Free Education for All

Education is the foundation of Tobacconist University. We believe that knowledge of luxury tobacco, its science, history, culture, traditions, and service, should be accessible to everyone with the curiosity to explore it.

Our Academic Campus is a free, growing, and structured educational resource dedicated to preserving knowledge, deepening understanding, enriching experiences, and advancing the culture of luxury tobacco.

This mission is sustained by our certified tobacconists and apprentices, whose investment in professional certification helps make education freely available to everyone.

Free Education for All. Supported by Our Certified Tobacconists.

Begin your journey in the TU Multimedia Glossary, a gateway to curiosity, discovery, and an exponentially enriched educational experience.

Explore Your Curiosity.

Introducing the New Tobacconist University Campus

For more than thirty years, Tobacconist University has been dedicated to professionalizing luxury tobacco through education, certification, and service.

Today, we invite you to experience something new.

The new Tobacconist University Campus is open.

And if you think you know Tobacconist University, come back.

You may have studied here before. You may have earned your certification here. You may have explored our academic curriculum for years.

You have never explored this Campus.

A New Educational Experience

Tobacco. Taste. Accoutrements. Service.

FAQ. Glossary. History. Science. Culture. Craftsmanship.

Open a page about tobacco and find yourself exploring agriculture, geography, botany, curing, fermentation, aging, construction, combustion, or history.

Enter Taste College and travel through aroma, anatomy, perception, memory, pairing, palate development, and the extraordinary complexity of the human senses.

Explore Accoutrements and move from cutters and lighters to humidification, hygrometers, preservation, design, technology, and tradition.

Enter Service College and discover the accumulated knowledge of professional tobacconists: customers, humidors, inventory, merchandising, hospitality, etiquette, professionalism, and the countless details that transform knowledge into service.

Have a question? Explore the FAQ.

Encounter an unfamiliar term? Follow it into the Glossary.

Find a link that interests you?

Follow it.

This is how the new Campus was designed to be experienced.

Experience the Difference

This is more than a new website. The website is the interface. What we are introducing is a dramatically richer way to experience more than thirty years of accumulated Tobacconist University knowledge and academic curriculum.

In the areas we have rebuilt, the difference can feel like a 10X increase in the educational experience.

Education has been rewritten and expanded. Concepts have been illustrated. Study plates turn complicated subjects into visual lessons. Callouts reveal important details. Images teach. Definitions connect to deeper subjects. FAQs lead into Colleges. Colleges lead to other Colleges.

And throughout it all, links create paths into an increasingly interconnected body of knowledge.

You can come looking for one answer and discover ten new questions.

That is not an accident.

It is the point.

The Living Map

Behind the new Campus is an educational philosophy Tobacconist University calls The Living Map.

It begins with something we have believed for more than thirty years:

Fundamentals provide orientation. Curiosity determines the path.

Education needs structure. We need fundamentals. We need vocabulary, principles, techniques, and foundational knowledge.

But knowledge is not a straight line.

Tobacco leads to agriculture. Agriculture leads to geography and climate. Curing leads to chemistry. Fermentation leads to microbiology. Construction leads to combustion. Combustion leads to taste. Taste leads to anatomy, aroma, memory, and perception.

A cigar cutter can lead to engineering, history, etiquette, and service.

One answer leads to another question.

One destination reveals another direction.

The new Campus brings The Living Map to life by allowing you to move through knowledge according to your own curiosity.

There is no single path.

More Than a Curriculum

The new Campus extends beyond our academic curriculum to become something larger: a living cultural archive for luxury tobacco.

The art, science, history, traditions, objects, techniques, terminology, people, and practices surrounding luxury tobacco deserve to be studied, illustrated, connected, and preserved.

That work is happening throughout the Campus.

Some of it is technical.

Some of it is historical.

Some of it is practical.

Some of it is beautiful.

And sometimes it is simply fun.

Because education should do more than provide answers. It should make us curious enough to ask better questions.

Come Back

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about the new Campus is this:

It will never be finished.

Every day, we are working to make it deeper, richer, more useful, more visual, and more interconnected.

New education will appear. Existing subjects will expand. New illustrations will make difficult ideas easier to understand. New questions will enter the FAQ. New terminology will enter the Glossary. New connections will create new paths through subjects that have been here for years.

So if you studied with Tobacconist University years ago, come back.

If you visited months ago, come back.

If you explored yesterday, come back.

