GreenDragon
Well-Known Member
This year after my main harvest of leaves I cut the stalks off about a foot off the ground and let them regrow from suckers in order to have a second crop of flowers for the hummingbirds and bees. When my wife was ready to plant her fall crops I dutifully pulled the plants and prepped the beds with fresh compost, fertilizer, and straw. However, some of the tobacco plants had some very beautiful leaves that I just had to try to do something with, even though they were a little shy of being “ripe” enough for traditional harvesting. I picked the best ones anyway and decided to see if processing them in the Rajangan style would produce a usable product. The two varieties I experimented with were Japan 8 (a dark air strain) and Little Dutch.
So I shredded the leaf by rolling fat “cigars” of about 15 leaves and cut with a chef’s knife into strips approximately 1/8” to 1/16” wide. I placed the shredded leaf into gallon plastic bags (unsealed) and left in the sun for a week. I used plastic bags instead of the traditional trays for sun curing as the humidity had dropped to unseasonable levels and it would have flash dried green if I had left them exposed in trays. I flipped / shook the bags often to provide even sun exposure and redistribute moisture. After 7 days the leaf had turned a nice chocolate brown, with just a few strips remaining semi-green. I would have continued on with the sun cure a few more days but the wife was canning string beans from the garden in her new pressure cooker, so I jarred the leaf and had her can it at 15 psi for an hour. It turned into a beautiful dark brown cavendish, which I then air dried for two days. The result was very much like a shag cut dark cavendish. I decided to make two small batches of pipe tobacco to try them out.
The first was a batch of CAVEndish from Bob’s book 90 More Pipe Blends featuring the Little Dutch cavendish. This resulted in a smooth, medium rich tasting smoke.
The second blend I made on the fly using the following mix: Lemon VA (5), Red VA (7), Xanthi (3), Perique (2), and Japan 8 Cavendish (7). This was also an enjoyable smoke; burned well, balanced, and showcased the excellent WLT Virginias. I called this blend “The Party Tree”.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised to produce a usable product out of leaf I would have normally just thrown away. I plan on experimenting more next year with primed, ripe, first crop leaf.
So I shredded the leaf by rolling fat “cigars” of about 15 leaves and cut with a chef’s knife into strips approximately 1/8” to 1/16” wide. I placed the shredded leaf into gallon plastic bags (unsealed) and left in the sun for a week. I used plastic bags instead of the traditional trays for sun curing as the humidity had dropped to unseasonable levels and it would have flash dried green if I had left them exposed in trays. I flipped / shook the bags often to provide even sun exposure and redistribute moisture. After 7 days the leaf had turned a nice chocolate brown, with just a few strips remaining semi-green. I would have continued on with the sun cure a few more days but the wife was canning string beans from the garden in her new pressure cooker, so I jarred the leaf and had her can it at 15 psi for an hour. It turned into a beautiful dark brown cavendish, which I then air dried for two days. The result was very much like a shag cut dark cavendish. I decided to make two small batches of pipe tobacco to try them out.
The first was a batch of CAVEndish from Bob’s book 90 More Pipe Blends featuring the Little Dutch cavendish. This resulted in a smooth, medium rich tasting smoke.
The second blend I made on the fly using the following mix: Lemon VA (5), Red VA (7), Xanthi (3), Perique (2), and Japan 8 Cavendish (7). This was also an enjoyable smoke; burned well, balanced, and showcased the excellent WLT Virginias. I called this blend “The Party Tree”.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised to produce a usable product out of leaf I would have normally just thrown away. I plan on experimenting more next year with primed, ripe, first crop leaf.