Visit a park in Cuba on a nice day and you’ll definitely hear two things 1) people laughing and arguing and 2) the click clack of dominoes (fichas) on tables. In the air? Cigar smoke, no doubt.

Casa Cuba is a cigar line to bring you right to that place. The names of the vitolas are names of dominoes: Doble Tres, Doble Cuatro, Doble Cinco, Doble Seis. But of course, it isn’t just the art and names, it’s the tobacco. The wrapper on the Arturo Fuente Casa Cuba is Ecuadorian Havana, which none other than Don “Pepin” Garcia of My Father Cigars has called, “[T]he best cigar wrapper in the entire world” (certain crops of it, anyway).

Nice praise!

Going inside the Casa Cuba, we find a mixture of Cuban-seed Dominican tobaccos. So inside and out, we’ve got seeds from Cuba to provide a taste of the original motherland of cigars and give Casa Cuba it’s essential character. These cigars are inspired by the early days of cigar making, and were Carlos Sr.’s attempt to do the traditions of his father Arturo justice. We think he succeeded quite nicely.

The Casa Cuba takes its place amongst storied cigar lines like the OpusX, Hemingway, and other luminaries of the Fuente brand. While it may not have taken the world by storm, we think that’s by design. This is a throwback to the old days of cigar making, long before the first issue of Cigar Aficionado was ever printed, and long before master blenders had the tastes of professional cigar reviewing panels in mind.

Instead, it’s simply a quality smoke that conjures flavors of Old Havana – and sometimes, that’s all you need.