CAO Amazon Basin, after the very limited debut release in 2014, will be available to retailers again by the end of this month.
The peculiarity of the CAO Amazon Basin is the use of the rare Braganca tobacco, cultivated in the Amazonian forest and harvested every 3 years, in the blend; the seeds of this tobacco aren’t planted in a row, they are cultivated on the few sunny areas, where the sunlight filters through the dense forest. Once the Braganca tobacco leaves are harvested, they are rolled up on the spot, by hand, in tubes called „carottes“ and left to naturally ferment for six month using a similar technic to that of the Andullo tobacco. Once the tobacco is done fermenting, it will go on a four to six week trip to get from the forest to the factory: the leaves are first taken to the river by hand, laid out on a canoes and then rowed to the village, transferred on to trucks, that head to the port and then shipped by boat to Nicaragua, were the the cigars are manufactured.
The blend is composed of a Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos from Brazil (Braganca), Colombia and Dominican Republic.
Another peculiarity of the CAO Amazon Basin is the originality of the band, that is made of a rolled up leaf forming a crown around the cigar; the suggested retail price is around $10,25 per cigar.