When were cigars first made

asks ursula:
A. The word cigar comes from sikar, the Mayan word for smoking. The tobacco plant was first grown on Mexican's Yucatan peninsula, where it was smoked by the Mayans. After the Mayan civilisation fell and the tribes broke up and scattered, tobacco was taken south into was is now South America, and north, where it was used in the rites of the Mississippi Indians. Tobacco wasn't known anywhere else in the world until Christopher Columbus encountered it in 1492.

�

Q. Where did he come across it
A. In Cuba. His crew found locals smoking a form of cigar for religious ceremonies. The 'cigar' was wrapped with maize and filled with tobacco leaves. The sailors liked smoking this 'golden leaf' and took it back to Spain.

�

Q. Did it catch on there
A. Not for a while. At first, smoking cigars was seen as a pagan ritual, punishable by imprisonment. However, within a few years it became socially acceptable and spread across Spain and Portugal. The habit, a sign of wealth, then spread to France, through the French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot (who gave his name to nicotine).

�

From 1717, a huge industry around the cigar was centred on Seville. This is where the modern cigar was born, and the habit of smoking cigars spread all over Europe.

�

Q. Was cigar smoking more popular than pipe smoking
A. Yes. Pipe smoking had already been replaced by snuff, so cigars became the fashionable way to smoke tobacco. Production of cigars - or segars, as they were known to start with - started in Britain in 1820. Cigar smoking was so common in Britain and France that European trains has special 'smoking cars', and no club or hotel would do without a 'smoking room'. There was even a special 'smoking jacket' to puff in. In fact, in France, tuxedos are still referred to as le smoking.

�

Do you have a question for How it Works Post it here

�

By Sheena Miller