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The lack of imported cigar leaf resulted in China’s four major cigar leaf cultivation areas stepping up their efforts.
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China’s domestic cigar products have long relied on imports of raw materials, especially for high-end cigars.
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STMA and CNTC aim to create domestic high-end cigars using Chinese-grown material.
Many well-known cigar leaf producing countries were deeply affected by Covid-19 for the past two years, and some of them failed to properly manage production and transportation of cigar leaves due to lockdown measures. The inaccessibility of overseas cigar leaf resulted in four major cigar growing regions in China seizing the opportunity to stabilize production and ensure market supply. This allows China to maintain a strong domestic cigar development momentum.
Measures of the four major cigar growing regions in cultivation
As the saying goes, the quality of cigars is “70% raw materials and 30% craftsmanship,” and “Whoever masters the high-quality raw materials will have the right to speak.” China’s domestic cigar products have long relied on imports of raw materials, and for some high-end hand-rolled cigars that reliance can be as high as 100%.
Aiming to create truly domestic high-end cigars with its own raw materials, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) and China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) held a major online meeting on the development and application of domestic cigar leaves on July 10, 2020. STMA proposed to focus on the supply target of mid-to-high-end cigar raw materials, as well as plan and gradually develop three types of planting areas, respective trial planting areas, potential planting areas, and large-scale planting areas, aiming to establish a domestic cigar raw material guarantee system. Extra efforts were made to resolve the five special technologies of varieties, production process, fermentation, formula, and smoking quality to implement the substitution of cigar leaves.
To achieve these goals, the four major cigar growing regions in China adopted different practices based on local conditions.
Cigar growing in Yunnan province
As a traditional tobacco industry leaf base, Yunnan province boasts excellent conditions for cigar leaf growing. The temperature in the five regions of Lincang, Pu’er, Dehong, Yuxi, and in western and south-western Yunnan is 19-35°C. There are more than 95 days when the average daily temperature in tobacco fields is over 22°C. The soil is mostly red sandy soil, rich in organic matter and good drainage. These superior natural conditions have become a powerful endorsement for the production of high-quality cigar leaves.
Based on the platform of Research on Ecological Adaptability Evaluation of Domestic Cigar Tobacco Leaf Varieties and Germplasm Resources Identification (hereinafter referred to as “the major program”) proposed by STMA, Yunnan carried out comparative in-field trials for 18 varieties in Dehong, Pu, and Lincang, and initially selected varieties with good performance. The province also introduced excellent international varieties through co-operation with CAC International Tobacco Company, carried out female sterile line transformation and hybrid combination preparation, and optimized the variety structure of cigar leaves in Yunnan, initially achieving the independent control of the world’s best varieties.
Cigar leaf growing in Hainan province
The geographical and ecological environment of Hainan province is very similar to that of Cuba. In 1998, Hainan began to grow cigar leaves with the support of STMA. July 2015 saw the establishment of the Hainan Cigar Research Institute, the industry’s first professional cigar research institute, (renamed “Haikou Cigar Research Institute” in 2017) with the approval of the agency, shouldering the burden of r&d on cigar leaf, transformation, and promotion of achievements, market research, and making new progress in the fields of cigar leaf resource introduction and screening, genetic diversity research, and new variety breeding.
At present, more than 270 cigar germplasm resources were collected and introduced; the construction of a resource fingerprint map, database, and physical library is completed; and the breeding of eight core germplasm resources sterile lines is completed. Technical specifications for cigar leaf production are issued, and cigar production materials and equipment with independent IPRs are now used for production. Among them, the varieties grown by Wuzhishan Yongyi Cigar Manor Co., Ltd. are all bred by the institute with excellent quality and stable variety of tobacco leaves.
Cigar leaf growing in Hubei province
Leading the above-mentioned major program, Hubei carried out trial planting, demonstration, and large-scale production in Dan-jiangkou city, Laifeng county, Wufeng county, Enshi city, and Zaoyang city, covering a total area of more than 3,800 mu (666.7 m2), and producing 5,000 leaf bales. The province comprehensively improved the level of supporting cigar facilities in each production area, built or renovated over 700 special airing rooms, and increased an area of more than 8,000 km2 of fermentation rooms. During the construction of demonstration areas and planting bases, the Hubei Tobacco Research Institute provides varieties, instructs each production area to formulate technical plans for testing, demonstration, and production, and designs technical training, guidance, and services throughout the process. Some 600 people already successively went to the production areas to provide services.
