My Father Cigars

My Father Cigars was started when Jose Pepin Garcia and his family established a small factory in Little Havana in 2003. Since then, his passion and love for cigars has helped him to build one of the most recognised companies in the cigar industry.

We sit down with Garcia to find out more about the brand’s history, as well as his plans for expanding to the Middle East.

How did you start in this business?

I was born in a tobacco factory. Twenty years before I was born, there was already a factory, a large house—it was the house of the family in Cuba. At the front part of the house, the family would live. It was a very long, large house, and it was a tobacco factory with about 100 workers during the capitalist years.

Until 1963, which was the government intervention, and the factories were then incorporated to the state.

When did you leave Cuba?

In 2001, I left to Nicaragua—I was in Cuba until I was 50 years old. I worked since I was 11, sitting at the tobacco rolling table, and I reached the ‘Master of Masters’ quality. Just before I left, I was in the largest tobacco factory in Cuba.

When did you start producing in Nicaragua?

In 2001, I started teaching a group of kids. Someone contacted me to start working at a factory and I started teaching a group of youngsters the Cuban style. And then in 2002, I came to Miami, and in 2003, the family opened a small factory in Miami. And in 2006, based on the sales demand, we went back to Nicaragua.

We opened in the factory that I’d worked in originally, but it was now ours. It continues to be my property today.

How many Cigars are produced during the year?

Between 10 million and 12 million.

And this is all distributed to the US market?

Ninety per cent is sold in the United States.

Do you have any plans to expand to the Middle East?

We are in the process of opening those roads.