A passion for smoking keeps Italian tobacco shop rolling

ARCO FELICE, Italy

With all due respect to Sigmund Freud, sometimes a cigar is not "just a cigar."

Not for Ole Olson, at least.

For Olson, it’s more. Oh-so-much more.

"It’s a companion," says Olson, 44, who co-runs La Casa del Habano with his brother-in-law. The tobacco shop has been in business for more than a century in the Arco Felice resort suburb of Naples.

"You spend time with a cigar, enjoy it, savor it. A cigarette, it’s just a fix. A cigar takes time," Olson articulated with the passion of a Baptist minister delivering a Sunday sermon.

Cigar-smoking is an increasingly admired pastime in Italy, becoming "extremely popular," he said. More and more young adults, in particular, have discovered, indulged in — and can afford — the habit once reserved for the wealthy elite.

"It used to be a passion for the rich and powerful," Olson said. "But what used to cost 20 to 30 euros a cigar now costs 4 to 5 euros, and the professional young groups, the 20-to-30-somethings, are starting to enjoy it and get into it."

And popularity has surged among women, he added.

Cigars flavored with berries, vanilla, anise or coffee, to name a few, have piqued the palates of women looking to enjoy a stogie.

And yes, their tobacco shop — tabaccheria — on Via Miliscola in Arco Felice’s main piazza sells Cubans.

In fact, Cubans are the first thing American clients ask for, Olson said, fed by the decades-long ban on Cuban cigars in the United States.

But not so fast, he cautions.

Smoking a Cuban cigar is a bit of an acquired taste, one that an aficionado knows to work up to. Cuban-made cigars are robust and strong and might burn the throat of a virgin cigar smoker — making it an awful first experience.

He often recommends newbies start off with something milder, say, locally produced little Italian cigars known as Toscanos, or possibly a Davidoff.

"We’re not here to sell the most expensive cigar," says Olson, a former Naples High School Wildcat, who, in the early 1980s, left Italy with his soldier father, then returned years later to work for Morale, Welfare and Recreation offices both in Vicenza and Naples. "We’re here to share the passion of cigars, and you need to take it slow."

The allure of Cubans is twofold, says Lt. j.g. Jose Selles, an avid cigar smoker for about seven years. The ban on sales in the U.S. entices some, but there is quality in Cuban cigars.

"Someone who has smoked cigars for years can tell the difference … can tell the nuance of a Cuban," said Selles, of the security department at the U.S. Navy base in Naples.

His favorite Cuban: Cohiba Siglo VI.

Dominican stogies, however, offer a fine quality substitute that shouldn’t be ignored, he suggested. Very fine cigars, indeed, at usually a better price.

"The thing I like about smoking cigars is that it’s relaxing, something you do with a group of friends, where you can share meaningful conversation of business or pleasure," Selles said.

La Casa del Habano is one of two shops in the Naples area designated a "Habanos specialist" — a shop that doesn’t just sell cigars, but also is staffed by connoisseurs who are cigar experts. The other shop is Sisimbro on Via San Pasquale No. 74, between the Amedeo metro station and Riviera di Chiaia. Habanos indicates that an item is a product of the Cuban state tobacco monopoly, Cubatabaco, which controls the promotion, distribution and export of Cuban cigars and other tobacco products worldwide.

Olson and his brother-in-law, Tommaso Scamardella, have attended several courses sponsored by cigar manufacturers to learn everything from the curing of tobacco leaves and how various brands affect different parts of a smoker’s tongue, to how stogies are flavored, rolled and sold.

Olson can even tell you how the famous Havana brands Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta got their names.

Legend has it that in order to keep the torcedors entertained during their tedious task of rolling cigars, persons armed with bullhorns would repeatedly read the adventure novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" and the romantic play "Romeo and Juliet." Cigars rolled to the recitation of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" were named Romeo y Julieta; those to "The Count of Monte Cristo," well, you get the idea.

About six years ago, the Arco Felice tobacco shop, in operation since 1862, "took a gamble" and expanded its shop, building a walk-in humidor and bumping up its inventory of not only cigars, but also all the necessary accessories, from cigar cutters and punches, to humidors and ashtrays, Olson said.

The gamble paid off.