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First Tutu Blend

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Tutu

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So I've been in the Netherlands for a few weeks now and I have for the first time made my own cigarette blend. It consisted of leaf that was grown in both Indonesia and the Netherlands. The goal was to create a no-residue, organic sort of blend. It consisted of only a handful of varieties.

Kasturi grown in Indonesia, sun cured, and fermented for 4 months.
Ainaro grown in Indonesia, dark air cured and fermented for 2 months.
Amersfoort grown in Indonesia, sun cured and fermented for 4 months.
Amersfoort grown in the Netherlands, air cured and aged for 6 months.

Of the Amersfoort, one set was grown in Gelderland and cured in the same location. Another set of leafs was grown in Utrecht and cured in Gelderland. The ones grown in Gelderland turned out a bright yellow cure, the stuff grown in Utrecht was more of a light brown.

We choose a nice bright day to make the blend so that we could dry some leaf a little extra in the sun and take them through our Polish tobacco cutrag mill. I think I took most of the stuff through the male a good two or three times before you could actually use it to properly shoot cigarettes from and roll other things with.

I think I was rather skeptic from the start that this blend would turn out proper. I had smoked some of the Indonesian stuff together in a blend and it wasn't the greatest taste. But to our surprise, this blend turned out awesome. It was a real mild smoke with a bit of taste to it, but nothing dramatic. I was slightly surprised that the Kasturi didn't give a larger nicotine boost than it did. The other stuff must have been even lower in nicotine. Personally I think the nice thing about this blend is that the tobacco was grown in two completely different climates, but with the same principals in mind.

Here are a few shots from the process and the end result:

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Leftynick

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Nice one Tutu. I am surprised that Netherland weed are not one of the ingredient listed. :)

I am also enjoying my fruit of labor now. It is the same as you, low in nicotine department. But mine has more taste, I think because of my oriental varieties.
 

Charly

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I am very happy your blend turned out good :)
It's great to smoke and appreciate your own tobacco :)

I have never found cigarettes I enjoy ... I am more a pipe and cigar smoker :)
Thinking about it... when I see the size of some cigars I roll, it's not much bigger than a cigarette :D so I might have found cigarettes I like in the end :D :D

And great pictures :)
 

Hasse SWE

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Thanks for sharing this with us Tutu, it's really interesting to follow this (even if I ain't a smoker myself). Nice pictures and interesting reading.
 

Tutu

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Neither do I smoke cigarettes myself. I tried one from this blend without inhaling, as if it were a cigar, just to taste the tobacco. With the joint I'm a little less innocent though. But for me that's the better benchmark.
 

Bex

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Which of the shredded tobaccos is the Amersfoort? Here is a photo of "Irish' Amersfoort, planted out on July 2 (germinated around April 14), and growing in a slightly 'sheltered' bed in rather cool, wet and windy conditions. Each of the plants is almost 4 feet tall, and most of them are starting to bud:

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I'm getting my shed ready to air cure them - I think that sun curing is somewhat of a non-runner. My 'goal' is to blend them with the LV that I'm growing to see what kind of smoke (cigarette) I get.....
 

burge

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Some tobacco doesn't taste good by itself but when blended can bring out flavours that you never knew was there.
 

Tutu

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Which of the shredded tobaccos is the Amersfoort?

I'd overlooked this post. It's everywhere to be honest. If you look at the plate which has three distinct colours, the lightest and the second lightest coloured are both Amersfoort. The lightest one was grown and cured in Gelderland. The other that turned out a little browner was grown in Utrecht and cured in Gelderland. The third, darkest bunch is leaf grown and cured in Indonesia. From the leafs in that blend, one came from an Amersfoort plant. But in the Indonesian little pile of shredded leafs there are other varieties in there too.
 

Tutu

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It's a Maryland. But it's hard to make out the taste of it in this blend, also because it was grown and cured at three different locations. I don't think Dark Air Curing the leaf in the Netherlands and Sun Curing it in Indonesia give very similar results.
 

Bex

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I'd overlooked this post.
Funny....I'd overlooked this, as well. I have to remember to get email reminders when there are answers, rather than monthly....LOL.

A Maryland - so a kind of burley, IIRC from my reading here. I'd tried to grow a Maryland here before, with not so great results. I think that the Amersfoort may be the answer. It will be interesting to see how Irish air curing affects it......
 

Tutu

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In the 40's they'd cure it in dark air cure barns. There's about twenty of them left in the area close to were I grew up. Further back in time I think they probably air cured it. Both my friend and my mum hang it in the garage last spring and the results are, as shown above, a very yellow cure. Very mild, not much taste if you ask me. For the blend I made that was good, because the Indonesian grown stuff was quite heavy.
 
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