Georgetown Homecoming

Dear Friends,

It may be a little known fact that if it wasn't for Georgetown Tobacco, Tobacconist University (TU) would not exist!  Long before I opened my first retail store, I was an international business major at American University in the early 1990s.  It was almost 25 years ago that I stumbled into Georgetown Tobacco and it changed my life, and the lives of hundreds of tobacconists, forever.  I vividly remember the moment I opened the door and smelled that well marinated tobacconist.  I remember taking my first step inside and feeling the wooden floor boards creak beneath my feet.  As soon as I looked up I was taken back by the beauty of that magnificent store.  There are so few moments in life where you know that your future has been irrevocably altered, but that was definitely one of them.  I knew the instant I stepped into Georgetown Tobacco that I wanted to be a part of something that special.

I spent the next few years picking the brains of the tobacconists that worked there and getting an old school tobacco education.  They had already been in business 25 years so the tobacconists were as well marinated in knowledge as the store was in aroma.  While I had grown up around cigars in Miami, and I was familiar with Padron and La Aurora, I had never experienced a full-service retail tobacconist like Georgetown.  It was inspirational and overwhelming.

By the time I opened my first retail store in 1995, I realized how little I knew in comparison to the great tobacconists I had known... so I set about creating the Tobacconist University curriculum to educate myself and my tobacconists.  A decade later, after opening three stores in three states, fighting countless smoking bans and taxation battles, I realized that the industry needed more credibility and professionalism.  My passion for the industry and the people in it kept me from selling out and moving on, so I decided to double down.

By 2005 I began the process of turning the TU curriculum and certification standards into something the entire industry could use and benefit from, instead of just my little stores.  I spent years trying to convince other retailers and manufacturers to support us and most of them listened politely, patted me on the back, but did nothing to help.  Ultimately, I don't blame them... I must have seemed like a lunatic running around telling people we were going to certify tobacconists, promote them, and build credibility and heighten standards for our profession.  I have personally heard and seen so many crazy and cockamamie  ideas in this industry, but I refused to become one of them.   For better or worse, I have a profound mental problem that keeps me from quitting on the people and values I hold dear.  So, I continued to work on TU, every night and every day, never knowing how we would roll it out, fund it, or promote it... I just refused to quit.

Fortunately for all of us, David Berkebile, the founder and owner of Georgetown Tobacco, had taken over as president of the IPCPR (then the RTDA) and he embraced TU and brought us in as the official curriculum for our industry's oldest and most prestigious trade organization.   David has helped countless individuals start their careers in this industry, and in this case he has been instrumental twice!  I don't know where we would be today without his help, but I don't think we would have over 1,200 Certified Tobacconists and Apprentices, nor would we be going to Georgetown Tobacco on Friday, May 15, between 4 and 8pm for an  R&D Cigars Event.  The following morning we will do what TU does best, and administer the certification exam to five Georgetown Tobacco apprentices.


I hope you will join us for this special event.  As I write this I feel a little sentimental, grateful and emotional as I realize what a unique journey this has been.  In some ways, this will be the most exciting and fulfilling event of my career: it is a homecoming of sorts.  More importantly, we will honor and celebrate our history... where it all started.  In some ways, I feel like this event will close the first chapter of the history of TU, but there are many more to be written!  I promise you our best days are ahead of us and I will personally do my best to ensure that, or die trying.  #beaboutsomething




Jorge L. Armenteros, CMT
President & Founder
Tobacconist University

The R&D Manifesto

 

Welcome to the future.  You can read all the "standard" info about R&D Cigars on the TU website in the R&D Lab.   Essentially, R&D Cigars are small batch, TU Certified cigars created with an educational purpose: educating your mind and palate.  At TU, we want to be about something (#beaboutsomething); we believe in substantive professionals and products.  We see more hyperbole and cult-of-personality marketing in the premium cigar industry than in perhaps any other.  Yet, there is enough substance, history, and tradition in the luxury tobacco industry that exaggerations are unnecessary.

While contemporary cigar marketers are busy creating outlandish and tantalizing brand names, using "sex" to sell, or trying to convince you that the picture of them inspecting leaves in the fields are authentic, retail tobacconists are working with consumers, face-to-face, on a daily basis.  While a cigar vendor can type up a bunch of alluring words on a website or for an advertisement, retail tobacconists are being accountable, honest, and educating their customers so they will return and become satisfied regulars.  Trust is the cornerstone of credibility and every successful retail tobacconist knows that.  It is easy to sit around in an office all day and concoct fancy words, but the real premium cigar industry exists in the retail tobacconists store because that's were the consumers are.  Retail tobacconists do not have the luxury of BS-ing customers: they must #beaboutsomething.  

With that said, we do recognize that marketing in the cigar industry is exciting and interesting.  There is so much innovation and communication happening that it is hard to keep up.  And at the very least, its never boring.  But, TU is not about exaggeration and empty words.  We want to #beaboutsomething.  Ultimately, if you call everyone a "master" or "legend" or if everyone is like "family" or your "brother",  then those words will lose their value.  The words we use at TU mean something; that's why we have the largest glossary in the industry, and we take those words seriously (ie. Flavor = Taste + Aroma,  Maduro is both a color description and fermentation process, and our certified retailers have a "real" store, not just a virtual one). 

At TU, we want to #beaboutsomething, and R&D is.  As you will see in the R&D Lab, extraordinary efforts have been made to educate your mind and palate.  While taste is, and will always be, subjective, we can teach and illustrate facts, history, and enhance your appreciation of luxury tobacco in the process.  While we look forward to many years of researching and creating educational products, we also hope that TU R&D will help and inspire others in the industry to take it to the next level and #beaboutsomething. 

In the future, when you come across R&D Cigars at a TU Certified Retail Tobacconist (CRT), you will know that everything about those cigars is authentic and the tobacconist who is curating them is credible because he/she is the first professionally certified tobacconist that had to pass a test to sell you a certified cigar.   Furthermore, all of the personal and product certification standards are transparent and freely available on the TU website: including but not limited to our Code of Ethics & Standards, the TU Academic Curriculum, our Glossary, Tobacconist Tips, FAQs, and all of the standards of TU Certification.

 

#beaboutsomething