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The cigar boom that started in the early nineties was the obvious breeding ground for the multitude of new cigar brands that flooded the market when the established brands could not cope with the skyrocketing demand. Most of these new brands originated in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. New entrepreneurs entered the trade, factories mushroomed, tobacco was bought willy-nilly, rollers were poached or hastily given basic training, fancy labels and boxes proliferated, and quality was low down on the list of priorities.
It was said at one stage that there were more Don "This" and Don "That" on the market than there were "Don"s in a Spanish phone book. Such is the market place when driven by demand and supply. In Cuba the land suitable and available to grow the variety of leaf needed for a good cigar is limited and they did not have direct access to the vast United States cigar market. However they could not afford to miss out on the burgeoning global market.

Production was increased from 80 million in 1990 to 148 million in 1999. The industry could not cope and quality was sacrificed.
And in this same period, when capacity was stretched to its very limits, Cuba launched new brands. Why? I subscribe to the theory that because big Cuban names such as Montecristo, Punch, Romeo y Julieta, H.Upmann and others are registered in the USA, then if (or when) the embargo against Cuba is lifted royalties would have to be paid to the owners of these brands.

A good way to avoid these payments would be to create new brands, with names registered by Cuba Tobacco. And so we have seen the introduction of brands such as Cuaba, Vegas Robaina, Vegueros and Trinidad.