There are two different ways in which cigars are manufactured and produced. They are either made by machine or handmade by professional cigar rollers. There is usually a great bit of difference between the two methods. Machine-made cigars are usually mass-produced in a factory setting and contain homogenized tobacco leaves. Handmade cigars are much different and can be made either entirely by hand or bunched together by machines and finished by hand workers. In some cases, you may be able to tell the difference between a machine-made and handmade cigar while other times you cannot.
One of the most surefire ways to establish the difference between a handmade and machine-made cigar is the price. Cigars that are made entirely by hand are usually quite pricier than those that were machine-bunched and finished by hand or those that were created entirely by machine. The feel of the cigar itself is not always a determining factor in deciphering type. The feel and construction of each cigar can be very similar. While machine-bunched cigars are commonly labeled as handmade, the draw and incentive of buying them is not always as great as with those that were not bunched in a factory. Cuba is one of the most popular countries known for machine-bunching followed by hand-finishing.
Upon touring a cigar factory, you will notice that the common method of machine-bunching tobacco leaves is to feed the filled leaves into a certain type of machine that bunches them together to prepare for rolling. Binder leaves are then placed over a specified template for the cigar, and a blade will trim the leaf to its correct size. The binder is held together with a vegetable glue and is then rolled before making its way down the conveyor belt. Hand workers will then collect the cigars and trim them to standards, place them into a mold and apply the wrapper to the product for mass distribution. A quality inspection process is also used after the manufacturing process to ensure that they meet standards and regulations.