Born in Spain, Don Jaime Partagás y Ravelo had been involved in the Partagas little cigars in Cuba for 18 years before he finally launched the premium cigar brand named after him in 1845. His factory, the Real Fábricas de Tabaco Partagás (Royal Tobacco Factory), was located at 60
Industria Street in Havana and got its name because of the many royal and noble customers from Europe and Asia. This makes it the oldest continuously producing cigar factory in Cuba.
Don Jaime already had the best plantations in the traditional Cuban cultivation area, the Vuelta Abajo, in the northwest of the island and was therefore able to fall back on the best tobacco in the country for the production of his partagás. He is also said to have developed various fermentations and aging processes in tobacco processing of Partagas little cigars.
This strong will to keep improving his Partagas little cigars also allowed him to go new ways: It was probably Don Jaime who was the first in Cuba to hire a reader to entertain his employees with their relatively monotonous work, but to motivate them also to educate – a method that has proven itself to this day. Unfortunately, his passion for enjoyment also brought him problems, because in 1864 (or 1868) he was shot by a rival on his plantations because of a love affair, whereupon his son took over the cigars for the Partagás.
However, the company’s success remained loyal to it and made the Partagas little cigars to one of the largest in the cigar business.
From 1900 Partagás cigars belonged to the well-known tobacco company Cifuentes, Fernández y Cía. They were the most produced brand in pre-revolutionary Cuba after the H.Upmann. Even the revolution could not change that and so it is still one of the most popular brands worldwide and produced over ten million cigars per year in the 1990s, a value that was only exceeded by Montecristo. Altadis’ entry into the state-owned Habanos S.A. brought some changes in the Cuban cigar production, of which the Partagás cigars were not spared either.
The range was streamlined by removing the less common Partagás formats – which not every connoisseur liked. Since the introduction of the Partagas little cigars, some limited editions have been released, which have always been sure of excellent criticism in the professional world.