Finer Chinese tastes light up cigar craze

Cigars at Ligero Pipe & Cigar House. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

"After I have a good dinner - or when I want to read books quietly - having a cigar is perfect," says Tang.

Many of his friends fly more than 20 hours to Cuba only to take part in the annual Havana Cigar Festival.

In a cigar store on the ground floor of the Peninsula Beijing, a middle-aged man is buying cigars while two young men are waiting nearby to try various types.

Chen Xiaodong, VIP client manager at the Ligero Pipe & Cigar House, says local buyers now account for half the market.

"Cigars are a sign of a good lifestyle, and Cuban cigars are of the best quality among all cigars," says Chen. With the rising popularity of Cuban cigar culture in China, Ligero has invited a Cuban cigar maker to Beijing to hand-roll tobacco in the store.

According to the economic section of the Cuban embassy in Beijing, 285,000 Cuban cigars were shipped to China in 2013.

Habanos S.A., the arm of the Cuban state tobacco company, proclaimed an 8 percent jump of its global sales in 2013 due to strong demand from the Chinese market, even while the world still faces both economic crises and antismoking campaigns.