Come back tomorrow.

There will always be something else to discover.

The new Tobacconist University Campus is not a website to complete.

It is a living educational experience and cultural archive built to explore.

Start anywhere.

Follow your curiosity.

See where it takes you.

EXPLORE. LEARN. RETURN.

Every discovery opens another path.

EXPLORE THE NEW TOBACCONIST UNIVERSITY CAMPUS →

Education Changes Perspective

 

Most people think education is about acquiring information. It isn't. Information is only the beginning. The true value of education is that it changes the way we see the world.

Before we learn, we see isolated facts. A cigar. A lighter. A pipe. A humidor. A tasting note. A favorite brand. As our education grows, those individual pieces begin to connect. Agriculture becomes connected to manufacturing. Manufacturing connects to preservation. Preservation connects to service. Service connects to taste. The fragments become a complete picture.

Most people enter the luxury tobacco world through a single doorway. Perhaps it's a favorite brand, a manufacturer, a YouTube personality, a friend, or a local cigar lounge. There's nothing wrong with any of those starting points. They often spark a lifelong passion. The challenge is that every doorway offers only one view of a much larger landscape. If your "education" comes exclusively from a single perspective, your understanding of the industry will inevitably be biased.

Luxury tobacco deserves a different approach to education.

We believe luxury tobacco should be studied from the tobacconist-consumer's perspective: brand-neutral, product-neutral, and centered at the convergence where luxury tobacco products meet the consumer. It is the nexus of accountability. It is here, at the point of service, where products are honestly compared, informed recommendations are made, traditions are preserved and shared, and the consumer begins to think like a tobacconist. Rather than beginning with marketing messages or brand narratives, we begin with the enduring fundamentals. Once those fundamentals are understood, every product, every manufacturer, every blend, and every claim can be evaluated from a well-educated, brand-neutral perspective.

Great education doesn't simply teach us new things. It also helps us recognize and replace misconceptions. It grounds us in fundamental truths and changes the way we think. As our perspective changes, the luxury tobacco industry becomes more connected, more understandable, and more rewarding.

At Tobacconist University, we believe the tobacconist stands at the center of the luxury tobacco industry. It is where growers, manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers, and consumers ultimately converge. From that perspective, the entire landscape comes into view.

When you become a Certified Tobacconist, you don't simply acquire more knowledge. You begin to see the industry from the center.

When you change your perspective, you change everything.

Honor & Humility

 

There is a difference between simply consuming cigars and dedicating yourself to the craft, responsibility, and continual learning required of a certified tobacconist.

Cigars are consumed.

Education must be earned.

A certified tobacconist is not defined by ego, performance, or personality. The role carries something far more meaningful: stewardship.

Every cigar represents years of cultivation, fermentation, aging, craftsmanship, and tradition. Hundreds of hands contribute to the journey long before the cigar ever reaches a customer. At the point of service, that responsibility is ultimately placed in the hands of the tobacconist.

That responsibility should create both honor and humility.

Honor in representing the traditions, standards, and culture of premium tobacco well.

Humility in recognizing that learning never ends, details matter, and the experience is never truly about ourselves.

The best certified tobacconists understand that service matters. Knowledge matters. Presentation matters. Hospitality matters. The small details matter.

These professionals are often the quiet backbone of the industry: helping customers celebrate milestones, discover new experiences, build confidence, create memories, and slow down long enough to savor time together.

Certification alone does not make someone extraordinary. But the willingness to pursue standards, education, and continual improvement says something meaningful about a person’s character and commitment to the craft.

Today, we simply want to recognize and honor the certified tobacconists, students, and professionals around the world who continue to uphold those standards every day.

Your work matters.

And we honor you for it.

What Is Tobacconist University?

For generations, the luxury tobacco industry has been sustained by knowledge.

Knowledge passed from cigar and pipe makers to protégés.

From master tobacconists to apprentices.

Shared across humidors, lounges, and retail counters.

Refined in fields, factories, and through experience.

Yet in an industry built on expertise, formal education has long been limited, fragmented, or nonexistent.

Tobacconist University was created to change that.

From the beginning, our mission has been clear:

Educate. Engage. Advance Culture.

Tobacconist University exists to elevate knowledge, professionalism, and credibility across the luxury tobacco industry.

Our goal is not simply to provide certifications.

Our goal is to strengthen the intellectual and cultural foundation of the industry itself.

