This week, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is shipping the second and final release of the year of its famous Yagua and Diamond Crown Black Diamond cigars. A total of 1,200 boxes of Yagua and 600 boxes of Diamond Crown Black Diamond are being shipped to 396 premium cigar retailers in 46 states.
“It continues to shock me that Yagua has developed a cult-like following,” said fourth-generation owner Drew Newman. “I didn’t make Yagua to sell. In fact, I didn’t think that cigar enthusiasts would like Yagua because it breaks all of the cigar-making rules. Yagua is misshapen and unattractive. We roll it with under fermented tobacco, and no two Yagua are alike.”
Yagua is a recreation of a farm-rolled cigar that Lazaro Lopez, general manager of the J.C. Newman PENSA cigar factory in Nicaragua, remembers his grandfather making at his family’s tobacco farm in Cuba in the 1940s. Over dinner in 2019, Lopez shared this story with Newman:
“At our family farm, my grandfather would take fresh tobacco leaves from the curing barns and roll cigars without any molds or presses,” said Lopez. “In an attempt to give his cigars a traditional shape, he would tie a handful of them together using pieces of the Cuban royal palm tree, known as the yagua. When he was ready to enjoy his personal cigars, he untied the bundle. He loved how every cigar had its own unique shape. I still remember the rich aroma and taste of my grandfather’s cigars.”
Shortly after being rolled, 20 Yagua cigars are bound together while still wet using a Yagua palmiche palm leaf. Each box of Yagua contains a bundle of 20 cigars still wrapped in the palm leaf. Yagua cigars measure 6×54.
“Yagua is a difficult cigar to roll because we use an under fermented Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, blend the filler tobaccos differently, and do not use the usual tools and techniques of a cigar factory,” said Newman. “As the wrapper is not fully fermented, we have age the cigars for a full year after they are rolled.”
Diamond Crown Black Diamond Cigars are the pinnacle of J.C. Newman’s Diamond Crown luxury cigar brand. First introduced in 2016, Diamond Crown Black Diamond cigars are hand rolled in Tabacalera A. Fuente in the Dominican Republic. They feature an elegant and flavorful Connecticut Havana wrapper with a blend of very well-aged Dominican binder and filler tobaccos.
“My grandfather, Stanford J. Newman, told me that his father, J.C. Newman taught him that we should aim to do something better every day,” said Drew Newman, general counsel, and fourth-generation owner. “Although our Diamond Crown Black Diamond cigars have been savored by cigar enthusiasts around the world for six years, I was not satisfied and wanted to make them better.”
Last year, J.C. Newman reintroduced Diamond Crown Black Diamond. The sizes, price, and box quantity remained the same. The blend was strengthened and refined, and the cigars feature new luxurious packaging printed in Europe.
