This article includes a list of tobacco cultivars and varieties.
Types = Aromatic Fire-cured=
Aromatic Fire-cured smoking tobacco is a robust variety of tobacco used as a
condimental for pipe blends. It is cured by smoking over gentle fires. In the
United States, it is grown in northern middle Tennessee, western Kentucky and
in Virginia. Fire-cured tobacco grown in Kentucky and Tennessee is used in some
chewing tobaccos, moist snuff, some cigarettes and as a condiment leaf in
pipe tobacco blends. It has a rich, slightly floral taste, and adds body and
aroma to the blend. = Latakia=
Another fire-cured tobacco is Latakia and is produced from oriental varieties
of N. tabacum. The leaves are cured and smoked over smoldering fires of local
hardwoods and aromatic shrubs in Cyprus and Syria. Latakia has a pronounced
flavor and a very distinctive smoky aroma, and is used in Balkan and
English-style pipe tobacco blends. = Brightleaf tobacco=
Brightleaf tobacco is commonly known as "Virginia tobacco", regardless of where
in the world it is harvested. Prior to the American Civil War, most tobacco
grown in the US was fire-cured dark-leaf. This type of tobacco was
planted in fertile lowlands, used a robust variety of leaf, and was either
fire cured or air cured. Sometime after the War of 1812, demand
for a milder, lighter, more aromatic tobacco arose. Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Maryland all innovated with milder varieties of the tobacco plant. Farmers
around the country experimented with different curing processes. But the
breakthrough did not come until around 1839.
Growers had noticed that sandy, highland soil produced thinner, weaker plants.
Captain Abisha Slade, of Caswell County, North Carolina had considerable
infertile, sandy soil, and planted the new "gold-leaf" varieties on it. Slade
owned a slave, Stephen, who around 1839 accidentally produced the first true
bright tobacco. He used charcoal to restart a fire used to cure the crop.
The surge of heat turned the leaves yellow. Using that discovery, Slade
developed a system for producing bright tobacco, cultivated on poorer soils and
using charcoal for heat-curing. Slade made many public appearances to
share the bright-leaf process with other farmers. His success helped him build a
brick house in Yanceyville, North Carolina, and at one time he had many
servants. News spread through the area pretty
quickly. The infertile sandy soil of the Appalachian piedmont was suddenly
profitable, and people rapidly developed flue-curing techniques, a more efficient
way of smoke-free curing. Farmers discovered that Bright leaf tobacco
needs thin, starved soil, and those who could not grow other crops found that
they could grow tobacco. Formerly unproductive farms reached 20–35 times
their previous worth. By 1855, six Piedmont counties adjoining Virginia
ruled the tobacco market. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the
town of Danville, Virginia had developed a bright-leaf market for the surrounding
area in Caswell County, North Carolina and Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
Danville was also the main railway head for Confederate soldiers going to the
front. These brought bright tobacco with them from Danville to the lines, traded
it with each other and Union soldiers, and developed quite a taste for it. At
the end of the war, the soldiers went home and a national market had developed
for the local crop. Caswell and Pittsylvania counties were the only two
counties in the South that increased in total wealth after the war.
Most Canadian cigarettes are made from 100% pure Virginia tobacco.
= Burley= The origin of White Burley tobacco was
credited to a Mr. Webb in 1864, who grew it near Higginsport, Ohio, from seed
from Bracken County, Kentucky. He noticed it yielded a different type of
light leaf shaded from white to yellow, and cured differently. By 1866, he
harvested 20,000 pounds of Burley tobacco and sold it in 1867 at the St.
Louis Fair for $58 per hundred pounds. By 1883, the principal market for this
tobacco was Cincinnati, but it was grown throughout central Kentucky and Middle
Tennessee. In 1880 Kentucky produced 36 percent of the total national tobacco
production, and was first in the country, with nearly twice as much
tobacco produced as by Virginia, then the second-place state.
