{"id":13807,"date":"2017-01-17T10:52:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T09:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/?p=13807\/"},"modified":"2017-02-15T11:43:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T10:43:23","slug":"maria-sierra-portrait-el-titan-de-bronze-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/maria-sierra-portrait-el-titan-de-bronze-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Maria Sierra, Master Roller at Miami’s El Titan de Bronze Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"

El Laguito. The factory of all factories. A mythical and mysterious place in Havana that once produced cigars only for Fidel Castro and visiting diplomats and dignitaries. The factory in which the Cohiba brand was born, and which very few people get to see. This is where Mar\u00eda Sierra, who now works at El Titan de Bronze in Miami, worked for 31 years before going to the US. It\u2019s where she learned how to roll Cohibas like few others can, and which has made her enormously popular among cigar smokers in her new home country.<\/p>\n

It all started in 1967. In the name of equality, Fidel Castro\u2019s indispensable helper, Celia S\u00e1nchez, had decided to introduce women into the cigar business. Hundreds of women lined up for the prestigious task of rolling for Cuba\u2019s leader and his guests. Thirty were accepted. One of them was 18-year-old Mar\u00eda Sierra. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t so hard to get the job, but the job in itself was pretty hard,\u201d she says. \u201cI had just finished school and was looking for a career. I thought I\u2019d try this to see if I liked it, and I fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and the others were taught by Castro\u2019s personal rollers, Eduardo Rivera and Avelino Lara. The selection process was ongoing, but Sierra stayed on as one of the factory\u2019s better rollers, reaching level nine, the highest skill level for a cigar roller. This meant perks, which few others got to experience. \u201cI got tickets for the Tropicana and a week\u2019s paid vacation,\u201d Mar\u00eda recounts. \u201cI also got to go to Hong Kong and Germany with the company. Who got to go was actually decided by vote among the workers. You had to have a good attitude, commitment to work, create quality cigars, of course, and be serious about what you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is also why the quality control was very strict. \u201cThey were very meticulous. If you were caught making a cigar that wasn\u2019t good enough they\u2019d send you back to \u2018school.\u2019 If you didn\u2019t improve, you were kicked out.\u201d Besides the prestige, and in Sierra\u2019s case the perks, however, there were no financial incentives for seeking a job at El Laguito. \u201cWe worked from 7 am to 4.30 or 5 pm and had the same salary as people at other factories at our level.\u201d She describes the atmosphere as friendly, the job situation as comfortable and her colleagues as one big family. While working they\u2019d talk amongst themselves a little, but not too much, as rolling does demand focus. Instead, they had, as tradition serves, lectores [readers]. \u201cThey\u2019d read news in the morning and books by famous writers in the afternoon, both Cuban and foreign. It was so we could learn about the world while working.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all her years, however, she never got to meet Fidel Castro. \u201cThis whole area was restricted, so we could see the cars with diplomats go by, but he never came to the factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1998, after 31 years, Sierra retired. Eleven years later she decided to move to Miami to be with her only daughter. When Sandy Cobas, owner of El Titan de Bronze, found out that a former employee from El Laguito was coming she hired her on the spot. Sierra arrived on a Friday and started working on Monday. \u201cI was so surprised,\u201d Mar\u00eda says. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Oh my God!\u2019 I couldn\u2019t believe that I got a job straight away.\u201d \u201c[Mar\u00eda] was knocking on the door, Monday morning, very excited,\u201d adds Cobas, who is sitting on the other side of the table.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Simon Lundh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Working at a factory in the United States is different in many ways but there are also some similarities. \u201cI was happy in Cuba. I had a house there,\u201d explains Mar\u00eda, \u201cbut I also re-gret not coming to the US earlier. Here I also could have had a house and saved money. I see that my daughter has a lot more opportunities. In Cuba they were very organized, but so is Sandy. She\u2019s also picky,\u201d Mar\u00eda says with a laugh, looking warmly at her boss. But Mar\u00eda still misses her home country.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everything is bad in Cuba. I was born there, so there\u2019s a lot of things that pull you back. Sometimes I start crying when I think about my country, but I\u2019m happy here as well.\u201d As are a lot of other people. Her cigarmaking skills haven\u2019t gone unnoticed. Bill Paley of La Palina Cigars in Washington DC, for instance, created a line called Goldie Laguito because he wanted a cigar made by Sierra. A Nat Sherman show in New York was completely packed with people wanting to see her, and one fan drove almost 250 miles to Miami with his trunk filled with boxes of every cigar she has ever made for her to sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything she makes sells out before she finishes,\u201d Cobas says proudly. Not bad for someone who\u2019s never smoked a cigar in her life. \u201cI know if it\u2019s good or not by smelling it,\u201d Mar\u00eda says with a smile. \u201cIn the beginning it wasn\u2019t easy, but after a while I learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was published in the Cigar Journal Spring Edition 2016. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Celia S\u00e1nchez, Fidel Castro\u2019s indispensable helper, decided in 1967 to introduce women into the cigar business, hundreds of women lined up for the prestigious task of rolling for Cuba\u2019s leader and his guests. One of them was 18-year-old Mar\u00eda Sierra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":13797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[49,2643,68,692,2796,178,44],"tags":[464,1149,1998,1172,460],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}