THE TOBACCO TITAN

Fifth-generation tobacco man Nestor Andrés Plasencia follows in his father’s footsteps as the largest grower of cigar tobacco in Central America

BY GREGORY MOTTOLA

With its trickling fountain and cloistered courtyard, Plasencia Cigars S.A. in Nicaragua seems more like a monastery than a factory. Workers holding tobacco quietly walk from one end of the covered quadrangle to the other, sometimes in pairs, then disappear through a doorway. Somehow, all the noise of Estelí outside of these four walls has been neutralized. It’s equally tranquil in the rolling gallery, where cigarmakers toil at every table as though they’ve taken a vow of silence. When Nestor Andrés Plasencia Jr. walks into the room, one roller notices, then another, and then another until the rustling of tobacco stops and suddenly, everyone is banging their metal chavetas against the table tops. It isn’t a form of protest or discord. It’s applause and one of the most endearing sounds anyone…

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Cigar Aficionado (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2024

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