Targeting the two key links of pre-field production management, harvesting, and airing, the Technical Key Points of Pre-Field Production Management of Cigar Leaves, and the Technical Key Points of Mature Harvesting and Airing of Cigar Leaves were compiled and distributed to each production area.
Cigar leaf growing in Sichuan province
Sichuan is the oldest cigar leaf growing area in China. “Dexue No. 1” and “Dexue No. 3” are varieties selected by the Sichuan cigar research team after years of efforts, highly appreciated by four cigar manufacturers: China Tobacco (Sichuan), China Tobacco (Anhui), China Tobacco (Hubei), and China Tobacco (Shandong) Industrial Corporation. The varieties, as raw materials, are successfully applied to domestic high-end cigar brands, such as the Great Wall Series, Crown Series, Yellow Crane Tower 1916, and General. At present, the above two varieties (strains) are widely planted in the production area, with a cumulative planting area of more than 10,000 mu, accounting for more than 90% of the total planting area in the province, which strongly supports the development of Sichuan cigar leaves.
Currently, Sichuan formed a complete production technology system of cigar leaf and realized the large-scale production of domestic cigar raw materials, which are used in domestic cigar products. For the first time, 220 fingerprints of cigar germplasm resources were built in terms of domestic cigar leaves. To solve the production process technology of cigar leaves in Sichuan, a five-stage airing technology with alternating dry and wet uniform color as the core was invented.
Innovations in the four major cigar growing regions
Criteria setting. CNTC stepped up efforts to explore how to produce high-end cigar products with Chinese domestic cigar leaves. Therefore, the four major tobacco areas have defined the direction for the development of cigar raw materials through the formulation of needed criteria.
In 2020, Hubei worked with Sichuan to prepare the Criteria for Cigar Leaf Industrial and Commercial Grading. Hubei also declared three cigar industry criteria programs, respectively Technical Regulations for Cigar Leaf Cultivation, Technical Regulations for Cigar Leaf Airing, and Technical Regulations for Agricultural Fermentation of Cigar Leaf. In November of the same year, China Tobacco (Sichuan) took the lead in organizing a team of evaluation experts to evaluate more than 50 cigar samples from home and abroad, and fully promote the criteria preparation for sensory evaluation of cigar leaves.
In 2021, China Tobacco (Hainan) Commercial Corporation developed seven technical criteria for cigar leaf production, namely Operation Instructions for Hainan Cigar Variety Breeding and Technical Specifications for Hainan Cigar Leaf Breeding, focusing on the key technical points of production links such as cigar leaf variety breeding and intensive seedling breeding.
Data empowerment
Cigar leaf growers in the four major tobacco regions use Big Data to make cigar planting more scientific, accurate, and high-quality.
Danjiangkou branch under China Tobacco (Hubei) Commercial Corporation works with software technology companies in terms of IoT, Big Data, cloud computing, AI, etc. The IoT control center of cigar leaf production shares data with a meteorological monitoring station and a disease and insect monitoring station to collect, analyze, and feed real-time weather and pest data to implement real-time monitoring of moisture, seedlings, insects, disasters, etc. in the cigar production process and visually display the results.
Meanwhile, relevant real-time information is fed back to the personnel on duty through the “Cigar Smart IoT “ application to improve the response speed to weather and pest conditions during cigar production; effectively shorten the response period to weather, pests, and diseases and greatly improve the accurate detection, scientific prevention, and control and disaster early warning levels; promote the transformation of pest and disaster prediction and forecasting to informatization, intelligence, and precision; and make digitalization play a key role in cigar leaf production.
Guided by lean production, intelligent airing, and a streamlined fermentation process, Yunnan Oriental Tobacco Co. Ltd. integrates large-scale development of cigar leaves with IoT, big data, AI, and blockchain technology. The company independently developed the Cigar Storage and Fermentation Control Platform to create a new visual construction of cigar storage, fermentation, and marketing of the province. The platform focuses on automatic collection, monitoring, early warning, tracking, and feedback functions of temperature and humidity of fermented tobacco stacks, taking a solid step to fully implement the intelligent digital transformation and upgrading of cigar leaves.