Tabacalera A. Turrent Decoding the Mystery of Mexico

Source from:  smokemag.com Story & Photos By William Kaliher  05/29/2008

Tabacalera A. Turrent continues to search for the golden key to win the hearts of U.S. cigar smokers. Can one of the cigar world's most storied cigar makers crack the puzzle of Mexican cigars in America? Nestled among the small cities, villages, and abundance of little-known tourist delights in Mexico's Los Tuxtlas Mountains is one of the world's oldest cigar-making operations. The Turrent family has been involved in tobacco farming for five generations spread over 128 years, and its company, Turrent, Nueva Matacapan Tabacos, S.A. de C.V., (known commercially as Tabacalera Alberto Turrent) is the largest cigar maker in Mexico, producing five to six million cigars per year in the village of Sihuapan near the tranquil lakeside tourist town of Catemaco. Alberto Turrent IV, president of Nueva Matacapan and the fourth generation family member to lead the company, is as much a man of the soil as he is an accomplished business executive: each morning he can be found in the fields examining the tobacco crops. Were he American, he'd be one of the finest examples of a Southern Gentleman-a gentle, hospitable man whose achievements could easily earn him the unofficial title as the father of modern Mexican tobacco. The first Alberto Turrent immigrated to Mexico from Spain in 1880 and established tobacco farms in the San Andrés Valley in the southeastern part of the state of Veracruz. The valley, with two dormant volcanoes nearby, provided a rich soil and perfect climate for quality tobacco. Turrent IV took over the company in 1960 at a time when most Mexican tobacco was shipped to Europe. In 1964 he first started exporting cigars, targeting the American market which was still adjusting to the loss of embargoed Cuban cigars. Turrent's Te-Amo brand would go on to become a market-leading blockbuster. Sihuapan and the Tuxtlas region in the 1960s were still the "old Mexico," a time of burros that the majority of today's youthful Mexican population-enjoying a burgeoning economy-either doesn't remember or never even knew. The roads were very narrow and in miserable shape, barely improved from generations earlier and living evidence that the Los Tuxtlas region had long been ignored. Alberto's grandfather and great-grandfather had shipped their tobacco by mule train to a river where it was loaded on boats and floated to Veracruz for international transport. The first train tracks arrived only in 1910 and didn't reach Merida, Yucatan, until 1955-a few years before the highway reached the same point. The Los Tuxtlas were cut off in many ways, as the Mexico of that era had few cars, exceedingly poor telephone communication, and little infrastructure. Yet, the region had supported a thriving turn-of-the-century tobacco industry. Several of the second generation Turrent brothers even had companies of their own. Family photos adorning Turrent's office in Sihuapan show his grandfather by a tobacco field about 1910 and another with his father by a tobacco field in 1931. Today, the Turrents manage an entirely vertically-integrated operation-growing tobacco, curing it, and rolling their own cigars-all handled through four different companies. One operates the tobacco farms and leaf operations (Group Matacapan Tobacos); another handles production of cigars; a third produces cigar boxes; and finally a distribution arm located in Mexico City oversees distribution of cigars into retail channels. By the time I actually sat down to talk with Se?or Turrent, I had already toured his factory twice and photographed some of the nearby fields and drying sheds. Mid-October, it was the company's busy season, with planting under way in the fields and the spotless factory a buzz of activity. The swift-moving chavetas-the half moon-shaped knives used by the torcedors in the final steps of finishing a cigar-were a blur in the trained hands of the cigar-making teams. "I love the farms," says Turrent, flashing a big grin that's as well known within the cigar world as his flagship brand, Te-Amo. "I started with the soil as a youth, but they're completely different, the farm and the factory business," he explains of tobacco growing compared to cigar rolling. Leading the family business into the modern world while based in a decidedly rural area presented challenges. It wasn't until about 1965 that Turrent began using tractors to plow his tobacco farms. Before that? "Bulls," he laughs. "We farmed with bulls." Even fertilizer arrived before mechanized plowing. "They used to not use it," Turrent explains. "The earth is naturally rich from the volcanic ash in the soil and the tropical rain forest vegetation constantly rotting and replenishing it. But it is needed. We started importing and learning about fertilizer from Germany between 1910 and 1920 and using it here." The industry thrived. "There were many tobacco farms in our area," says Turrent. "We have the same conditions as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua, but World War II finished most of the Mexican tobacco growers. Almost all of the tobacco [grown here each season] had been shipped to Europe but the war ended that export business. Most cigar factories folded and the owners turned to bananas for export to the United States. Only five or six families survived in the production of tobacco." In recent years, the Los Tuxtla region-which despite its surrounding attractions still remains largely overlooked by tourists-has had other dynamics to contend with, namely the migration of labor to work in factories in the industrial north of Mexico and in the United States, pushing some of Turrent's move to mechanize certain aspects of the labor-intensive farm work. Even at 8 a.m., the subtropical sun looks searing hot on the morning that I meet Miguel Turrent Hernandez, Turrent's nephew and farm manager of Group Matacapa Tobacos for a tour of the farm. As we take off down the first of many rocky lanes in his SUV, I discover that while young, Hernandez is a living encyclopedia on tobacco farming. Nueva Matacapan produces two tobacco crops per year-one that generally spans from June to September and the other from September to February, with planting times carefully determined to avoid devastating Blue Mold. To accommodate these crops at harvest time, the company has nearly 40 tobacco curing barns which, unlike those commonly seen in Central America, are covered with corrugated tin on their lower half and dried corn stalks on the upper. Currently the company has about 600 hectares (roughly 1,500 acres) under cultivation, encompassing both