Over the years, TU has developed the most comprehensive and free body of educational material ever assembled for luxury tobacco professionals and enthusiasts.

Our Campus includes:

• Tobacco College

• Accoutrements College

• Taste College

• Service College

• The industry's most comprehensive glossary of terms

• A continually expanding body of frequently asked questions and reference materials

Unlike most academic institutions, this curriculum is largely available to the public. It does not exist behind a paywall.

We believe knowledge strengthens the entire industry.

- Retailers benefit.

- Consumers benefit.

- Manufacturers benefit.

- The culture itself becomes stronger.

Through structured learning, standardized certification, and a global network of trained tobacconists, we are building something the industry has never had before:

A true academic and professional foundation for luxury tobacco.

Whether you are an enthusiast, a retailer, or an industry professional, Tobacconist University provides a clear path:

To learn.

To refine your craft.

To elevate your role in the industry.

This is more than education.

This is the advancement of a culture.

The Certified Consumer Tobacconist Evolution

Any tobacconist worth their salt can tell you about innumerable atrocities committed by ignorant consumers: these include lighting cigars backwards, lighting the cedar sleeve (sometimes including the silk ribbon at the foot), using a torch lighter on a briar pipe, complaining about stems in premium cigar filler, licking an entire cigar then using a shop cutter, sticking a cigar in their nose then returning it to a display box, and many many more!

Furthermore, few people truly understand what priming is, the importance of air curing, the magic of fermentation, the extraordinary skill it takes to blend and roll a cigar, much less the thousands of artisanal steps between seed and ash.   

But the real shame is the lack of activism and pro-activity of luxury cigar and pipe smokers.  After all, luxury tobacco can be a selfish pursuit, in that we enjoy it solely for ourselves.  It can be easy to forget that our beloved products, lifestyle and freedoms are constantly being demonized and  eroded by over-regulation and over-taxation.  No other profession suffers more punishment and threats from local, state, and federal governments.  And of course countless "health" groups, with hundreds of millions of dollars in their budgets, drive their mission to erase us from existence.  

Ultimately, the only way to combat these forces is through education and activism.  That activism can be as simple as sharing your passions with those who don't know any better, educating your peers, and of course supporting Cigar Rights of America so they can provide a political voice in Washington DC and at the state and local level.  

If you really love these products, then you must take a stand and be proactive.  Any loud mouth can pontificate about what they think they know, but only a Tobacconist University (TU) Certified Tobacconist has proven their fundamental knowledge.  The new TU Certified Consumer Tobacconist (CCT) degree is a historic and revolutionary way to prove your knowledge and join the fight for our freedoms at the same time.  The new CCT program can be purchased in the GET CERTIFIED section of the TU website for $100 and comes with a free one year membership to Cigar Rights of America (CRA).  If you are smart enough to pass the test, you will be a Certified Consumer Tobacconist and a member of the CRA.  There is no better representative of this industry than a CCT/CRA member and we encourage you to join our ranks and help us preserve luxury tobacco for generations to come!

THE CCT PROCESS

1. Accept The Consumer Code of Ethics & Standards & Apply for Apprenticeship

- After your $100 payment your apprentice listing will appear on the TU website and the CRA will initiate your annual membership

2. Study the TU Academic Curriculum at your own pace

3. Take the Final Exam* on the TU website

- if you pass you will be awarded your CCT degree and your website listing will be certified

- if you fail, you will be removed from the TU website, but your CRA membership will continue

* The TU Final Exam for CCT is 50 questions, multiple-choice and True/False.  It is the same length and difficulty as the original professional test for certified tobacconists which was used from 1996-2005.

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

Another Great Success!

Surpassing our goal of 1,000 Certified Tobacconists & Apprentices at this years IPCPR tradeshow was a huge achievement for TU! Thank you to everyone who signed up to become an Apprentice at the show, took their CRT exam with us or even simply stopped by the booth to show support. An impressive twenty five apprentices passed the final, attaining their certification. Follow this link to see a complete list of our Certified Tobacconists.  Haven’t begun your certification process yet?  Get Started!

Top 5 Reasons To Be Certified

1) Credibility Matters- Enhance your professional credibility by becoming Certified by TU. Immersing yourself in our extensive academic curriculum will help to further establish your professional credentials. By completing the Steps to Certification, CRT’s adhere to our high expectations in regards to product knowledge and customer service thus become knowledgeable, trustworthy in the eyes of consumers and peers.

