Carlito Fuente's Dream: Embracing the Soil of a Free Cuba

With emotions running high, cigar entrepreneur Carlos "Carlito" Fuente shared with Cuban journalist Ismael Cala his heartfelt wish for a free Cuba. His first act, he revealed, would be to journey to Güines, a town in Mayabeque province where his grandfather Arturo Fuente was born, to sit on that land and "hold it close to my heart."

The conversation, recorded in the Dominican Republic for the podcast The Revolution of Abundance, spans over a century of family history, cigar-making legacy, and a deep-seated Cuban identity that Carlito cherishes, despite never having stepped foot on the island as an adult.

When asked by Cala about his hopes for a free Cuba, Fuente responded without hesitation: "To freely arrive in Cuba, walk its streets, embrace its people, listen to their accents, hear their music, and reach Güines, my grandfather's birthplace. To sit on the land and hold it dear to my heart."

While he clarified that establishing a factory on the island isn't on his agenda at his age, he dreams of rekindling relationships with Cuban tobacco farmers and purchasing Cuban leaf, as was done by the Tampa industry before Castro's revolution. "Tampa once produced 500 million cigars with Cuban tobacco. That's more than Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica, and Honduras combined today."

Carlito was born in Tampa, Florida, in 1954, but considers himself Cuban-raised: his household spoke no English, and he learned the language only upon starting school. In front of his Dominican factory, he planted royal palms in memory of a Pinar del Río photograph that hung in his grandmother's kitchen. "I was raised Cuban. It's rooted in my soul," he declared.

His grandfather, Arturo Fuente, born in Güines in 1887, emigrated to the United States and founded A. Fuente & Company in West Tampa in 1912 at just 15 years old, striving to support his family after the Spanish independence war. This sacrifice threads through the entire conversation.

At 16, upon realizing that Arturo's name was unknown outside Tampa, Carlito vowed, "I swore I would carry my grandfather's name worldwide and honor it." He fulfilled this promise alongside his father, Carlos Fuente Sr., who passed away in August 2016. "I walk through the factory every moment and hear my father's voice," he confessed.

In 1980, as Tampa's cigar industry waned, the family relocated to the Dominican Republic and started anew. There, Carlito defied industry norms, proving the potential of cultivating quality wrapper leaf in Dominican soil. The result was the Fuente Fuente OpusX, launched in 1995 and now regarded as one of the world's most exclusive cigars.

Beyond business, Carlito described the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation as "the most important product" of his life. Co-founded in 2001 with the Newman family in Bonao, Dominican Republic, the 23-acre complex provides free education, healthcare, technical training, and martial arts—not for fighting, but to instill discipline and leadership. Between 87% and 92% of its graduates pursue higher education or enter professional fields. Recently, the foundation celebrated its 18th high school graduation, with graduates in nursing and information technology.

"The most important lesson taught to these children is the concept of giving back," emphasized Fuente, attributing this generosity to his mother and the values he absorbed in his Ybor City wooden house, surrounded by Cuban cigar makers, dominoes, and coffee.

Concluding the interview, Cala encapsulated his guest's legacy succinctly: "The cigars bear his name, his grandfather's, and his father's, but the children, families, and dreams he helped transform will forever carry his imprint."