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Cuban-style Ecuador Habano Cameroon leaf?

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deluxestogie

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Is this something new on the face of the Earth? This is from a JR Cigars listing for a Honduran Overruns "Ecuador Habano Robusto" by Altadis.

Wrapped in a spicy Cuban-style Ecuador Habano Cameroon leaf...

https://www.jrcigars.com/item/honduran-overruns/ecuador-habano-robusto/ovehro
It all sounds good. The problem is that Cameroon wrapper is derived from Sumatra Deli leaf, not Habano (presumably Vuelta Abajo). But "spicy", "Cuban", "Ecuador", "Habano", and "Cameroon", all in the same wrapper name sounds just wonderful.

Have I missed something?

Bob
 

Chris A

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Perhaps we just need to remember who now owns JR. Marketers will say anything to move product, including stretching the truth. If what they say is true, it would be an interesting smoke.
 

deluxestogie

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Marketers will say anything to move product...
Say it ain't so!

Seriously, when Lou Rothman still owned the company, he was always wildly extravagant in his descriptions, but seemed naively honest is describing actual constituents of his cigars. It's now majority owned by Altadis, the company that brings you so many gooey pipe tobaccos, and a horde of nearly indistinguishable, knockoff cigars under new and creative brand names. The once-excellent JR Alternative cigars, which were all long-filler imitations of famous cigar brands, have degenerated into short-filler embarrassments, overpriced at $25 per 20 stick bulndle.

I used to read every JR catalog cover to cover, then save them in a pile, like National Geographic. Now, I thumb through the latest catalog in about 1 minute, then toss it in the trash.

Bob
 

Chris A

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Don, that's twice you've mentioned stalk position for wrapper leaf. I'll admit my ignorance, is this a thing or just BS? Seems like position would make a difference but I'm no expert. Just hooey? Clue me in.
 

deluxestogie

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I'm not saying that cigar marketeers are liars, per se, but sometimes it's a challenge to fully, entirely trust them.

CigarEye-PoppingPrice.JPG


And those didn't even rate 5 full stars! Do you think they might be willing to discount them down to only $50 per cigar--a savings of a whopping $8.20 per stick?

Bob
 

waikikigun

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I find this question of wrapper priming to be pretty mysterious; it's one of the hardest things to find online info about, in documents or videos. I first started thinking about it when Jorge of Rollerschoice called LO's leaf primings total marketing bullshit some years ago, which is what WLT's Don is doing here and has done in other threads recently. And who should know better than these guys? And yet.... for example in this video we see Nick M clearly talking about CTBL wrapper primings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzd8asClkIo

Is it that only CTBL has differently primed wrappers?
 

deluxestogie

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CTBL is traditionally stalk-harvested, not primed. CT Shade, Sumatra and most other wrappers are leaf primed, since the leaf maturation proceeds sequentially up the stalk. Some of the varieties that I've grown, such as CTBL, Honduran Corojo and Cuban Criollo, matured synchronously, so I stalk-harvested them--even for wrapper.

I've grown a number of wrapper varieties. Since wrappers are tobacco, all wrappers have a stalk level. Like all tobacco, the lower leaves are lighter in color, thinner, larger and milder, while the upper leaves are darker in color, thicker, smaller and more robust in flavor and aroma. This is stalk level, as distinct from leaf priming.

My take on the issue of "wrapper priming level" is that commercially, wrappers are graded by their actual physical characteristics (e.g. color, thickness, size, and strength) and degree of flawlessness. They are not commercially graded as volado, seco, viso, ligero and corona. So listing them as seco, etc. must be conjecture on the part of the retail vendor.

Now, I (and many other growers on the forum) can look at a wrapper and have a pretty good idea of its priming level, but it's just not labeled that way--so I would be guessing. That is, it would be bullshit.

I've also made the bold leap from Spanish to English. My own leaf is labeled mud, lug, leaf, upper, and tips, porque no necesito pretender ser un latinoamericano. I'm an actual, small-time grower.

Bob
 

waikikigun

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Thank you very much. Well then, my take is that, based on this info, it's then not total bullshittery to use these terms as a shortcut to describe what the leaf is gonna be like, even if it is (possibly, or possibly not) bullshit as a description of stalk-position. As a consumer interested in a general description of the leaf's character, this is helpful info even if it is agronomoclatural trickery.


The "seco" leaves sold by this here-unnamed vendor are thinner, larger, lighter, less strong than the "viso," and the "viso" less so than the "ligero." It would be unwieldy to avoid this shorthand in the naming conventions on the product page, when the vendor sells three versions of the same-seed, same origin leaf, from big and thin and light to smaller and darker and thicker and stronger.
 

deluxestogie

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I'm not sure that I agree. Single varieties of wrapper may have two dozen or more grades. I suppose if you're satisfied with "mild", "medium", and "hot", then it will get you in the neighborhood. Manufacturers (and whole leaf merchants) are provided with the actual grading designations, and aren't relegated to emoji descriptions.

Bob
 

waikikigun

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I'm not sure that I agree. Single varieties of wrapper may have two dozen or more grades. I suppose if you're satisfied with "mild", "medium", and "hot", then it will get you in the neighborhood. Manufacturers (and whole leaf merchants) are provided with the actual grading designations, and aren't relegated to emoji descriptions.

Bob
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
 

Dominican56

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Advertising Mendacity! Say it ain't so. :)
bullshittery is a good word. I like it.
 

Jim D

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It would seem that if a vendor took the time to break the wrappers down into 12 or 32 different grades, we would have 12 or 32 different price points too. I'm not that discerning, I'm going to burn the stick and never see it again. I'm good with three broad categories such as mild, medium, hot or seco, viso, ligero to communicate broad characteristics of the leaves.
 
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