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Oriental or Turkish?

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Knucklehead

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I think Oriental covers the tobaccos from Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. When I hear Turkish I think of the tobaccos traditionally grown there. The term Turkish has become a kind of generic term to describe all Orientals, but I don't think it should be. I'm looking forward to Istanbulin's input on this one. He's a fairly knowledgeable Oriental. Or would that be Turk?
 

deluxestogie

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Most of the southern European regions currently growing Oriental tobacco (mentioned by Knucklehead) were once a part of the Ottoman Empire, which broke down following WWI. Since tobacco was a state monopoly, all the tobacco grown in those more distant parts of the Ottoman Empire were exported from Turkey.

Bob
 

istanbulin

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As you guys said all of the Oriental growing regions were a part of Ottoman Empire. But the term "Turkish tobacco" is because of the Europeans calling Ottoman Empire as Turkey. First, Venetians and Genoveses called Ottoman Empire as "Turchia" (Turkey in Italian). So, because of this all the tobacco grown in Ottoman Empire was called Turkish tobacco all around.

Raynal and Bonne's map of "La Turquie d'Europe et celle d'Asie" - 1780 -> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-_Geographicus_-_TurquieEurope-bonne-1780.jpg
 

chillardbee

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One of the reasons why I asked is that on Skychasers site, he has varieties listed as oriental and others as turkish. I look up some of these on the GRIN and there is no catagory for turkish, everything is labeled oriental even for ones associated with the term 'turkish' like Izmir, samsun, bafra, bursa, and basma. I think I like Knucks way of thinking on this that those varieties that are grown commercially in those areas (mention by Knucks) are considered turkish. Ive been on some of the commercial cigerette sites and they use the term oriental rather than turkish when talking about tobacco types yet the baccy they are refering to does come, for the most part, from those eastern europe countries.
 

Knucklehead

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To add more confusion are the varieties grown in what was once the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They have their own GRIN classification "Hungarian". Some of them, like Bitlis, have a very Oriental flavor.
 

istanbulin

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It's better to get rid of nationalistic ideas out of tobacco (as well as other plants), all Oriental varieties used to be named as "Turkish" in the past (because of the situation explained above). The term "Turkish tobacco" is not a nationalistic term, this is how merchants used to call to differ them from other tobacco types. Now all of this type tobaccos are considered/called as Oriental, including Hungarian (I don't know who invented this class, a total made up). But if you want to differentiate Oriental varieties from one to another you may use terms like Turkish Oriental, Greek Oriental, Macedonian Oriental, Bulgarian Oriental etc., this is how tobacco companies sometimes call them nowadays.
Calling Turkish to those varieties (Turkish Orientals) is a cultural/traditional/commercial matter coming from the past so it's not wrong. But if you call a Oriental variety grown in Hungary as Hungarian, this never make sense (in modern day terminology). I think because of this, Sky wrote " Oriental/Hungarian " there and I think it is very well defined like this.
BTW, Bitlis is a Turkish variety.
 

Knucklehead

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I knew Bitlis tasted alot like Izmir to me. GRIN has it classed as a Hungarian. Very confusing. Another reason not to go by nationalistic descriptors is that I have Orientals from Bulgaria, but I also have a Flue Cure variety from Bulgaria, Ostrolist B-27-47, so I couldn't just call them all "Bulgarians". I also have a Rustica from Turkey. :confused:
 

Brown Thumb

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I would never think Turkish Ismir would be classified with Rustica.
But it is?
 

deluxestogie

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istanbulin,
I love the 1780 map. That is likely the map (a copy of it) that Napoleon carried with him during his Egyptian campaign twenty years later. And yes, he was surprised when he got there. [As another side-note, the British Admiralty used a flat map--one without topographical features--to plan their disastrous WWI assault of Gallipoli. Oops! It's really steep!] A good map is power.

With regard to rustica, it's a different species.

Bob
 

FmGrowit

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My understanding of the type is merely tradition. Back in the 1500's when tobacco seeds found their way into Europe from the "new world", the far Eastern Mediterranean was the "Orient". Therefore the tobacco grown there (Turkey/Ottoman empire) was known as Oriental. On my website, I refer to the type as Turkish/Oriental.
 

chillardbee

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deluxestogie

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In Barbara Hahn's Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) 2011, we find that in the late 19th century (late 1800s), when the US Government first became involved in regulating tobacco markets, specific classes of tobacco that were typically used at that moment in particular branches of tobacco commerce were enshrined in federal regulations. These "antique" use classes persist.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Tobacco-Bright-Commodity-Technology/dp/1421402866
[I don't really recommend the book for general reading. It contains numerous misconceptions and flat-out errors.]

Also, keep in mind that the many low-paid employees who categorized the flood of tobacco accessions pouring into the seed bank over the years often used a wild guess to categorize a new accession, based on now-unknown criteria. That is to say, today's GRIN data contains mistakes and mis-categorizations.

Bob
 

Knucklehead

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I would never think Turkish Ismir would be classified with Rustica.
But it is?

Izmir is classed as an Oriental by GRIN. The Turkish Rustica I mentioned is Hasankeyf. Istanbulin did a review of it here: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3791-Hasankeyf

I was just making the point of the confusion that can be created by using nationalistic descriptors to tobacco produced in a specific country. I have Orientals and a flue cured variety from Bulgaria. I have Orientals and a Rustica from Turkey. It would be like calling all the varieties produced in the US "United States Tobacco", lumping Flue Cured, Burley, Maryland, etc. into one group.
 
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