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• Luxury Cigars in Demand in South Africa as Cigarette Smoking Plummets 

The young entrepreneur smokes mainly cigars, he says, “because it shows people that I am now able to afford the finer things in life … When smoking a cigar, you are like, achieving. You’ll be not smoking as such but making yourself big, advertising yourself.”

New cigar smokers: young, black and very successful

Ncapayi is typical of a new, rising breed of cigar smokers, according to Colin Wesley, South Africa’s leading cigar trader, who supplies most tobacconists in the country. These new cigar smokers, he says, are young, black and extremely successful.

“Cigars have always been associated with achievement,” says Wesley. “These young professionals, including many young black businessmen, like the big, expensive brands. Some of them come in and say, ‘Give me your biggest and most expensive cigar.’ They are not shy to spend money.” . . .

Yet South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. As the nation’s slums expand, so do its lavish suburbs, where people pay many millions of rands for opulent houses. While millions of citizens earn less than a dollar a day, South Africa is also home to the most millionaires (in dollars) on the continent.

And as opportunities have opened up in business after decades of apartheid-inspired white economic domination, increasing numbers of black people are now getting rich.

“They can afford to spend money on the most powerful status symbols – one of which is the cigar,” says Wesley.

Brett Mulder, who manages what is arguably the finest cigar bar in Africa, in Johannesburg, says he’s seen a “major spike” in cigar sales in recent years. “On a given night here you’ll find hundreds of people, dancing, eating and smoking cigars.”

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