filler and wrapper varieties. On this particular day, 50 acres of Cuban seed Corojo 98 were planted in the early morning hours. Irrigation systems were first implemented in 1984, and more recently Matacapan Tobaccos has been modernizing its drying barns. Temperature and humidity are carefully manipulated by machine and a series of ducts that circulate air from the ground to the ceiling to reduce drying times to only 21 days as well as promote more uniform color, critical for wrapper leaf. Nine machines were in operation, with plans for 33 by year-end. Mexican tobaccos are unique in flavor and are used by other cigarmakers in their blends worldwide. "Negro San Andrés is our region's particular tobacco," explains Marilu Zetina, exports manager at Nueva Matacapan. "It is good for the binder, filler, and wrapper. Few tobaccos can serve all purposes, and Negro San Andrés is needed by many other tobacco companies for at least one part of the process. We send tobacco to almost 30 countries." Also grown in the area are Sumatra, Habano, and Criollo. "We can use Sumatra seed here for cover [wrapper] or we can use San Andrés Criollo like Connecticut broadleaf," Turrent explains. So how does Mexican tobacco compare to other origins? "No one can really say what cigar tobacco is better," Turrent diplomatically offers. "Tobacco is like wine and every [growing] area has its own flavor. Each one has its own traits it brings forth from the local area. You can plant our seeds in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua, but it won't taste like the tobacco we grow. It's really the taste each individual prefers. I can only say with certainty, our quality is as good as or better than anywhere else in the world and we take much pride in our product." Still, Mexican cigars on the whole have not had an easy time in the U.S. market over the past decade. In 1995, all of the major cigar factories in the San Andrés Valley formed the Mexican Association of Cigar Manufacturers to maintain the quality of Mexican cigars during the rapid rise in production during the boom. But imports of all Mexican cigars into the U.S. peaked in 1997 at just over 25 million sticks and fell rapidly following the collapse of the U.S. boom, and the association's attention turned to jointly promoting their cigars. Last year, nearly 1.4 million cigars were imported from Mexico into the U.S., up 23 percent from 2006, perhaps marking a turning point. Alberto's son Alejandro, who works alongside his father and represents the fifth generation in the family business, is currently president of the association. In addition to establishing new markets for Mexican cigars, it promotes the history of the country's cigar making tradition, facts like Mexico-not Cuba-is the original home of tobacco as well as cigars. "The Mayans smoked tobacco, and archeologists have found many pipes among their artifacts," said Zetina. While there may be some lack of public knowledge regarding the history of Mexican tobacco and cigar making, Zetina notes there isn't any rivalry between the cigar industries in Cuba and Mexico today. In fact, Nueva Matacapan has entered the Institute of Tobacco with Cuba, Turrent explains. "They study the genetics of the seed. Our tobacco is grown with basically the same seed Cuba uses. The studies are to find a genetic strain that is resistant to blue mold. One of their people comes about twice a year." Zetina reveals an even deeper acknowledgement of Cuba's regard for Nueva Matacapan's expertise. "The Cubans were recently having problems drying their leaves," she explains. "Here, we braid our leaves and put them up for drying. The Cubans asked Mr. Turrent for help, and he sent a man to Cuba to teach them the Mexican method of braiding leaf." There have also been other positive developments, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which, Turrent says, "helped exports by reducing import taxes. The U.S.A. now buys about 75% of all our cigar production. Spain, Poland, and Ukraine follow the U.S. in purchasing our cigars." This trade adjustment was no small turning point for Mexican cigar makers. Up until 1996, all Mexican cigars were by necessity puros, since importing tobaccos from other regions was cost-prohibitive. But then, makers like Turrent could for the first time create more diverse blends using different varieties of tobaccos from other nations, an irony since Mexican leaf had for generations been used around the world in other cigar maker's blends. Turrent's original Te-Amo blend-an earthy, medium- to full-bodied Mexican puro-was soon joined by the Te-Amo Aniversario, incorporating Dominican and Nicaraguan filler in addition to Mexican filler, binder, and wrapper. Similarly, the box-pressed A. Turrent line combined a Mexican Criollo San Andres wrapper with and Nicaraguan binder and Mexican filler. Perhaps the boldest move yet into a more international-style blend came just last year, when Turrent launched the largest expansion of the Te-Amo line ever with the release of the Te-Amo World Selection Series. There are three different blends, each featuring a Mexican San Andres binder. The Dominicana Blend uses Dominican filler and a Connecticut Shade wrapper; the Honduras Blend combines Honduran filler with a Corojo wrapper; and the Nicaragua Blend matches Nicaraguan filler with a Criollo wrapper. The cigars have succeeded in attracting a new generation of smokers who may not have found the classic Te-Amo puro to their liking. Meanwhile, the 2006 birth of Alejandro's first son-and Alberto's first grandson-marked the arrival of Tabacalera A. Turrent's sixth generation, and future heir-apparent. To celebrate, the Turrents created a new blend named, appropriately enough, A. Turrent 6th Generation, reiterating the family's storied tobacco tradition. It is handcrafted by a single master torcedora with 25 year's experience from a blend of five different tobaccos, some aged for up to seven years. The reddish-hued cigars are themselves aged six months in cedar before being boxed and are available only in the company's native Mexican market at this time, but Turrent plans to expand distribution of the brand internationally later this year. At age 65, Turrent can't imagine ever doing anything else. "I couldn't stop working with tobacco," he says, again flashing one of his great smiles. "If I retired I'd probably go work for one of my daughters. They run tobacco shops in Monterrey. I'd tell customers about tobacco." With plans to increase production this year to seven million cigars and open markets in India and China, retirement for Mexico's cigar patriarch will likely be waiting for quite some time. Enditem