Cigars are not green, but the leaves they come from are. In order to get the cigar tobacco to turn brown, a process called fermentation is used. Fermentation isn't just for turning greens brown, however. It is mostly used to mellow out the taste of the tobacco. Fermentation also removes some of the nicotine that was in the cigar leaf. The bottom line is that green cigars would be unsmokable, so we ferment the leaf.

After the leaves are stripped from the tobacco plant, they are dried out in a barn, made to hold the tobacco. The leaves sit in this tobacco barn for about six weeks. The leaves will dry and begin to change color. Once the leaves have begun changing color, they are ready to be fermented.

The fermentation process begins when workers take the tobacco leaves down from their drying hooks, and stack the leaves into fermentation piles. The leaves begin to heat up due to the numerous chemicals being released (sort of like a compost pile), and thus fermentation has started. In order to prevent the leaves from breaking down and turning into dirt, the piles are deconstructed and reconstructed every day.

The tobacco ferments for many weeks, depending on the type of cigar being made. After the right amount of time has passed, the cigar tobacco is sorted according to how it looks. Pristine, perfect leaves will become wrappers, nearly perfect leaves become binder, and everything else becomes filler. Workers then begin removing the mid ribs by hand. The mid rib is removed because it's not desirable in a cigar.

The processing of the leaves are usually done by factory workers. This is a process that is typically done by hand, because the tobacco leaves are so fragile. A machine would likely destroy the delicate leaves, rendering them useless. The factory workers are able to gently remove the mid rib with skill, and thus succeed where a machine would fail.

After the tobacco leaves have been processed and had their mid ribs removed, they are sent to another factory, where many skilled cigar rollers are kept. These skilled rollers are assigned a bunch of each type of leaf, one bunch of filler, binder, and wrapper. The skilled rollers take their time picking out the correct pieces of filler for the flavor they've been asked to blend, and then wrap the filler with binder leaves.

The nearly completed cigar is placed into a cigar mold, and left out to sit for a day or so, until the cigars are firm enough to be wrapped. The skilled worker wraps the filler and binder using the wrapper, and then seals the cigar using some all natural, organic vegetable glue. From here, some cigars are boxed up and sold, while others are left to age for a few years. This really helps mellow out the taste.

You now understand the process of fermenting cigar tobacco, and how the fermented tobacco is rolled to make a cigar. It's an intricate process that requires many hours of work, and many skilled laborers as well. You should celebrate their success by lighting up a fine cigar and kicking back for a minute.