Thanks for the advice on ageing, I will use it well.
Yes, he took quite a while per cigar. In fact, I would venture to say that 20 minutes was for a very quick Robusto. The Torpedo's that he did for me took upwards of about 30 minutes each if not longer.
I'm in the process of posting 3 or so photo's of the action on the pic pages, so look for them under the proper heading, they'll need to pass the inspection first, however.
Felix was very meticulous about the whole process. The first thing he did was roll a quick corona without a cap on it. He then explained through one of the guys there (who happened to speak a little spanish), that it was for him to test and smoke while he worked.
He would gather a few pieces of leaf together, removing the "veins" and bunching them together (he had separate piles for flavor, aroma, etc) and then sort of wrap them up. The slow part was putting on the wrapper. He would roll it and unroll it several times, each time cutting away a bit here and there to make a perfect wrap. Notice on one of your own cigars that the wrap is a perfect rifled "spiral" up the length. Leaves don't come that perfect, they have to be cut that way.
The cap on the end was the amazing part. Putting a semi-sphere cap on the end of a cigar using a flat leaf is a near impossibility for someone like me who can't even wrap his own Christmas presents. You have to sort of cut it at an angle and spiral it down so you don't get any folds or anything. That part took a good 5-8 minutes (for a cap that I'll eventually cut off and throw into an ashtray).
Probably the most amazing part was that each and every one he rolled fit into his ring guage perfectly (he never even tested them, however I did each one out of pure astonishment). The torpedo's were tapered as if he used an angle or something.
Being somewhat good back in my own day at rolling smokes of a different type, I took it for granted that you could just "whip one up" with little or no effort. I had no idea that it took that much talent and patience. But then again, this guy has been doing it for about 50 years.
I'd say the one box a day comment was probably about right. He was probably working a bit fast to impress us, so he was able to do a few more than that.
Thanks for the advice again on the cigars, I will test them out as they change and get to experience the change for the pleasure of it.