Havana:
Simon Chase, a British sage of the cigar world, stood in an elegant hotel salon here on Wednesday before a select group of aficionados, scrutinizing a box of 1970s cigars for evidence of their proclaimed vintage.
One clue, he said, was the style and quality of the seal on the box. Another was the cigar's old-fashioned, slightly domed end, or "cabeza tumbada."
The group muttered with interest and lit up, using cedar strips, or spills, to avoid contaminating their cigars with lighter fumes. Grey wisps curled into the air, and a brief hush fell as they solemnly considered the $90 smokes.
The private tasting by some of Cuban tobacco's most devoted connoisseurs took place on the fringe of Havana's Cigar Festival, an annual, five-day whirl of grand receptions, talks and plantation visits organized by Habanos S.A., a joint venture between the Cuban government and Britain's Imperial Tobacco.
The event, much of which is staged at a gloomy 1970s convention centre, is a somewhat surreal eruption of luxury in a landscape that, after five decades of Communist rule, is an odd mélange of tropical exuberance and stern socialism.
Cubans are inveterate smokers, and men and women alike suck on huge "tabacos" that cost about four cents. But with salaries of around $20 per month, very few islanders could afford even the least expensive offerings from Habanos, whose retail prices on the international market can go as high as about $80 apiece.
Still, the sale of cigars to wealthy foreigners helps bring in hard currency, which the government desperately needs to finance programs like health and education. At a lavish dinner to close the festival on Friday, organizers hope to raise as much as $1 million for the Cuban public health system from the auction of humidors.
"If you love cigars, Havana is what Jerusalem is to a Christian: the Holy Land," said Bryan Ng, who owns an oyster bar in Hong Kong and was on his first visit to Cuba.
About 1,200 retailers, distributors and enthusiasts flocked to the Cuban capital this week to fraternize and indulge their penchant for what many consider the world's finest tobacco.
Among them was a sprinkling of American cigar lovers, who came through third countries or travelled on religious or humanitarian licenses, arriving in time for the festival. Habanos is banned from selling cigars to the United States under the trade embargo, but the company says it accounts for about 80 percent of premium, hand-rolled cigar sales in the rest of the world.
Paul Segal, who had his first cigar in Cuba in 2003 when he was on a humanitarian trip to help the island's Jewish community, was making his fourth visit to the festival this week, bringing with him medicines and other supplies. At home in San Diego, he smokes Cuban cigars only occasionally, if someone brings them as a gift.
"I'm crazy obsessed for cigars," he said during a master class where hundreds of participants learned to roll their own. "To see the whole process, from the seed to the leaves to the cigar factory, that's very cool."
The question of whether the huge American cigar market would open anytime soon hovered over the festival. Habanos officials said they were not banking on any change in American policy, despite the recent decision to further ease restrictions on travel by Americans.
Mr. Chase, a consultant who was in the Cuban cigar trade for decades, said Cuba could, in theory, meet added demand from the United States, if allowed. Any loss of cachet that would result from no longer being a forbidden product would be compensated for by added sales, he said.
"Lifting the embargo would cause some upheaval, but Cuba could handle it," he said. "Cuban cigars compete on their own merit."
Habanos's sales have been hit in recent years by the global economic downturn and the spread of smoking restrictions to countries like Spain, its biggest market. But the company was upbeat this week, saying sales rose 2 percent last year, to $368 million, as China overtook Germany as its number three customer.
The company, which owns well-known brands like Cohiba, Partagás and Romeo y Julieta, introduced some stubbier cigars this week that could be smoked more quickly by those forced to slip outside.
The festival is paradise for smokers who bridle under smoking bans. Participants puff their way through sommelier contests, fancy lunches and talks on cigar arcana, enveloping conference rooms and coffee bars in a thick haze of pungent smoke.
Participants held blindfold tastings in which experts tried to identify unlabelled cigars, and at other sessions tried pairing cigars with rum and chocolate. Mr. Chase even gave a 45-minute lecture Wednesday morning to a packed conference room on the history of the aluminium tubes used to package Cuban cigars -- an account more lively than its subject matter would suggest.
"It's an intense week: lots of caffeine, lots of tobacco" and no sleep, said Alex Iapichino, an Italian lawyer who hosted the private tasting.
Away from the fray, Wednesday's coterie of connoisseurs determined that their 40-year-old cigar had been well preserved. It was a round, even smoke, they said, and had retained some delicate aromas.
Mr. Iapichino looked around the group, an eccentric mix from a dozen different countries that included a Japanese man who skewered his cigar on a custom-made metal pin to protect his fingers.
"This is the only place where I get to share cigars with all these people together," he said.
When he left Cuba, his cigars would evoke the smells and sounds of the island, he said.
"As Churchill said," he smiled. "I always have Cuba on my lips."