Go Back   Cigar Weekly Community Forums and Discussion Groups > Smoking Post > Cigar Talk

Cigar Talk A place for cigar enthusiasts to discuss our hobby, legal cigars and related stuff.

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 09-18-2019, 03:04 PM   #6
Maccabee
Member
 
Maccabee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: 320 Lorraine DestrehanLa 70047
Posts: 176
Quote:
Originally Posted by Briandg View Post
In the past you had only a few wrapper designations, mostly green, tan, brown, and really dark brown.

We've started putting the varietal information in. In the boom years Indonesian seed and farming went into tons of junk.

We've crossbred and simply selectively bred numerous varieties to improve them and some of them are now listed with new variety names such as Corojo and criollo, even H2000 by plascencia.

The region is sometimes listed first and the second name is the origin of the seed. Examples are ecuador sumatra, sumatra seed tobacco grown in the cloudy skies of the mountains of ecuador. You will see ecuador connecticut shade as well, connecticut seed usually shade grown in the connecticut river valley region, with that specific seed being grown in ecuador.

Different regions cause different breeds that have adapted over centuries to that environment. Cameroon is a long way from connecticut or cuba, and you have a totally different leaf than anywhere else. Broadleaf is a sturdy, squatty plant meant to be grown in full sun, it creates a heavy wrapper that can be fermented until it's almost black and still usable in tobacco. It obviously started it's journey in connecticut, but now, people grow it in other locations as well. Some people actually subdivide broadleaf by state, such as Pennsylvania broadleaf, even though the seed is probably identical to the rest of the CRV. The only difference in them will be the growing environment. different soils and weather. Cuban seed is an old cliche. Smuggled seeds from cuba were grown in central america and became "cuban seed" or habano stock from whatever country they were grown in.

Cuba has its own catalog of different varieties, and we rip them off constantly. Habana 2000 was a cuban cigarette tobacco that was brought to central america to fight blue mold, a blight that could destroy entire crops in honduras because of wet weather. "Cuban seed" is essentially a nonsense phrase. It means that the specific tobacco was grown anywhere on the planet other than cuba using seeds of cuban origin. It's like reading 'cubanesque' referring to the taste and character of a cuban cigar.

Sun grown means almost nothing, it means that the tobacco was grown in full sun instead of under shade. (see also shade grown)

Sumatra seed grown in ecuador is probably nothing like the original sumatra seed and the growing environment changes the character completely from what must have once been an undesirable weed into one of the most important tobaccos of our time. John Oliva is credited with bringing it to ecuador and creating the top quality varieties that we now have.

Tobacco is always meant to be sort of a mystery, and if it can be made more interesting with a new name or designation it will draw buyers like butterflies to watermelon. Or choose your own metaphor.

So consider this. If you buy an ecuador sumatra wrapper, it's possible, maybe probable, that it's even from the same field as the sumatra wrapper on many other brands. The binder and filler blend as well as treatment are what make it distinctive in most brands.

Treating and fermenting tobacco is really simple, leaves of tobacco are tied into bundles of about twenty, soaked down, and piled into great mountains of wet tobacco leaves. Those leaves start to rot, bacteria and yeasts feeding on the sugar and cellulose. The piles are taken apart and the leaves rotated inwards every few days so that it all rots evenly. When the rotting has taken place long enough, it is all pulled and cleaned, wrapped dry in big aging bales or even barrels, and left to further shed its bad qualites and hopefully develop into better tobacco. What you are seeing is very careful composting, just like you will see in your yard as the leaves that you left under the trees break down over the winter. very careful composting. The more delicate Shade grown is rarely treated with fermentation, mostly just air dried and left to age in barns.

Aging tobaccos and the fermentation are important to region and process, just like growing them. Higeraverage temps in the areas of fermentation will change the process. Different regions will have widely varying composting cultures wild in the air, and will subtly change the ultimate flavor of the tobacco. Barrel aging will take place in sealed barrels that are unlike the plastic or cloth wrapped bales.

There are literally hundreds of varieties and growth regions to use. Fermentation changes from one factory to another, and varies from one type of tobacco to another. For example, Habana 2000 was terrible when first introduced, thick and unsmokable. Nestor plascencia began fermenting it twice. It was worked into a composting pile with labels and when removed, then it was fermented again to make it thinner and more easily burned when smoked.

If you have ever gone shopping for tomato plants you will have seen dozens of varieties and hundreds are available from seed houses. These varieties have been either cross bred or created through selective breeding, just like tobacco. It's interesting to point out that tomatoes and tobacco are of the same family. The family is the solanacea, and it includes both of the above as well as potatoes, eggplants, peppers, and even deadly plants such as belladonna, deadly nightshade, mandrake root, and jimson weed. Jimson weed contains Datura, a commonly used poison in murders during the past, and a powerful hallucinogenic drug still being used today by some. It's also an herbal medicine.
Going to use this to make questions

Sent via Tapatalk
Knight of Christendom
Maccabee is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Bookmarks
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:18 AM.