Originally Posted by smkr  Turkish/Burley/Virginia? |
[Warning: I will not swear by any of the following. It is a top of my head summary of bits and pieces of things I have read over the years. All I will say it is to the best of what I remember reading from people who do know what they are talking about.]
Look closely at what you smoke. The dark brown is Burley and the light brown is Bright. Depending upon the soil they grow in the flavor varies. Bright in tobacco territory of Virginia is called Virginia. You can also get Virginia from the Carolinas although the taste is slightly different.
Burley gives the rough throat feel, the body, of a blend. The Bright gives the complex flavors.
Generalities are simple.
Next you cure tobacco. This brings out different flavors. Anaerobic curing gives you Periques. I think Periques start as Brights from the deep south but I would not swear to it. If you let bales of tobacco sit on the dock too long in the hot, humid summers of the South waiting for the steamboat you discover natural curing/fermentation and producers all of the country try to duplicate it in some way. In the process they learn to produce different flavors with different fermentation methods. Details are trade secrets.
You can also post process. All Burley is unpleasant. But you can "toast" it akin to roasting coffee which reduces the roughness and brings out flavors. Do this just right and you have created the original Lucky Strikes. Today there is Two Timer which quite close.
Alternatively you can plant tobacco in an narrow patch of land from northern Greece to Western Turkey and give it the local magic curing process you get Turkish of which there are several distinct varieties. And if you mix Turkish with Virginia Brights you get Camels.
So the answer to your question is, who knows and who cares? Find what you like and trust your blender. Because of weather conditions the Virginia that produced the taste you like might come from Virginia one year and South Carolina the next. Trust your blender. That is why they pay him the big bucks.
So really your only seriously different tastes are all Burley and with or without some amount of Turkish up to all Turkish and Perique curing. That statement applies only to what is commonly available in the US. Europeans have developed other curing methods. I presumes Asians have also.
But wait, there's more!
The finer the cut the hotter it burns. The volatiles we like are released by the hot air behind the burning tip. A light puff tastes different from a long deep drag because the latter is hotter. The burning temperature determined by the cut sets a temperature for a norm puff. Different temperatures determine different profiles for the release of the volatiles that are the flavor of the blend.
And the Awshit.
The only difference between between high tax cigarette tobacco for rolling and pipe tobacco is only how fine the cut, cigarette being the finer cut. So to avoid the higher tax rate it has to be the lower temperature coarse cut. Because of that the blend has to change to give the same flavor from the lower temperature.
Of course nothing is perfect. Before the last tax increase I found a couple of favorites after testing different blends over two years. After it I did not like my favorites and started searching again. It was quicker this time to find a regular favorite.
I love these simple questions.
02-02-2012, 05:43 AM
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