Since 1978, thousands of people involved in the tobacco industry have travelled from around the world to Dortmund, Germany, for Intertabac, the world’s largest trade fair for tobacco products and smoking accessories.
While the inaugural fair was held in August, Messe Dortmund always plays host to Intertabac in September, and the 2025 edition had an estimated 14,500 visitors and more than 800 exhibitors.
According to Intertabac, about 35% of the visitors were from the retail sector, 20% from wholesale and foreign trade and 15% from manufacturing and production.
For 2025, Intertabac also launched the first Cigar Culture Summit in partnership with the Cigar Academy, with three streams and panellists and speakers from across the world of tobacco.
Stream 1 was for manufacturers, distributors and suppliers as they explored the evolution of tobacco, sustainability in tobacco regions, cigar bands, regulations affecting cigars, positioning and interacting with new generations and the growth of global markets.
Stream 2 was for wholesalers, distributors, retailers and CigarClubs engaging with elements including humidity control with Boveda, the story of Villiger cigars, a tasting with Luciano Cigars, cigar ratings, fermentation and ageing and cigar packaging.
Stream 3 was run in German for specialist cigar and pipe retailers, which delved into all aspects of running a cigar business, from HR, culture, consumer behaviour and ways of boosting sales to community building, regulations that affect retailers and the role of specialist retailers.
The one thing I always look forward to from Intertabac is the launch of new cigars from various brands. This year, the ones that caught my eye and that I anticipate getting my hands on include the limited editions from Casdagli Cigars and Oliva.
Casdagli Cigars
In 2021, Casdagli launched the Villa Casdagli line at the Tobacco Plus Expo (TPE) in Las Vegas, US. At Intertabac, Casdagli launched a new, limited edition vitola of the Villa Casdagli line, the Villa Casdagli Edición Limitada.
With only 6,000 made annually at the Tabacos de Costa Rica factory in Costa Rica and packed ten cigars to a traditional wood slide top box, it is the kind of cigar that you pack away in the humidor, enjoying sticks sparingly.
The wrapper is Ecuador HVA (Havana Vuelta Abajo), which is Cuban-seed tobacco grown in Ecuador with soil rich in volcanic ash and regular cloud cover. They have also blended Ecuador HVA in the filler, with Peru Habano, Dominican Criollo 98 and Nicaraguan tobacco (from Esteli). The binder is Ecuador Habano 2000 and the size and shape are 57 x 73” Salomine Presidente.
Oliva Cigar
In 2017, Oliva released the first Serie V Melanio Edición Limitada and, in 2022, changed the name to Edición Año. The blend is based on their award-winning Serie V Melanio line — Ecuadoran-grown Sumatra-seed wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan filler that is a blend of tobacco from Oliva’s various farms in Nicaragua. It is made at Oliva Cigar’s primary factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. I love the Melanio Edición Año 2023 Figuriño. The 2024 Vitola was a 5 ½ x 60 Gordo while this year’s is a 5 x 54 Robusto.
According to Fred Vandermarliere, CEO of Vandermarliere Cigar Family (who own Oliva), the Serie V Melanio Edición Año 2025 is a tribute to the people and the tobacco leaf.
Currently, there are no details on the number of cigars that will be produced.
German Engineered Cigars
Something else that was launched at Intertabac was by German Engineered Cigars, a boutique cigar brand established in 2016 by three engineers who are on a mission to combine engineering with cigar blending.
Over the years, cigar brands have been experimenting with things like QR codes on bands. German Engineered Cigars showcased their RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)-enabled rings. RFID is a broad wireless technology. The rings enable you to be linked via your smartphone to information on the specific cigar that you are smoking by, as a start, being linked to the website.
German Engineered Cigars plans to have RFID chip in the rings of all of their cigars, starting with Kraftwerk and Weltschmerz Robustos from the end of this year.
