My first reply was short and a bit flippant, so I will elaborate and tell you what I really think.
I smoke a pipe now and then. Almost never smoke cigars. So I can't really speak to the quality of those two. I would assume some of the high end cigars you can buy are pretty good. At least I would hope so. But when it comes to commercial cigarettes, I can tell you home grown tobacco is immensely better.
I smoked Camels for years. I always thought they were pretty darn good smokes until they changed the blend about 10 years ago. I hate the new blend. The old blend had a Turkish strain in it that gave them a slightly sweet flavor and a wonderful aroma. (at least to me) I used to say I could sniff out a Camel at 100 yards. I LOVED the Camel exotic blends until the gov forced them off the market. Anyone else remember these?
http://cigarettesportal.com/camel-exotic-blends/
Camel changed the blend about the same time Good King Barry raised all the feds tobacco taxes from 100 to 2000%. Our state already had the highest state tax in the nation, but decided it was a good time to add even more. I think WA is now a close 2nd to NY. We used to switch back and forth with them but I really don't keep up on it, or care anymore. This was my breaking point where I decided F*** THEM ALL, I'll grow my own! Of course everyone told me I couldn't grow it in my area, including my local WSDA agent. Needless to say, I didn't listen to them.
I made lots of mistakes my first year, like most people do, but still ended up with a pretty good crop. I grew up on a farm and have had a garden all my life so that gave me some advantages over a lot of first year growers. Curing and drying was the most difficult to master. I saw my fair share of mold and a few flash drys green. It's a bit of an art, but not really that difficult once you learn how to adapt the process to your local climate and the facilities you have to work with.
I tried smoking some of my first crop a couple weeks after it had dried, and it was AWFUL! I would have rated it a 1 at best. I didn't know about aging then and how important it was. I boxed it up and tried to forget about it. About 9 months later I decided to give it another try before I tossed it all. And holy flirking snit! What a difference! I have not bought a pack since.
I found a forum full of people who had all the answers I was still looking for. A lot of them are here on FTT now. Armed with some knowledge, in year two I went all in and grew several different strains and it didn't take me long to replicate my old beloved Camels. Except for one difference. Mine tasted even better! For years I had smoked what I thought was pretty good tobacco, but I was wrong. I had never smoked 100% pure, unprocessed, unaltered leaf before. There is really no comparison to commercial cigarettes.
The other big difference I noticed was in what commercial cigs had been doing to me. After decades of smoking I had a bit of a smokers cough. Not bad, but kind of a constant throat clearing cough. If I took a really deep breath, I had a little rasp at the bottom and 3-4 deep breaths would make me cough. After 2 months of smoking my home grown it all went away. No cough, no rasping. I used to get some pretty bad migraines and those seemed to stop about then too. I would never tell anyone smoking my home grown is harmless, but I KNOW it is a hell of a lot less harmful than what I used to smoke. I've learned a lot more over the years about the tobacco industry and commercial cigs. Like the fact they are up to 40% stems, flying's and paper mixed with the tobacco as fillers. And the 599 additives allowed by the government. I bum a smoke from someone now and then just to see how they taste to me. I taste C grade tobacco and chemicals. Hard to believe I used to like them now.
If you want to smoke real quality pure leaf tobacco, grow your own. Or buy it from Don or BB. You will be much happier and your wallet will be much fatter. And the endlessly greedy tax man will get nothing.
