Contrary to what some people believe, the agave is not a cactus, the agave is a plant that belongs to the agavaceae family, it is long, fibrous, lanceolate, bluish-green in color, whose part that can be used to make Tequila is the pineapple or head.

Agave has been used among other things in:

• Fences to protect estates
• Tiles or roofs, leaves or stalks
• Beams, stems or quiotes
• Spinning for fabrics, the fibers of the stalks
• Paper
• Nails, punches, needles, tips (spines) of the pencas
• Juice, liquor, vinegar, honey, sugar

Maguey is a word that comes from the Antilles. In our region and in different cultures it was recognized with several names: Metl in Nahuatl, Tocamba in Purépecha, Guada in Otomí. Although maguey is not only from Mexico, nowhere else in the world is it as identified with culture, landscape and people as in our country.

By the time of the conquest, in the states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Aguascalientes, natives already made a brandy from the agave plant, which they drank at parties and religious ceremonies. When Spaniards tried it, they were conquered by Mayahuel and they acquired the habit of drinking it on the tip of a cow horn.

Blue agave plant crops embellish Mexican landscape with its pointy leaves. In different places of Mexico, a wide variety of fermented beverages are obtained that receive the generic name of mezcal and take the last name of the population where they are born. The most famous of all is mezcal of Tequila.

There are several species of agave, whose juice can be fermented and distilled for the production of alcoholic beverages, however, only the Tequilana Weber agave in its blue variety is authorized for the production of Tequila. The cultivation of this plant requires the combination of numerous factors such as:

The altitude, preferably at 1500 meters above sea level.

The conditions of the land, favorably volcanic soil, clayey, permeable and abundant in elements derived from basalt and richness in iron.

Pluviosity, about 1 meter annually.

Constant temperature of semi-dry climate that oscillates around 20ºC.

The sun exposure, since it is considered favorable if there are clouds between 65 and 100 days of the year.

The agave tequilana Weber blue variety is an easy to cultivate plant, since it can reproduce in almost any part of the planet. Agave tequilana Weber plant, blue variety, bears certain characteristics that make it different from other agaves, since it is a fleshy, rosy, fibrous, blue or greenish-gray colored plant originated by a high content of waxes that prevent the plant from losing water. Its leaves are rigid, with marginal and apical spines; stores inulin in the stem and produces fructose.

Tequilana Weber agave blue variety reproduction can be given by seed or bulbs, which, due to industrial requirements of production are not used. In these cases the method used is the rhizome, which involves transplanting the shoots that sprout from the root of the plant. When reaching a height of 50cm. and when the pineapple is the size of a grapefruit, they are detached from the mother plant by cutting them with a pickax. The optimum age of an agave to reproduce is between three and five years. A mother plant gives normally one or two shoots per year.

Once the sons of the mother are separated, the planting is carried out just before the rainy season; the new plant must be settled and buried in 75% of its volume, tampering with the soil to ensure the plant.

At the moment of tamping the land, the long process of growing up for the agave begins, which will take from eight to ten years to obtain its maturity, during which it must be maintained; land clearing, fertilization, growth control and disease prevention.

To obtain a high level of quality, during the process there must always be a meticulous selection of the mother plants as well as the children. The growth of the plant requires some tasks to be carried out to help it to produce and preserve the maximum level of inulin in the pineapple.

At the sixth year, to promote its maturity, an action need to be taken (barbeo), this consists of making horizontal cuts in the upper part of the leaves leaving the surface flat. Almost reaching maturity, the barbeo is becoming strict, until leaving the pineapple almost without leaves (pencas), this last barbeo is called punished barbeo.

Once reached the maturity and during the drought months, agave begins to reduce the size of its leaves in the meristem or center, becoming smaller and numerous by the growth of an inflorescence called quiote. This quiote grows rapidly and consumes all the sugars that have accumulated for years, so it is cut.

After agave has reached its full ripeness harvest is carried out. Since in the central part of the plant (heart, pineapple or head) is where the highest amount of sugars are concentrated, it is employed for the elaboration of tequila and all the leaves need to be cut, what is called jima.

The coa is used for doing jima, which is a tool that consists of a bar with extremely sharp semicircular tip, to cut and eliminate the leaves and roots of the pineapple. Depending on the shape of the cut, the age and type of the agave pineapple; it weighs a hundred or more kilograms. The person who performs this process is called a jimador.