A Corojo wrapper is a wrapper variety originally bred in the Vuelta Abajo region of Cuba in the 1930s, when growers crossed local tobacco with seed from the Sumatra region of Indonesia. The original Corojo was Cuba’s signature wrapper for several decades, prized for its fullness and complexity. The variety left Cuba after the 1959 revolution and has since been refined extensively in Honduras and, to a lesser degree, Nicaragua.
Corojo wrappers tend toward fuller body, with a distinctive peppery spice that hits the retrohale, plus notes of leather, cedar, dried fruit, and dark coffee. The Honduran Corojo (especially from Jamastrán) is particularly prized; the Camacho line, owned by Davidoff, has built much of its reputation on Honduran Corojo wrappers.
Two variants are worth knowing. Corojo 99 is a hybridised version developed to resist mould and disease, slightly milder than original Corojo. Original Corojo (sometimes called Authentic Corojo or Cuban-seed Corojo) retains the fuller, spicier character of the early plant.
Notable Corojo-wrapped cigars: the Camacho Corojo, the La Aroma de Cuba Edición Especial, the Punch Gran Puro, and the Crowned Heads Las Calaveras. For more on construction, see The Anatomy of a Cigar.