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Te Amo Attempts A Comeback
Feb 16, 2024 | By David Savona
Photos/Altadis U.S.A.
Altadis U.S.A. has created a new version of Te Amo, a Mexican cigar that once was one of the most famous cigar brands brands in the industry, but one that has fallen on tough times over the past 20 years. The cigars are still made in Mexico and still made by the Turrent family, but several things are different about the new release, especially the look.
First, the brand has lost its hyphen, as it was originally known as Te-Amo, Spanish for “I love you.” Classic Te-Amo boxes were adorned with the image of a matador facing off with a bull, a sport that is not as embraced today as it was years ago. The new Te Amo cigars are adorned with regal gold, white and green bands, with the tagline “The original San Andrés Valley cigar.”
The blend is still all Mexican, but the varietals have changed. “It’s unique because it’s all Mexican tobacco,” says Rafael Nodal, vice president of product capability for Altadis. The wrapper is not the same as the original. “This is a Habano seed grown in Mexico, in the Valley.”
Modern-day smokers cannot get enough Mexican tobacco, but they seem to have lost their taste for Mexican cigars. There was a time when Mexican cigars were a powerhouse in the cigar industry. Back in 1997, more than 26 million cigars that were rolled in Mexico were imported by the United States. Today, Mexican-made premium cigars account for fewer than 100,000 cigars a year shipped to the United States, according to Cigar Association of America numbers, less than one percent of the market.
Going back to the 1970s, the Te-Amo brand seemed to be just about everywhere. “It was especially strong in the northeast,” says Nodal. The all-Mexican cigars were fairly bold for the time and were a bargain.
Te-Amo was a pioneer, says Nodal. “The name of the size toro came from Te-Amo—it was the first brand to use ‘toro.’ Their logo was a bull [which is toro in Spanish] and that’s where the name toro came from. It has really had an impact on the industry, incredibly high, and in addition, Te-Amo was from the beginning a working-man’s cigar. This was a blue-collar cigar, at an excellent price, and very good.”
The brand itself lost shelf space in the United States, and now Altadis is hoping to bring Te Amo back to cigar-store humidors, although this is not Altadis’ first attempt to resurrect the brand. You might recall Te-Amo Revolution, introduced more than a decade ago. It scored well with Cigar Aficionado, and even appeared on our Top 25 list, but Altadis went back to the drawing board.
“During the pandemic we started working with Alejandro Turrent on the new generation of Te Amo,” Nodal says. “We thought it needed to be reintroduced in a different format, a more modern look and a more contemporary look.”
The project has been in the works more than three years, says Nodal. “We wanted to do a world-class cigar. This is something that we are extremely proud of.” The launch will be worldwide, and while Altadis owns the brand in the United States, says Nodal, the Turrents own it in the rest of the world.
This doesn’t mean an end to the original and other versions of Te-Amo, which will still be sold.
The new Te Amo comes in three sizes, and while it’s not quite the bargain the original was known for, it sells for $9.43 to $11.52 per cigar, fairly reasonable in today’s inflated cigar world. The Toro is 6 inches long by 52 ring gauge, and has a suggested retail price of $10.18. The Magnum is 6 by 60, and sell for $11.52. The Robusto, which is 5 by 54, is $9.43.
Shipments began a few weeks ago. Look for a review of the new sizes in an upcoming issue of Cigar Insider