 Our teams pick the individual plants and transport them in boxes to the larger growing fields ("las vegas" in Spanish), where the tens of thousands of plants are hand-planted in orderly rows. Here they grow for 120 days, with individual attention and hand-cultivation every three to five days. Upon reaching maturity, the plants are harvested by hand. Typically, the bottom third of the plant is picked first, for "capa," or cigar wrapper. Next is the middle third, or "tripa" (filler), then the top of the plant, for "banda" (binder), which holds the tripa filler under the capa wrapper.
 After harvest, leaves are individually sewn together with straw and strung up to dry in special hanging barns, which face east to let the wind blow through. Green until now, the tobacco leaves dry out and acquire a light brown color.
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