2) Personal Satisfaction/Self-Esteem- Becoming a CRT will define and shape yourself beyond your job description. You will achieve a deep sense of personal satisfaction as well as validate your luxury tobacco experience.

3) Make your Certification work for you- Promote yourself. Wear your certified lapel pin and display your diploma and other certified accoutrements. Let your certification set you apart from other retailers. TU Certification also works as a free training vehicle for your employees. Customers view certification as a guarantee they will receive a high level of quality service, it demonstrates a commitment to our industry.

4) Improved Skills and Knowledge- Develop a well rounded educational experience while studying the four Colleges that comprise Tobacconist University: Tobacco, Accoutrements, Taste, and Service College.

5) Stay Tuned- Only certified retailers can profit from selling The Tobacconist Handbook or administering the final exam to Apprentices. We also have many exciting  projects in the works which only Certified Tobacconists will benefit from.

Tobacco Flavor Chart

David "Doc" Diaz, CMT Academic Contribution

Certified Master Tobacconist #1793

Tobacco Flavor Chart

 

Do you ever struggle for descriptors to identify the flavors (taste + aroma) that you are sensing in your tobaccos?  Or, do you wish there was a tool to help you distinguish and organize all of those flavors so you can document the taste of your favorite cigar or pipe tobaccos?   Well, now there is – thanks to Certified Master Tobacconist David “Doc” Diaz!  After years in development, Doc has produced the Tobacco Flavor Chart to help all luxury tobacco lovers describe and analyze their favorite tobaccos.  This Tobacco Flavor Chart can be used to help you describe the cigars or pipe tobaccos you smoke as well as save that information for reference at a later date.  This is a handy tool for retailers to give to their customers and for consumers to use and save so they can remember what they smoked.  This Tobacco Flavor Chart was created as an educational tool for anyone to use and please feel free to email Doc or TU suggestions, additions, or corrections if you think they are needed.  Enjoy!

Georgetown Tobacco: A National Treasure

 
If you know me well, you may know that walking into Georgetown Tobacco in the early 1990s changed my life. I never knew the world of luxury tobacco existed until I stepped into that store; I was used to buying cigars at cafeterias on the streets of Miami. To this day I remember the extraordinary Tobacconists that helped me discover great cigars and new ways to savor my time – perhaps this is why I have such a fondness and respect for Tobacconists. And I can only begin to imagine how many thousands of people have been impacted the same way.

   

While Georgetown is coming up on its 45th Anniversary, and they just Certified their 11th CRT, it is no mystery why they are one of the world’s greatest retail Tobacconists. Starting with their founder, David Berkebile and every Tobacconist I have met in their stores, there is enough passion and knowledge on their sales floor to make any Tobacconist and customer salivate. While TU writes about putting Products & Customers first, I think that philosophy might have been absorbed from Georgetown. I’m sure someone could write a book on the knowledge, history, tall tales, and passion found at Georgetown; and I can honestly say that their retail store is one of the world’s most beautiful – in any industry!

  

  
 
Ultimately, we are lucky to have such an extraordinary group of Tobacconists Certified, and grateful for the things they have and will teach us down the road. Congratulations to Georgetown for continuing to be the best at what they do. And many thanks for sharing that with TU, your customers, and the rest of the world….. Looking forward to the next 45 years.
 


- Jorge Armenteros, CMT 

Art & Cigars

One of the most important things we teach consumers, Tobacconists, and society is the amazing and unparalleled nature of the premium cigar. Great works of art, crystal, furniture, and architecture are created in less time than a great cigar; and they last lifetimes! …while the destiny of a cigar, through combustion, is to return to dust. In fact, hundreds of people and thousands of years of human knowledge and experience go into every premium cigar!

Indubitably, great cigars are works of art. Great cigar makers are artists. And retail Tobacconists are the curators of these precious miracles. At TU we consider ourselves to be in the art preservation business: preserving luxury tobacco for generations to come.

Cigars = Vacation

We know that our sense of smell is most closely linked to memory and emotion. And that our sense of smell has the greatest impact on our enjoyment of luxury tobacco – try smoking with stuffed sinuses to prove it. Pleasant aromas are relaxing. In fact, pleasant aromas have the power to transport us to a better ‘place’, a better feeling. Whether we are talking about the smell of grandma’s cookies, the ocean, or a great cigar, pleasant aromas force us to take notice and enjoy the moment. Those who enjoy luxury tobacco know that aroma transcends our daily responsibilities, stresses, uncertainties, and challenges.

