By Allen Liao
Great Wall Cigar Factory (GWCF) of Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation in southwest China – one of the four cigar makers designated by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) – has created yet another marvel by developing and presenting to the market a new cigar product named Chuanqi (Marvel).
After decades of development, the cigar-making sector of China’s tobacco industry has entered a new stage of growth. GWCF, a leading domestic cigar manufacturer, has kept developing new products on the basis of its unique historical origin and through unremitting efforts, bringing pleasant surprises to consumers one after another.
The name Marvel reminds people of the marvelous course of GWCF’s development. For the staff members and workers of GWCF, the birth of Marvel is a result of unremitting efforts of innovation, persistent enthusiasm and pursuit of their ideals. The birth of Marvel would not have been realized without the powerful strength of GWCF, accumulated over the many years of down-to-earth development.
New products
In September 2007, GWCF was incorporated on the basis of structural reform of the cigar making subsidiary of Shifang Cigarette Factory in Sichuan province. Although it is only three years old, GWCF has a history of cigar manufacturing spanning nearly 100 years. The factory’s persistent endeavor of innovation to reach higher and higher levels is in itself a marvelous achievement.
Thanks to its many years of experience, GWCF, taking advantage of its possession of fine raw materials, advanced technology, favorable government policy and great production capacity, has been striving to promote its cigar production to higher levels over the past few years since its incorporation. Meanwhile, it has spent much energy publicizing basic knowledge about cigars to more and more groups of people. As a result of persistent efforts, GWCF has developed a series of new cigar products that closely follow advanced international standards and that satisfy the demands of Chinese consumers. Consequently, these cigars have won increasing recognition and approval in the domestic market.
It is into this scenario that Marvel was born. Its introduction now is of unusual significance. The name of Marvel not only reflects on the glorious history of the Great Wall cigar brand family but also suggests the aspiration of staff members and workers to create yet more marvels through unremitting efforts to come.
Talking about the remarkable course of of GWCF’s development, people may naturally recall the glorious history of Shifang Cigarette Factory, which was designated to produce special cigars reserved for the first generation of top Chinese leaders. This fact is well-known and respected throughout the domestic tobacco industry. Today, it is not only a feather in the cap of GWCF, but is also one of the driving forces behind the company’s aspirations to create yet more marvels in future.
Introduced from abroad, cigar manufacturing lay dormant for many years in China, particularly in the period of the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). So, for the current generation of GWCF staff members and workers, one of many lofty goals is to see Chinese-made cigars take a large share of the domestic tobacco market and become competitive products so that GWCF will grow into the premier cigar-making base in China and develop the leading domestic cigar brand. On this basis, they wish to turn Great Wall into a well-known international cigar brand – a marvel that is in creation.
Breakthrough
While inspecting Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation in 2008, STMA director-general Jiang Chengkang required the corporation to “make a breakthrough” in solving hard technological problems involved in developing high-quality Chinese cigar products. In accordance with this requirement and in light of its own specific conditions, GWCF earnestly conducted feasibility studies and analysis and eventually adopted a strategy to promote cigar production to a higher level in terms of product design, technological development, corporate culture development, marketing and corporate management.
As cigar production in China was still at an early stage of development, there was a lack of unified standards for judging product research and development, technological innovation, and so on. As a leading cigar maker in domestic market, one of its GWCF’s major targets was to formulate a set of unified standards for manufacturing cigar products in China. Success in the formulation of such a set of standards would enable cigar production in China to embark on a path of favorable development, which, of course, would not be an easy job that could be accomplished overnight. Rather, it would require persistent efforts by all GWCF staff members and workers.
Research and development
With their unique characteristics, cigars have won great favor from consumers in all parts of the world. Many outstanding figures had cigars accompanying them during their lifetime. Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Edison, Rabindranath Tagore and others all had a close relationship with cigars. Cigars played so big a role in their life that many of their great achievements could arguably not have been made without the enlightenment and guidance gained from smoking them.
Cigars originated from the West. Recalling history, we can see that cigar smoking has had a profound influence on the development of civilization in the West. Cigars have taken root in the East, and are accepted by increasing numbers of consumers. Cigar smoking is no longer an experience of tasting a unique tobacco flavor: rather, it is a kind of personal experience of civilization.
