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Cuban cigars are wrapped in mystique. Soon travelers will be able to bring back $100 worth of the famed cigars. Here are some facts you should know.

1. Cuban cigars are expensive, even in Cuba.

, the new permission to bring back $100 worth of tobacco (or alcohol) allows you at the most four good cigars. Tom says he hasn't been back to Cuba for six years, but the last time he was there, a single Cohiba or Uppman "set you back at least $25."


 says cigar factories were known for having "lectores," or readers, who would read aloud as the workers rolled the cigars.


She's curious to know if the factories still have these readers, and she is especially curious to know what exactly they read aloud.

Havana-based blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo tells us today that, yes, they still have readers.

"They read the official press, yes, so boring," he says, "but then also some books of popular fiction. And most of the time the workers just listen to Cuban radio stations, mainly stories told through 'radio-novelas.' "

3. Cuban cigars may not be the best anymore.

At least according to Susan Kaufman Purcell, director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami, who says:

4. Fidel Castro's favorite Cuban cigars were Cohibas, but he quit smoking decades ago.

5. Groucho Marx's Cuban cigar was "generally unlit" when he was acting.


Groucho Marx was often seen with a Cuban cigar in his mouth when acting, but his son Arthur Marx wrote in 

"He just used the unlit cigar as a prop, something to stick in his mouth, or to keep his hands busy when he wasn't talking," he wrote. "He did this for two reasons: one, he didn't want to smoke all day when he was shooting a film, and two, it would have been too difficult for the director to match the length the cigar had burned down between shots when it was time for another take. But if Groucho kept his cigar unlit, it was always the same length."

6. You can identify a fake Cuban cigar by the packaging. 


We'll leave you with a sobering fact: Most new cigar users in the U.S. are teens and young adults. 

, in 2012, "about 17 percent of male and 8 percent of female high school students had smoked a cigar within the last month, compared to the average of 5 percent from all ages. In all, about 13.4 million people age 12 and older smoke cigars."  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Davar Ardalan

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Soon travelers will be able to bring back $100 worth of the famed cigars.

6 things you should know about Cuban cigars

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