The journey north in Nicaragua from Estelí to Jalapa is a long and sometimes bumpy one, but worth the ride if you want to fully understand Nicaragua’s diverse tobacco regions. The closer you get to Jalapa, the more you see that nature has free reign, as the landscape remains wild and unspoiled, the roads still pitted and unpaved. While Estelí is known for its distinctively powerful, spicy leaf, many cigarmakers turn to Jalapa and its cooler climate for elegant wrappers and more subtle tobacco.
Few people are as familiar with Jalapa as the Plasencia family, the largest growers of premium tobacco in all of Central America. Cigar Aficionado took a ride up to Jalapa, near the Honduran border, with Nestor Andrés Plasencia during the growing season in January. He’s a fifth-generation tobacco man following in his ancestors’ footsteps but producing tobacco with a modern, ecological sensibility.
The family maintains 190 hectares (nearly 470 acres) up in this region, much of which is dedicated to wrapper production, though they grow filler as well. According to Plasencia, some farms yield as much as 80 percent wrapper. If you’re curious about the taste, Plasencia’s Alma del Campo line is made with a high percentage of tobacco from this high-altitude appellation, including the wrapper. “Jalapa’s tobacco is sweet, creamy and aromatic,” he says. “We want to show people the land so that they fall in love with it the way I have.”
