Thanks leverhead for your generous offer, but I am putting my order together from SustainableSeedCo and they carry Shirazi so I'll order a pack - save you the postage
. I have a few packs of tombac that FmGrowit has pictured, but I smoke it through a pipe. It comes as dried folded leaves and must be moistened to unravel. I put it in my kiln with a crock pot on but no heat - it becomes more pliable as it absorbs moisture.
I really like smoking through the pipe. Try mixing it with a little Latakia and toasted TN-90 from Whole Leaf Tobacco and you get a nice, simple but full-flavored "Balkan" blend. I know it's odd mix, but give it a try if you want to indulge in something a little different than what's available on the market. I intend on growing ten plants of Shirazi - I will let the forum know how it turns out a year from now.
i did a GRIN search on Isfahan, isfahani, asfahana,etc. but I could not find anything. Knucklehead mentioned something about a French seed bank ITB, but all I could find were a few of their hybrid varieties. Was I looking at the wrong site? Imperial-tobacco-Bergerac.com?