Burley tobacco is a light air-cured tobacco used primarily for cigarette
production. In the United States, it is produced in an eight-state belt with
approximately 70 percent produced in Kentucky. Tennessee produces
approximately 20 percent, with smaller amounts produced in Indiana, North
Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Burley tobacco is
produced in many other countries, with major production in Brazil, Malawi and
Argentina. In the U.S., burley tobacco plants are started from pelletized seeds
placed in polystyrene trays floated on a bed of fertilized water in March or
April. = Cavendish=
Cavendish is a process of curing and a method of cutting tobacco and is not a
type of tobacco. The processing and the cut are used to bring out the natural
sweet taste in the tobacco. Cavendish can be produced out of any tobacco type
but is usually one of, or a blend of; Kentucky, Virginia, and Burley and is
most commonly used for pipe tobacco and cigars.
The process begins by pressing the tobacco leaves into a cake about an inch
thick. Heat from fire or steam is applied, and the tobacco is allowed to
ferment. This is said to result in a sweet and mild tobacco. Finally the cake
is sliced. These slices must be broken apart, as by rubbing in a circular
motion between one's palms, before the tobacco can be evenly packed into a
pipe. Flavoring is often added before the leaves are pressed. English
Cavendish uses a dark flue or fire cured Virginia, which is steamed and then
stored under pressure to permit it to cure and ferment for several days or
weeks. = Corojo=
Corojo is a type of tobacco used primarily in the making of cigars,
originally grown in the Vuelta Abajo region of Cuba.
Corojo was originally developed and grown by Diego Rodriguez at his farm or
vega, Santa Ines del Corojo, and takes its name from the farm. It was used as a
wrapper extensively for many years on Cuban cigars, but its susceptibility to
various diseases, Blue mold in particular, caused the Cuban genetic
engineers to develop various hybrid forms that would not only be
disease-resistant, but would also display excellent wrapper qualities.
= Criollo= Criollo is primarily used in the making
of cigars. It was, by most accounts, one of the original Cuban tobaccos that
emerged around the time of Columbus. The term means native seed, and thus a
tobacco variety using the term, such as Dominican Criollo, may or may not have
anything to do with the original Cuban seed nor the recent hybrid, Criollo '98.
= Dokha= Dokha, is a tobacco originally grown in
Iran, mixed with leaves, bark, and herbs for smoking in a midwakh.
= Ecuadorian Sumatra= Mr. Jose Aray Marin, founder of the Don
Cervantes factory, developed the world famous Ecuadoran Sumatra breed in 1967.
It is now considered the world’s premium cigar wrapper leaf and is in demand by
cigar manufacturers’ worldwide. = Habano=
Habano cigar wrapper is a leaf grown from a Cuban seed, hence the word
“Habano” or “Havano,” referring to Cuba’s capitol. Habano tobacco wrapper
is darker in color, has a much spicier flavor, a richer aroma, and has been
grown in Nicaragua’s Jalapa Valley and Estelí since the 1990’ s.
= Habano 2000= Habana 2000 is a cross between El
Corojo, the standard wrapper leaf from the Vuelta Abajo, the Cuban region that
many believe produces the best cigar tobacco in the world, and a tobacco
called Bell 61-10, a mild cigarette tobacco that’s more resistant to blue
mould than cigar tobacco. The Cubans first crossed El Corojo and Bell 61-10
tobacco to create something they called Habana 2.1.1. Then they took the new
mixture and crossed it again with El Corojo, arriving at Habano 2000.
= Maduro= Maduro is a process for bringing out the
sweetness of a tobacco leaf. Maduro is a Spanish word meaning "ripe." Maduro
wrappers come from fermenting tobacco in pilones at higher temperatures and with
more humidity than other tobacco types. = Oriental Tobacco=
Oriental tobacco is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety that is
grown in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon, and the Republic of Macedonia.
Oriental tobacco is frequently referred to as "Turkish tobacco", as these
regions were all historically part of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the early
brands of cigarettes were made mostly or entirely of Oriental tobacco; today, its
main use is in blends of pipe and especially cigarette tobacco.
