Leaf count for comprising the filler of a specific cigar size is something of an industrial notion. How many nuts? How many bolts? How many cups of flour?
Even with commercially procured (e.g. WLT) filler of a specific variety and priming level, the mass of a de-stemmed leaf can vary by as much as 400% from other leaves in the bag. This variability is even more apparent with home-grown leaf. Also at issue is the variability of strength within a single, named batch of leaf (e.g. Habano viso).
I confess that I don't use a scale to weight filler, and couldn't for the life of me say how much a particular size and shape cigar "should" weigh. I will agree that total mass of filler should be consistent when using a cigar mold. But I seldom use a cigar mold. Furthermore, it is a rare day that I attempt to duplicate an exact blend. [I don't sell cigars, so it doesn't matter at all.]
The more cigars I roll, the better my intuition about proportions of available ingredients to make a smokable blend of filler. And month by month, year by year, my selection of ingredients changes like fresh local fruit: first it's cherries, then peaches and apricots, followed by pears, and eventually apples. In a manner similar to making an omelette, my filler blending strategy happens as I gather today's available components for each cigar. Another cigar, another blend. That's really the fun of it for a home-roller.
Reading about someone else's cigar blend is always interesting. I thank everyone for posting their creative blends. And given the wobbly consistency of your leaf vs. my leaf, I always regard a posted recipe as a starting point. [There are probably more cigar recipes on this forum than in all the rest of the world combined. Yay FTT!]
Bob
