y Martínez, San Luis and other
places of Pinar del Rio that have won prestige due to their quality in
the last years. |
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In
the stripping rooms the leaves of tobacco are selected according to
their size and the ones that have been damaged are separated but they
will be good for filler. The separated leaves should be placed one
over other one, so that the pile be even; then, placed on a chart,
they are ironed with a press. |
The stripping
process consists on removing half of the central vein of the leaves reserved
for filler; a quarter to those dedicated for binder while to those for
wrapper the vein is removed completely (this process is carried out in
the industry), conforming two bands. The cutting is carried out with a
kind of metal fingernail; then, the vein is pulled with fineness for not
breaking the leaf.
One of the
fundamental stages for the elaboration of tobacco is that of the stripping
house, a place where all the works are carried out by hand.
In the stripping
houses they work with the volado (high) and dry filler.
The other
classification is determined by five grades:
-Binder I, II, III
-Filler
-Cut tobacco
The work
consists on that tobacco comes from the sorting houses and it is stored
in the stripping houses, where little by little it is taken out for the
process of moistening.
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