Cigar festival on Cuba

Wealthy cigar aficionados toasted the health of ailing leader Fidel Castro and shelled out $728,000 at an annual auction of elaborate humidors that for the first time did not bear the signature of the 80-year-old revolutionary.

Owned by millionaire David Tang, the company sells $70 million worth of cigars a year in Hong Kong, said Holmboe, who took home a solid cedar humidor with 160 H.Upmann cigars for 33,000 euros ($43,560).

About 800 people from more than 40 nations attended this year's elegant dinner wrapping up five days of seminars on the qualities of Cuba's finest smokes, as well as trips to tobacco fields, curing houses and cigar factories.

Javier Terres, a vice president, said no figures were available on how many Cuban cigars are consumed or sold illegally every year in the United States. While half of the world's cigars are smoked in the U.S., Cuba has 75 percent of the premium cigar market. Sales of Habanos' premium hand-rolled cigars rose 8 percent to $370 million last year despite public smoking bans around the world, officials said.

Through Habanos S.A., a partnership of the Cuban government and the Spanish-French tobacco firm Altadis, the island produces more than a third of the world's cigars for export, with sales of $370 million last year. Although a trade embargo on the island prevents Cuba from marketing its cigars in the United States, its hand-rolled smokes are highly popular among Americans and numerous Americans attend the Habanos festival each year.