Buy Tobacco Leaf Online | Whole Leaf Tobacco

I've polluted my own mind

Status
Not open for further replies.

FmGrowit

Head Honcho
Staff member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
5,281
Points
113
Location
Freedom, Ohio, United States
My knee-jerk reaction to the 2400% tax increase on tobacco was to grow my own. Having experience in the industry only as farmhand, I was hardly qualified to become a "tobacco farmer".

In all practicality, I knew nothing about tobacco since being a user of tobacco doesn't make me an authority on the subject. My tobacco project started with completely random purchases of various types of tobacco seeds from several on-line vendors and from a local source where I was once that farmhand. Fast forward 9 -10 months, one of the first things I realized is the vast differences in the types of tobacco I grew. These differences are fundamental to what each variety would be used for. Out of the nearly 100 different varieties I've grown, maybe 10% of them taste the same as another variety, but even those have different growing characteristics than the ones they taste similar to.

Now that I'm finding myself more interested in cigars, the same nagging question keeps coming up. "What varieties of tobacco are used by the major manufacturers?" The basic information exists on what leaf position is is used and what it is used for (wrapper, binder, filler). many manufacturers even disclose where the leaf is grown (Honduras, Dominican Republic, Ecuador etc.), but there is little information of what variety is used.

With having such little information, the only option was to re-invent the cigar. One of the most widely accepted creations I've made was using 100% Oriental tobacco. They are very aromatic and it can even be inhaled if you want to. Currently, I'm blending Burley, and a traditional filler with a strip of perique and a CT Shade Leaf wrapper....there's one commercially available cigar made with Perique.

My thoughts on the feasibility of re-inventing the cigar is...if Acid cigars sell, so will unconventional blends of natural tobacco.
 

deluxestogie

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
23,931
Points
113
Location
near Blacksburg, VA
After the start of the Cuban embargo, the entire Central American cigar industry was founded on Cuban seed smuggled out of Cuba in a diplomatic pouch. All the great Central American cigar blenders of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and even up to the present, were Cubans. So most of today's non-Cuban premium cigars are from tweaks on original Cuban seed varieties, and taste fairly similar to Habanos. Ecuador Sumatra wrappers are an exception that was developed by Oliva a little over 20 years ago.

Even prior to the embargo, many famous American made cigars were made entirely from imported Havana leaf.

BUT...there have always been some truly American cigars. Today, these are represented by the products of National Cigar Corp and F. D. Grave, as well as a few one-man shops. The F.D. Grave 'Perfecto 100' is the only long filler cigar I know of that retains the traditional American taste (although it is machine made), with American grown tobacco. All of the others are cut filler--some with homogenized sheet binders; some with natural leaf binders. The Marsh-Wheeling deluxe stogie (made from all-American floor sweepings) is one of my favorites.

Given today's genuinely absurd prices of factory-made cigars, it only made sense for me to learn to roll my own cigars. I've actually come to prefer my own blends of cigar to most commercial cigars (EXCEPT Hoyo de Monterey!). The occasional boutique cigars that I now smoke are impressive works of art to look at, but have little flavor and way too much nicotine (too much ligero). That latter fad began about 12 years ago, and has only gotten worse.

On the question of selling an American made cigar, the economics of it are bleak. The many affordable brands from National and F.D. Grave doubled in price overnight, when the current tax went into effect. And all the marketing venues are clearly biased against cigars that don't have a somewhat Cuban taste. (Cigar Aficionado managed to kill the booming Te Amo Mexican brand in just one issue.)

So I believe making new cigar blends is a joy. Figuring out how to market them and sell them at a profit is a scary prospect.

Bob

P.S. As I write this, I am smoking a fat cigar of Orinoco Blanco filler, with a thin strip of FmGrowit heavy Perique, an R.S.E. (Liberian) binder and a CT Shade wrapper. Flavorful, smooth, very nice smoke.
 
Last edited:

FmGrowit

Head Honcho
Staff member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
5,281
Points
113
Location
Freedom, Ohio, United States
Maybe I should re-state some of my comments...
I'm not really looking for a way to imitate existing cigar blends, but knowing what they're growing would give me some direction as to what varieties are preferred in the manufacture of cigars.

With that being said...If Acid cigars are popular with cigar smokers, my guess is the market has room for other non-traditional blends of tobacco. I think it would be interesting to create some original blends of tobacco based on experienced cigars smokers expectations. I'll refer back to the 100% Oriental cigars I've made, there was not a single negative comment made about them. The most frequent comments were "I'm surprised how mild this is", "I like this and I don't even like cigars", "Do you sell these?" and "Can I have your phone number?".

If I were to identify a series of blends that appealed to cigar smokers, I would do a test grow of small scale production crop and hire the rolling and labeling out.

It's just my nature to always be thinking of a better mouse trap.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top