Time flies and it is hard to believe that 25+ years have gone by since the founding of Tobacconist University. We are so busy managing record level certifications and developing our future infrastructure that we fail to look back and appreciate what we have accomplished. So we had to dig deep into our archives to put this timeline together and we were pleasantly rewarded with a trip down memory lane; we hope you enjoy it!
1996 Cuban Cigar University Is Born
Less than six months after opening his first store in Princeton, NJ, TU founder Jorge Armenteros
goes to Cuba and accidentally meets the director general of Cubatabaco, getting
access to farms, factories and rare educational materials which become the
foundation of Tobacconist University's academic curriculum.
Armenteros returns to the US and creates a curriculum to train his
tobacconists and starts doing consumer seminars under the brand name Cuban
Cigar University.
"I wasn't even a fully developed adult human, yet I opened my first store in 1995 at the age of 21. I went to Cuba in 1996 to further my knowledge of premium cigars. When I got back I realized I needed to create a program to educate my tobacconists and customers. I did this because I wanted to be the best. By 1997 we were doing live seminars with customers in hotel meeting rooms." - Armenteros
2005 Tobacconist University And The Certified Seal Is
Born
While opening 3 stores in 3 states, Armenteros continues to train his retail tobacconists using the Cuban Cigar
University (CCU) curriculum. Until now, CCU was a proprietary educational
program to train professionals for a single company. The challenges of employee education/product
knowledge, the proliferation of bad information on the internet, and the continual
threats of new taxation and smoking bans incites the desire to turn the program
‘inside out’ and make it available to all retail tobacconists. The power of the internet allows for the creation of a website to provide free and credible information for consumers and tobacconists.
"The TU Certified Seal and Lapel pin is the first and only symbol of a professionally trained tobacconist." - Armenteros
2007 Tobacconist University (TU) Arrives
TU becomes the official educational curriculum of the RTDA/IPCPR, today’s
Premium Cigar Association (PCA). This
begins a 10+ year period of building out the online academic programs and
administering free final exams at the annual tradeshow convention. Funding is scarce but a few companies provide
enough help for TU to survive. PadrĂ³n
Cigars provides a significant endowment and others like Tatuaje Cigars, Drew
Estate, and Miami Cigars support TU as well.
Our first tradeshow booth for administering TU exams was 2008.
2009 The Tobacconist Handbook 1st Edition
The historic release of The Tobacconist Handbook marks the first time a comprehensive
book is published to educate tobacconists.
As a distillation of the TU online curriculum, The Tobacconist Handbook
can provide enough education for TU students to pass their final exams and give anyone a well-rounded education on luxury tobacco.
2012 - 2015 R&D Cigars
Our revolutionary program to create educational cigars where we research and
develop cigars along with their component puros and educational content. This program created the R&D Brazilian
Corojo and PA/CT Broadleaf cigars which were sold exclusively to Certified
Retail Tobacconists (CRT).
Unfortunately, onerous regulatory threats from the FDA made the next
Mexican San Andres and Organic Nicaraguan projects impossible to release. Once again, over regulation kills another
dream in the luxury tobacco industry.
Click here to learn more about R&D Cigars.
2018 Online Final Exams for Everyone!
After a decade of administering final exams at the PCA tradeshow and through
the USPS with Certified Tobacconists administering paper tests, we deploy
online exams for everyone; making our certification programs (CCT, CRT, CST)
100% online and fueling unprecedented growth.
2019 The Cigar Sommelier Is Born
The Certified Cigar Sommelier Tobacconist (CCST) degree is released. Capitalizing on the demand for education and
certification for those in the ‘business’ who are not full-service
tobacconists, this degree serves lounges, mobile/event businesses, media,
restaurants and golf clubs and everyone in between. Our CCST School is the first program we
placed behind a paywall and allows custom branding and configuration for
individuals or companies with many employees and locations. It is a streamlined distillation of our
broader curriculum and it focuses on creating knowledgeable and competent
premium cigar service professionals. Click here to learn more about the CCST program.
2020 Certified Cigar Reviews Is Born & The
Tobacconist Handbook Is Updated
After 'perfecting' the online educational and certification programs for
professionals and consumers, the TU focus turns to creating post-graduation
value for certified tobacconists. The Certified Cigar Reviews (CCR) platform allows users to create comprehensive
reviews for online sharing and printable options like shelf-talkers. Most importantly, CCR educates and empowers
users and viewers by defining terms and creating a professional structure for
an admittedly subjective process.
"By the mid-2010s, the internet is proliferating with cigar reviewers providing their own opinions. We believe tobacconists are the ultimate reviewers since they do it all day long, face-to-face with customers. This leads us to create (over the course of 4 years) the CCR platform. In the process, we realize the need to create post-graduation value and leverage for our certified professionals and consumers. How can we help certified tobacconists? becomes our new focus." - Armenteros
The Tobacconist Handbook: An Essential Guide To Cigars & Pipes is upgraded, updated, enhanced, improved and re-released by Skyhorse Publishing. Sales continue to surpass all expectations and reach consumers and professionals around the world. Take a look here...
2020 CIGARS 101 Introduced
Our CIGARS 101 program was released outside of the TU website on a modern
learning platform; this experiment is part of our long term plan to potentially
move part or all of our certifications onto more technologically advanced and
responsive platforms. CIGARS 101 is also
intended to create a strong educational/knowledge foundation for all levels of
consumers. Click here to learn more.
2021 CCST Maestro Released
Compelled by the growth and success of the Certified Cigar
Sommelier Tobacconist (CCST) program, the CCST Maestro program is introduced. This historic program empowers CCST Maestro to
certify others for profit while administering their own CCST School.
2022 Benchmark Cigars Database Is Born
The dream of Certified Cigar Reviews (CCR) was stunted by a worldwide pandemic
and a garbage-in/garbage-out problem:
reviewers were overburdened by having to input too much cigar data. This led us to create the Benchmark Cigars Database, which allows manufacturers/distributors to upload their cigars into
the CCR platform for free: then users can create reviews in just seconds! Populating the Benchmark Cigars Database in
the Certified Cigar Reviews website started in the Summer of 2022 and will continue into the foreseeable future.
2023 And Beyond
TUECOM, Online Career Center, educational content improvement, deeper discounts
for retail tobacconists and many more things are in development… Stay tuned….