GWCF developed and presented Marvel to the market, offering consumers a chance of having a pleasant personal experience of civilization with its usually good quality. The research and development of Marvel was intended to turn out a high-grade Chinese cigar product. Therefore, GWCF made relatively heavy investment in the research and development in all aspects of Marvel. In its development GWCF defined it as a Chinese-made cigar product of global quality and drew on advanced production technology and know-how from famous transnational tobacco giants, while closely followed the demand of Chinese consumers.
Imported tobacco
In the choice of raw materials, GWCF managed to import high-quality leaf tobacco from leading tobacco-growing regions in the world. It adopted internationally prevalent technologies and techniques in producing Marvel.
The packaging is designed to highlight the meaning of the brand as much as possible, in order to create an impressive visual effect. It is fair to say that all available existing advanced technologies and techniques were applied in the development of Marvel. In making its debut at a fair for unveiling achievements in the reconstruction following a devastating earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, Marvel immediately won full recognition from STMA and was designated as a gift on occasions of contacts in foreign cooperation. It was believed that Marvel would give its consumers an unusually pleasant smoking experience.
As more and more people are getting to know the fine reputation of Marvel, the lessons learned in its development will enhance the reputation and equity of Great Wall brand cigars.
An artistic work
GWCF never defines itself as a mere cigar manufacturer. Rather, it adopts an artistic perspective and attitude in cigar production. The staff all work had to meticulously make their cigar products into “artistic works” in all aspects of production from the growing of leaf tobacco to the rolling of cigars.
In a recent interview with Chinese news media, director Zhang Dairong of GWCF said that for years, the factory has always treated its cigar products as “artistic works”, and that the processes of making cigars at the factory are no different from those employed in the creation of artistic works.
GWCF is very serious in choosing sites for growing tobacco for its cigar production. It adopts different approaches dealing with such questions as what kind of soil is suitable for what types of tobacco seeds and what fertilizer is suitable for what tobacco crops.
Natural alcoholization of leaf tobacco following growth is of very high importance for the environment. In response, during the leaf’s storage, GWCF technicians regularly conduct full-scale tests on leaf tobacco in natural alcoholization. In this process, they examine and test-smoke the leaf tobacco batch by batch and conduct chemical analysis of the ingredients in order to verify that the leaf tobacco will be suitable for natural alcoholization processing. Only when the leaf tobacco in storage is found to have met all the standards for natural alcoholization will it be used to make cigars at GWCF.
Highly skilled workers
High-quality cigars are mostly hand-made. In this respect, GWCF boasts a large number of skilled cigar rollers. In rolling cigars, they will carefully cut leaf tobacco open in preparation and will separately make the core and the coat of cigars, strictly observing the relevant stringent procedural rules until the cigars are rolled perfectly. The whole process is smooth and is completed without a stop. The fine workmanship of technicians at GWCF not only guarantees the high quality of cigar products but also makes the appearance of cigar products beautiful. Cigar rollers are technicians, but more significantly they are “artists” making fine artistic works, in line with the concept that a good cigar is a work of art.
GWCF, in the development of new products, always takes “artistry” as a major standard for measurement. In this endeavor, the factory has kept innovating and drawing on the successful experience of other countries in the development and production of cigar products. So far, it has launched substantial cooperation with Altadis USA, which has the largest share of the global cigar market, and Royal Dutch Agio Cigars, one of Europe’s leading cigar manufacturers and also a world-famous cigar manufacturer with a history of more than 100 years manufacturing cigars. Such cooperation has given a powerful impetus to GWCF’s drive to develop “artistic” cigar products.
In September 2010, at the invitation of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association, GWCF sent a delegation to participate in the 78th Annual International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association Convention and Trade Show held in New Orleans, US. GWCF took Marvel to the show. Immediately, its high quality and the artistic, oriental features caught the attention of representatives of many famous transnational cigar manufacturers including Altadis USA, Royal Dutch Agio Cigars, Swedish Match AB and Drew Estate Cigars. Representatives from more than 200 distributors, including CASA cigars of Canada, Hawaii Cigars and Forbidden Conexion of the US, inquired about a possible sales agency. On the same occasion, hundreds of other retailers expressed interests in possible sales of Marvel.
The development of Marvel is yet another example of the fine workmanship of GWCF. The artistically creative processes employed in the manufacture of Marvel contributes to maximizing the value of this new cigar product.
Thanks to its success combining artistry with fine workmanship in Marvel’s development, GWCF is expected to create yet more marvels developing cigar markets in China and the rest of the world.
