Fan Guorong, aged 84, is known in his hometown as ‘the Old Cigar Man.’ The moniker is a fitting one as he has spent most of his life making cigars In his early teens, Fan served a three-year apprenticeship, and became the youngest cigar maker of his time when he started his career in the late 1940s.

Fan is the proud owner of a very special gold-framed photograph. It is of Chairman Mao, dressed in military apparel, standing on the Tian’anmen Rostrum. What makes the photograph particularly precious to Fan is the cigar that Chairman holds betwixt his fingers.

One sunny afternoon in 1965, while chatting with Chairman Mao, Marshal He Long explained how much pleasure he derived from his cigar. A curious Chairman Mao lit one up, inhaled a puff of the smoke, and was instantly enchanted. The cigar was produced in the Shifang Cigar Plant in Sichuan Province – Fan’s place of work. So began Fan’s decade-long adventure making cigars for Chairman Mao and other state leaders.

In 1971, Fan set up shop in a small courtyard in Beijing. All the materials he needed, including the tobacco, were transported from Sichuan. Fan produced about 20 cartons of handmade cigars each month, to be enjoyed by the country’s top leaders. Their quality was no different from those made in Sichuan.

Fan likes to share his cigar making technique with others. Two locally-produced tobacco leaves, the heavy Mao leaf and the lighter, purer Liu leaf, were blended together. The leaves were meticulously selected; out of a 25-kilogram pack of tobacco, just 5 kilograms usually make the grade. The skills involved in cutting the tobacco and making the skin are quite complicated. First, the leaves are steamed, then soaked in hot and cold water, and scented with a mixture of a medicinal herb and wine. There are scores procedures involved in making just one cigar. Fan prefers loosely cut tobacco, wrapped in a tight cigar skin. The aromatic cigar produces a white ash, which does not easily fall.

After the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, Fan stopped making cigars for state leaders, and went to work at the Beijing Cigarette Plant. Now retired, and back in his Sichuan hometown, he admires his treasured photograph, and reflects on his long life. From time to time, the Old Cigar Man will drop into the Shifang Cigar Plant, to pass on his well-tuned skills to the younger workers of today.

Fan Guorong with his treasured photo.	Young workers in the Shifang Cigar Plant ask Fan for guidance.
Fan inspects the cigar wrapping skin.	The retired Fan Guorong sometimes goes back to his old job.