The aroma of luxury tobacco forces us to settle down and appreciate the moment; the little things. Great tobacco is a compelling delicacy which helps us appreciate our time. What could be more important than savoring your time? Great cigars are like a mini-vacation! Use them as intended and you will enhance your quality of life.

  

* Tobacconist Anecdote: Lately, I have been seeing many more of our retail customers stopping to have a cigar in the shop. Customers who would normally walk out after their purchase look at the couch like a starving man looks at a steak. Once they realize the couches are there for them, they walk over and plop themselves down, immediately letting out a deep exhale. At first they have a glassy look in their eyes, then they remember they have a cigar in their hand and they start to look at it, touch it, and finally light it. After just a few puffs their demeanor begins to change. They watch the smoke waft delicately into the air and their gaze begins to relax. Within a few minutes they start letting go… their body and mind releasing tension. Eventually, our customers leave the shops happier, brighter, and lighter than when they entered. It is an extraordinary transformation. Every Tobacconist has seen this happen, and I think this is happening a lot more lately. But this is just proof that Tough Times = Better Business. People need great Tobacconists more now, than ever…. so get to work.

pH Balance & You

The balance between Acidity and Alkalinity effects our lives in innumerable ways; from the environment, soil, and our bodies, to the food we eat and liquids we drink.

  

“pH” is a measure of Acidity and Alkalinity [of a solution] on a scale where 7 is neutral; lower numbers are more Acid (down to 0), and higher numbers are more Alkaline (up to 14).

   

We learn in Tobacco & Taste Colleges that cigars are more Alkaline and cigarettes are more Acidic: this effects the consumption, nicotine absorption, and addictive differences between the two.

  

When it comes to luxury tobacco, pH monitoring is critical for the Soil and even the water used for Irrigation and Fermentations. But the greatest effects of pH do not come from the product itself, but rather, from your mouth. Your palate’s (tongue, mouth, saliva) neutral setting is around 7. Lemon Juice is around 2, Tomatoes are around 4, and milk is around 6.5. Anything we consume will effect the pH level in our mouth, and subsequently, the way we perceive the Taste of a cigar or pipe tobacco.

  

Have you ever smoked a cigar you know is good, and it just tastes “off”? Usually we just blame the cigar maker, Tobacconist, or our humidor, but, maybe it wasn’t the cigar. It is very likely that our mouth can be “off”.

  

Fortunately, our mouths/palates have the ability to restore their neutrality within a short period of time. You can expedite this process by drinking water, milk, or eating plain bread, to bring your mouth closer to neutral.

 
If you just finished smoking a cigar and want another, you can eat a little lemon sorbet to restore some Acidity to your palate. Ultimately, maybe you like the contrasting Acidity of coffee with the Alkalinity of a cigar; if so great. But it is good to know the facts and be aware of how our senses can be biased.

Stress Kills

While watching the news yesterday, I re-learned what most enlightened and open-minded people already know: stress kills. The medical expert on the show was discussing new studies which show how extreme anger causes 100,000 more deaths (in the U.S.) per year than all cancers combined. Extreme anger and stress kill more people than cigarettes! Sadly, we live in a time and culture that does not value the benefits of relaxation. But, as any lover of premium and luxury tobacco can tell you, there are few things which will add as much to the quality of your life as a great cigar or bowl of pipe tobacco. So whether your idea of relaxation involves watching the sunset, soaking in the tub, seeing a movie, a candle lit dinner, some good music, yoga, or simple meditation, you may very well benefit from lighting up a great cigar. Perhaps the only thing of value in this life is our time, so we should be making more effort to savor it. And remember the facts, the National Cancer Institute says there are no known negative health effects from the consumption of less than one cigar per day. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself.

Jorge Armenteros, CMT

Luxury Tobacco

We believe that the best cigar or pipe Tobacco in the world is your favorite. We assert that your passion for Tobacco is a natural luxury which is rooted in great traditions and history. The moderate consumption of luxury Tobacco is a healthy and enlightened human pleasure.
  
Luxury Tobacco- Tobacco products which are created by master craftsmen utilizing premium quality tobacco and intended to be enjoyed while savoring your time. Luxury tobacco is never homogenized, commoditized, or used out of habit or addiction.