At the beginning of the 50´s, Mr. Jose Aray Marin purchased several agricultural properties in the Province of Guayas, on the shores of the Macul River and started Aray and Sons, S.A. With a great deal of success he develop plantations for bananas, coffee and cocoa beans. After a few years he made the acquaintance of Mr. Guillermo de la Portilla, who had migrated from Cuba and was working at Hacienda Casjuca with the Graftman family who were originally from the Neatherlands. They were planting the Cubano and Sumatra varieties of tobacco leaves. This hacienda was later sold to the Perez family who are the present owners.
Mr. De la Portilla found at Mr. Pepe Aray´s hacienda, Paulina, the perfect weather, soil and luminosity needed for the growth of the precious leaf, and convinced Don Pepe to start on the project. After setting up the necessary infrastructure they began with the highly complex process of planting the precious leaf.

At this time, also the American Tobacco Co. was growing in Ecuador the variety Connecticut 711 of the Candela tobacco. The head of this operation was Mr. Luis Pedreira whom after a few years sold this property to the Oliva Family.
In those days the basic seeds used were from Cuba, afterwards the Sumatra, Camerun and Connecticut were introduced.

Currently we continue with the Sumatra and other varieties to a lesser extent. Among these, the Connecticut, Havana 2000 and some Criollo 98, especially for WRAPPERS and FILLERS.
Through the years, new properties have been purchased, with different characteristics in regards to temperature, weather and luminosity, with the objective of providing our plantations with different characteristics of colors and textures with the objective in mind to serve better and present a better final product to our customers.