Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco Edición Asia Shipping Next Month

A short and stout Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco will head to Asian markets—specifically China, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam—next month.

Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial Edición Asia, a box-pressed 4 3/4  x 60 belicoso vitola that Joya calls Gran Cónsul. It uses the same blend as the regular Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial: a Nicaraguan criollo wrapper from Jalapa over a Dominican volado binder and Nicaraguan fillers, including five-year-old ligero that is aged in spent rum barrels.

It will be sold by Cigraal, Joya’s distributor for the aforementioned Asian countries, and limited to just 1,000 boxes of 10 cigars. The packaging is a slightly different take on the normal Cuatro Cinco release, both the box and the bands add the pixiu, a mythical Chinese creature that looks like a lion with wings.

“We wanted this masterpiece to revolve around Pixiu, a Chinese hybrid mythical creature believed to be a protector and wealth promoter, and is a figure ever-present in powerful and grandiose feats of victory in battle, representing the values of courage and resilience that are common between our Nicaraguan and Asian cultures,” said Juan Ignacio Martínez, executive president of Joya de Nicaragua. “This is not about cultural appropriation; on the contrary, is an expression of cultural interconnection and profound friendship.”

“At Cigraal, we are proud and honored to be the exclusive agent for this first limited edition from Joya de Nicaragua,” said Eric Piras, founder of Cigraal. “Asian aficionados are very fond of exclusive cigars; with the utmost quality and craft of the blend and the superb packaging, we are confident that this limited edition will generate enthusiasm in cigar connoisseurs and collectors.”

The Cuatro Cinco Reserva Especial was introduced in 2015, a regular production follow-up to the Cuatro Cinco Edición Limitada which celebrated Joya’s 45th anniversary.

Correction (May 18, 2020) — The original version of this story listed the cigar as measuring 4 1/2 inches long when it in fact measures 4 3/4 inches long.

Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.