Tobacco is an indigenous American plant.
It is believed to have arrived in Puerto Rico with the Taino Indians who traveled up the Caribbean archipelago by canoe, creating communities along the way. Here they cultivated the plant in a way that could be somewhat familiar to smokers today. They wrapped dried leaves with another dried leaf, lit one end and inhale through the other. What might be less familiar is that is said that they inhale through their noses, exhaling the smoke through their mouths. Five centuries ago when Christopher Columbus came to the new world, he watch Taino indians smoke long, thick bundles of twisted tobacco leaves, wrapped in dried palms, and the world-wide passion for cigars was born.