Thanks guys. I am most concerned with the final taste of the product. If the final product can be as good or better than bought stogies for less money, I will be growing. And yes Bob, growing veggies and fruit should be taken into consideration as well. There is no question that my homegrown fruit and veggies blows away anything bought from a store. Good to hear that tobaccy is the same way. I am now on the growing and rolling band wagon.
Cigarette leaf may be one thing. Cigar leaf is quite another.
Once a fellow has invested his sweat in home grown plants, he loses the ability to impartially judge the leaf he grew. That's human nature. It's true that he can grow the same habano seed. But he flat out cannot prepare his leaf the same way that Don's leaf has been prepared. Time is the problem; both the time ahead of us and the time behind us. Ahead, which of us has 14 years left in which to shuffle the hands in a pilon every few days while the habano wrapper cures? I'll be eighty by the time this year's crop reaches that maturity. Behind, which of us has generations of experience to know just how and when to shuffle those hands? Yet Don can sell you Habano 2000, cured 14 years by people with generations experience. Are there short cuts? No doubt. FX Smiths Sons will sell you a cigar for a buck the wrapper of which has been turned oscuro by a secret method devised over five generations. Can you discover that method? Sure. It may take you five generations to find it.
I am reminded of the rich Texan whose trophy wife dragged him to Britain on vacation. He admired the ancient bowling green where the tour guide claimed Drake bowled before sailing to meet the Armada, in that famous anecdote illustrating British phlegm. He spotted a gardener.
"This is some fine looking lawn you got here."
"Thank you sir," replied the gardener.
"Say, how can I get some of this grass back home? They would love a lawn like this at the country club. What we got now is mostly devil grass and tumbleweed."
"Why it's really very simple, sir. First, you plant a good quality fescue. Then you roll it, twice a day, for four hundred years."
Time. Time is your enemy when trying to produce the same quality leaf as Don can sell you. It's not like tomatoes. Tomatoes are best fresh. So, no, that's no analogy.
Not to blink the fact there is a very good reason why the best cigar leaf is grown in the same latitudes, Cuba, Nicaragua, Sumatra, Cameroon on the one side of the line, and Brazil on the other side. And do you have the same soil as the sunny Jalapan hillside which generations of experience has taught the old man whose entire life has been devoted to tobacco is the hillside to plant next.
If you think you're growing cigar leaf anywhere near the caliber you can buy from WLT you are only fooling yourself.
Sure, you can buy cigars made from tobacco as bad as your own. The JR Auction sells them every day. Instead, go score a Torano, AVO, Flor de Oliva, or etc. five buck stick and compare that with your leaf and WLT leaf.
However, having said that, I think you are asking the wrong question. For me, it was:
At first: Can I get a top notch product at a price that fits my budget? I can roll a cigar from WLT leaf to my own specs for about seventy cents. People keep sending me expensive cigars which I would never splurge to buy. The other day, I won a contest, guy shoots me ten cigars ranging in price from eight to sixteen bucks apiece. No way I can burn that kind of coin on a regular basis. So far, I have smoked just one of these. Far prefer my own. Once cigars start getting over five bucks a pop, I find the blenders are trying too hard to be special, and so they wind up cranking out a fair proportion of duds. There are certain smokes which I know I can rely on to suit my taste; such as the Ave Maria, the Torano Coloseum, and such. But how often do I have a buck twenty to blow on a box of those? By controlling the ingredients myself, rolling myself, I find I can produce twenty equally enjoyable smokes for fifteen bucks.
That's where I started, at first. But it didn't end there. Not by a long shot. Once I started rolling, I discovered that the joy of immersing yourself in the process and the aroma, and just the act of admiring the leaf, not to speak of the pleasure I get when, once in a while, by happy accident, I manage to roll an exceptionally pretty cigar... I have to run the finished stick in the Bearswatter for her to admire. You just cannot buy that at any price. Any price at all.
I am sure that those of you not crippled by the black thumb which prevents me from growing leaf must get the same satisfaction from raising your own plants. But. I repeat: If you think you're growing cigar leaf anywhere near the caliber you can buy from WLT you are only fooling yourself. My prettiest cigar is nowhere near the consistently perfect stick which Maria Conchita Rosita Guadalupe Luz de Alvarado y Ordonez rolls four hundred times a day en la tabacalera after 30 years experience rolling ten hours a day since the age of eight. Common sense will tell us that. Put it this way: I don't get the satisfaction of the smoke by letting her smoke her cigar; nor do I get the satisfaction of the roll by letting her roll my cigar.
A number of you sent me your home grown products in the drumstick competition. Nothing I smoked there so far dissuades me from this opinion. Anyone who thinks they may have grown cigar leaf equal to Don's, send me a sample to compare, I'll gladly swap you some Uppowoc Perfectos. I'll be open minded. Watch out: I am apt to express my frank opinion.