First let me begin with this....

In the 80s there was a huge martial arts boom which saw 25 year old 10th Degree Grand Masters of certain arts (mostly TKD)

In the mid-90s we had a tremedous surge in Brazilian Jiujitsu and grappling arts. AS the Gracie family began to dominate martial arts matches, the art of Gracie Jiujitsu and Brazilian Jiujitsu began to take on a meteoric rise.

All of a sudden we had Brazilian flooding the U.S. to take advantage of the money, fame and success. Martial artists who were purple and brown belts in Brazil when they left, somehow magically became black belts by the time their boat hit our shores.

Okay, I said all of that to ask this...

Does it seem strange to anyone other than myself that every single ex-patriate of Cuba seems to be a high level master cigar roller or master blender...?! If ALL these high level master rollers and blenders left Cuba, who is left there making those phenomenal cigars? And who is teaching them? Wy is it I never read of someone who came from Cuba and was only a so-so roller or blender? No one ever admits that they were the new apprentice who just got promoted from sweeping floors to stripping leaves or bunching.

GONZO !!!

quote:

Wy is it I never read of someone who came from Cuba and was only a so-so roller or blender?
GONZO !!!

People gain notoriety through being good at what they do.
You haven't heard of so-so rollers because they are so-so.
This is just a guess but I would imagine that thousands of so-so rollers have left Cuba and are now either rolling so-so cigars or doing something else in obscurity.
People like Pepin Garcia got to where he is through skill, hard work and a little luck, exactly as most people who do well succeed.