How Is a Cigar Rolled From Leaf to Cap in Nine Steps

A hand-rolled cigar goes through nine stages. Cigar Aficionado supplies most of the sequence, and Habanos adds detail on pressing and capping.

1. Casing. Workers moisten the leaves so they become supple. Some factories mist the leaves with water and others use high-humidity rooms. Cigar Aficionado reports that leaves are usually prepared a day ahead.
2. Deveining. Machines or workers remove the central stem from each leaf.
3. Blending. A supervisor or blender sets the proportion of each leaf type. Rollers get instructions on how much of each leaf to use that day.
4. Bunching. The cigarmaker presses three or four leaves together and folds them into a cylinder, leaving a central passage for draw. The binder goes around the filler, applied by machine or by hand, and the result is called the bunch. Some factories use a machine to help with the filler leaves.
5. Pressing. The bunch goes into a wooden mold inside a press. Cigar Aficionado reports 30 to 45 minutes in a manual hydraulic press, with quarter turns so the bunch does not form ridges. Habanos gives at least 30 minutes. Cigar Aficionado adds that some factories test the draw with a suction machine.
6. Wrapping. The roller wraps the outer leaf, the wrapper, around the pressed bunch. The roller checks for hard or loose spots as the wrapper goes on.
7. Capping. The roller closes the head of the cigar. Cigar Aficionado says the cap is made from a tobacco slice or the wrapper's own flap. Habanos describes a "flag" cut from spare wrapper, plus a small disc glued on with vegetable gum.
8. Inspection. A supervisor inspects each cigar by hand. Some factories weigh batches of 50 and redo the whole batch if the weight is off by a set amount, usually a couple of grams.
9. Aging. The finished cigars rest. Cigar Aficionado reports at least 21 days, with some companies aging them six months or more.

After aging, workers sort the cigars by color into groups of 25, reject any with visible flaws, and box them.

A torcedor works with six tools, according to the Habanos page. The table lists each one and what it does at the bench.

Tool	What it does
Tabla	The wooden board the roller works on
Chaveta	A semi-circular blade for trimming the wrapper leaf
Casquillo	A cutter that makes the small disc for the cap
Guillotine	Cuts the finished cigar to length
Goma	Vegetable gum, tasteless and odourless, that holds the cap in place
Cepo	A template for checking length and girth

The Habanos sequence shows the tools in order. The roller lays out the binder and forms the bunch, then cuts its head square. After pressing, the roller trims a moist wrapper leaf with the chaveta and rolls the bunch onto it.

The cap comes next, built from a wrapper flag and a casquillo disc glued with goma. The guillotine trims the cigar to length, and the cepo is a template to check length and girth. The gum is a plant-based adhesive, and our cigar glue guide covers what holds a cigar together in more detail.

A rolling room either gives one person the whole cigar or splits the work between bunchers and a roller. Cigar Aficionado describes both setups. Habanos gives a range for one good torcedor.

Source	Setup	Cigars per day
Cigar Aficionado	One roller doing the full process	100 to 150 (the article calls this "good")
Habanos S.A.	One good torcedor	60 to 150, depending on size and shape
Cigar Aficionado	Two bunchers and one roller	250 to 300, or more in smaller sizes

The team figure works out to about 83 to 100 cigars per person (250 ÷ 3 and 300 ÷ 3). That is at or below the 100 to 150 range Cigar Aficionado gives for one roller working alone. The table does not show that teams are more efficient per person. It shows that a team of three makes 250 to 300 cigars a day against 100 to 150 for one roller, about twice as many.

Habanos says its 60 to 150 range depends on the size and complexity of the shape.

Habanos also describes four grades of torcedor. Only the top grade may make the largest and most complex Habanos. Most torcedores today are women, called torcedoras. By tradition, a lector reads newspapers and popular novels aloud to them while they work. For the wider history of the cigar, see our cigar history guide.

A cigar has three layers of leaf: the filler at the center, the binder that the filler is rolled into, and the wrapper on the outside. CigarPlace reports that the leaf goes through several steps before any rolling starts.

Harvested leaves dry in curing barns. They then sit in large piles called pilones to ferment, with temperature and humidity monitored throughout. Workers sort and grade the cured leaves by quality, size and texture, and assign each to filler, binder or wrapper. Master blenders then combine leaf types in set proportions to aim for a specific flavor, aroma and strength.

Filler. The Habanos page says the torcedora arranges the filler so the lighter-flavoured leaf tips point toward the foot, with the strongest leaves at the center. The Cigars Direct guide, a retailer post, names three filler types. Ligero adds strength, volado helps the cigar burn evenly, and seco adds aroma.

Binder. Habanos describes two or three half-leaves laid out with their veined undersides facing inward. The filler is rolled into this binder to make the bunch.

Wrapper. The wrapper is the outer leaf. Habanos says it is trimmed while moist and rolled around the pressed bunch. Our cigar wrappers guide covers wrapper leaf types.

Yes, you can roll a cigar at home, and Cigars Direct publishes the steps. Cigars Direct is a retailer, and the post sits on a site that sells its own products. Read its practical claims with that in mind.

The Cigars Direct method runs like this:

1. Prepare the capote (the binder leaf). Remove the stem, tear the leaf in two, and set one half aside.
2. Pick your fillers: a ligero leaf for strength, a volado leaf for even burning, and a seco leaf for aroma.
3. Roll each filler leaf, bunch them together, and wrap them in the capote. Seal the final edge with a dab of adhesive, then trim both ends.
4. Take a wrapper leaf from under a damp towel and flatten it, possibly with a rolling pin.
5. Wrap the leaf around the bunch. Keep it firm, but loose enough that air can still pass through.
6. Form the cap and foot with extra leaf and adhesive. The article says this step takes care.
7. Dry the cigar over the next week or two, rolling it now and then.

The article names vegetable paste or natural resin as the adhesive. It gives no success rate, no cost, and no estimate of how long it takes to get good at rolling.

If you are weighing a home attempt against buying cigars, note that no source here publishes the cost of rolling your own, so nothing shows it is cheaper. The Cigars Direct steps do not mention the wooden mold and press that Cigar Aficionado and Habanos both describe, and no source says what that omission changes.

A freshly rolled cigar rests, and the resting time varies by maker. Cigar Aficionado reports a minimum of 21 days, with some companies aging cigars for six months or more. CigarPlace reports that cigars rest in aging rooms for several months to several years before packaging.

The home method has its own resting step. Cigars Direct says to dry a home-rolled cigar over a week or two, rolling it occasionally. Our guide to how to age cigars covers aging cigars at home.

In the factory process Cigar Aficionado describes, a cigar is moistened, destemmed, blended, bunched, pressed, wrapped, capped, inspected and aged. A skilled roller makes somewhere between 60 and 150 cigars a day, depending on the source and the cigar's size and shape.

Rolling at home is possible, and Cigars Direct lays out a method. No source we drew on publishes the cost, the time per cigar, or how long it takes a beginner to learn. Treat home rolling as a hobby you take up for the craft. The answer would change if a source published real cost and skill data for home rolling.

If your goal is spending less on cigars, browse our best cheap cigars picks instead.