Adalgisa Beltre rolls around 500 cigars a day. She takes a capote leaf, cuts it into a semicircle. Takes a mixture of the fillers, rolls it in. The rolled one is then wrapped with the aesthetical leaf sumatro with glue. The wrapped ones are put in the moulder and there you have it. Beltre, the cigar torcedor from the Dominican Republic was brought  to the city for a ‘Live Demo—Cigar Rolling’  by Godfrey Philips, occasion: launch of ‘Cigar Club’ by Leela Kempinski. Beltre is trained on the high “techniques of high quality cigar elaboration” and has now mastered producing the different varieties of hand-made cigars.

Beltre feels Dominican cigars are the best in the world and the world should know about it. “These are all the leaves of nature,” she says, surrounded by a heap of them and rolling one cigar after another without even batting an eyelid. “The glue is vegetable oil,’’ she explains. Interestingly, a lipstick holder is used to cut the semicircles. Although the way, she works looks like this craft is her second nature,” she says, “I do get five hours a day to relax.” However, she admits that she is not aware whether she has any health problems. “But my hands are still soft,” she says extending her hand. “ Back in Dominican Republic, she says “most people are invovled in rolling cigars irrespective of the gender.”

Adds Arun Joshi, Vice-President, Cigars, Godfrey Philips, “we started the cigar industry in India and the response has been encouraging. We introduced Don Diego Anniversario, hand rolled Cigars in India in 2005, these are manufactured in La-Romana, Dominican Republic, and since then these cigars are gaining huge popularity.
We received many suggestions from cigar aficionados to arrange for a ‘Live Demo—Cigar Rolling’ as most of the consumers have not seen the art of cigar rolling. Bangalore being one of the main market for these cigars, is the first metro chosen by us to have the first demo.”

On the health hazards smoking causes, he says,”it is for the responsible people.” And yes, every pack does carry the message “Smoking is injurious to health.”