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Learn · OriginsEcuador
Ecuador is the wrapper capital of the cigar world... a permanent deck of Pacific cloud does what shade tents do everywhere else, and an enormous share of the wrappers on modern cigars grow there.
The regions
The tobacco grows on the coastal plain west of the Andes. Los Ríos province is the heart of it, around the farm town of Quevedo, with fields spreading toward the Andean foothills... volcanic soil, steady warmth, and the feature that makes the whole thing work: cloud. For much of the growing season the sky over these fields stays overcast, filtering sunlight the way the cheesecloth tents of the Connecticut River Valley do, with no tents to build. Leaves come up thin, elastic, and evenly colored.
A handful of family growing operations produce most of the export crop, and nearly all of it leaves the country... Ecuador is a grower's origin, not a factory scene.
What it's known for
Being on everything. Scan a shelf of current releases rolled in Nicaragua, Honduras, or the Dominican Republic and Ecuadorian wrapper turns up again and again... no origin has a bigger footprint on the outside of the modern cigar. The reasons are practical: the climate grows exactly the thin, flexible, even leaf a wrapper needs, harvests are steadier than tent-grown crops, and growing costs run far below the US Northeast.
That's also the answer to a common label mystery: why so many "Connecticut" wrappers aren't from Connecticut. The seed is Connecticut. The dirt is Ecuadorian. Connecticut Shade covers the original; its Ecuadorian descendant, usually labeled Ecuador Connecticut, now dominates the mild-wrapper market.
Leaf it's known for
Ecuador names its wrappers by seed, not soil.
- Ecuador Connecticut: the mild, golden one, from Connecticut Shade seed.
- Ecuadorian Habano: Cuban-seed leaf, darker and spicier... the workhorse wrapper of the modern market.
- Ecuadorian Sumatra: from Sumatra seed lines, known for a sweeter, woodier lean.
On the site
Both of WSA's Ecuadorian-wrapper reviews so far wear Ecuadorian Habano.
- The Crux Guild Toro: Ecuadorian Habano over Nicaraguan binder and filler. Rated a Five-Pack (3/4).
- The Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour Toro: Ecuadorian Habano over a Mexican San Andrés binder. Rated a Hand-Me-One (2/4).
Keep reading
- Connecticut Shade wrapper
- Habano wrapper
- Sumatra wrapper
- Review: Crux Guild Toro
- Review: Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour Toro
Reviewed at WSA since this page was written
Perez-Carrillo La Historia Silk Toro Review
Verdict: Hand-Me-One (2/4). There's a cream-leather-coffee cigar in here that kept trying to show up, but a bitterness that never left, a wrapper that cracked in at least six places, and touch-up after touch-up on the burn is not a $16.50 experience.
My Father La Promesa Corona Gorda Review
Verdict: Hand-Me-One (2/4). The first two thirds were genuinely good... leather, coffee, peanut shell drifting into cashew, a sweet cream that kept coming back, and a retro that smoked like a different cigar than the draw all night. Two things pull it down: a draw that stayed snu
La Flor Dominicana Andalusian Bull Review
Verdict: Hand-Me-One (2/4). The best-constructed cigar I've ever had in my hand, wrapped around a flavor profile that had me watching the clock for the last hour... and at $25 a stick, construction alone can't carry that.
Oliva Serie V Melanio Figurado Review
Verdict: Hand-Me-One (2/4). Nothing bad, nothing good, just nothing... the most forgettable cigar I've smoked in a long time, from a line that's supposed to be phenomenal. I'd smoke one if you handed it to me. I wouldn't buy another, and I don't know how this cigar earns the rati
Diesel Whiskey Row Toro Review
Verdict: Hand-Me-One (2/4). A pleasant nutty-bready-coffee smoke through two thirds that never found the sweetness I chase, then dipped into lingering bitterness and touch-up territory in the final third. Wouldn't buy it again, wouldn't turn one down — the middle stretch was a ge
Tatuaje Tattoo Universo Review
Verdict: Not Even Free (1/4)... a well-built cigar aimed at a palate that isn't mine. Earth, leather, espresso and black pepper, and almost nothing else. The construction was fine: clean wrapper, an ash that stacked dimes and held a full third. The draw was too tight the whole wa
Oliva Serie V Toro Review
Verdict: Five-Pack (3/4). A sweet, nutty, medium cigar that punches way above its price tag... and asks for a lighter more than it should. At street this is a stick I want five of in the humidor at all times. It is not a box for me at $13, and it never got anywhere near the "full