= Perique= Perhaps the most strongly flavored of
all tobaccos is the Perique, from Saint James Parish, Louisiana. When the
Acadians made their way into this region in 1755, the Choctaw and Chickasaw
tribes were cultivating a variety of tobacco with a distinctive flavor. A
farmer called Pierre Chenet is credited with first turning this local tobacco
into the Perique in 1824 through the technique of pressure-fermentation.
Considered the truffle of pipe tobaccos, the Perique is used as a component of
many blended pipe tobaccos, but is too strong to be smoked pure. At one time,
the freshly moist Perique was also chewed, but none is now sold for this
purpose. It is traditionally a pipe tobacco, and is still very popular with
pipe-smokers, typically blended with pure Virginia to lend spice, strength,
and coolness to the blend. = Shade tobacco=
It is not well known that the northern US states of Connecticut and
Massachusetts are also two of the most important tobacco-growing regions in the
country. Long before Europeans arrived in the area, Native Americans cultivated
tobacco along the banks of the Connecticut River. Today, the
Connecticut River valley north of Hartford, Connecticut is known as
"Tobacco Valley", and the fields and drying sheds are visible to travelers on
the road to and from Bradley International Airport, the major
Connecticut airport. Connecticut shade tobacco is grown under
tents to protect plant leaves from direct sunlight. This imitates the
conditions of tobacco plants growing in the shade of trees in tropical areas.
The result is leaves of lighter color and of a more delicate structure. They
are used as outer wrappers for some of the world's finest cigars. It is not
entirely clear who introduced this method of growing tobacco, but it is
likely that the New York firm of Schroeder & Bon or its founder Frederick
A. Schroeder were instrumental in developing this agricultural innovation.
Early Connecticut colonists acquired from the Native Americans the habit of
smoking tobacco in pipes and began cultivating the plant commercially, even
though the Puritans referred to it as the "evil weed". The plant was outlawed
in Connecticut in 1650, but in the 19th century as cigar smoking began to be
popular, tobacco farming became a major industry, employing farmers, laborers,
local youths, southern African Americans, and migrant workers.
Working conditions varied from backbreaking work for young local
children, ages 13 and up, to backbreaking exploitation of migrants.
Each tobacco plant yields only 18 leaves useful as cigar wrappers, and each leaf
requires a great deal of individual manual attention during harvesting.
Although the temperature in the curing sheds sometimes exceeds 38 °C no work is
done inside the sheds while the tobacco is being fired.
In 1921, Connecticut tobacco production peaked, at 31,000 acres under
cultivation. The rise of cigarette smoking and the decline of cigar smoking
have caused a corresponding decline in the demand for shade tobacco, reaching a
minimum in 1992 of 2,000 acres under cultivation. Since then, however, cigar
smoking has become more popular again, and in 1997 tobacco farming had risen to
4,000 acres. However, only 1,050 acres of shade tobacco were harvested in the
Connecticut Valley in 2006. Connecticut seed is being grown in Ecuador, where
labor is very cheap. The industry has weathered some major catastrophes,
including a devastating hailstorm in 1929, and an epidemic of brown spot
fungus in 2000, but is now in danger of disappearing altogether, given the value
of the land to real estate speculators. The older and much less labor-intensive
Broad leaf plant, which produces an excellent Maduro wrapper as well as
binder and filler for cigars, is increasing in area in the Connecticut
Valley. = Thuoc lao=
Thuoc lao is a nicotine-rich type of tobacco grown exclusively in Vietnam and
is often smoked by Vietnamese rice farmers.
It is most commonly smoked after a meal on a full stomach to aid in digestion,
or along with green tea or local beer. A "hit" of thuoc lao is followed by a
flood of nicotine to the bloodstream inducing strong dizziness that last
several seconds. Even heavy smokers have had trouble with the intense volume of
smoke and the side effects include nausea and vomiting.
= Type 22= Type 22 tobacco is a classification of
United States tobacco product as defined by the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
effective date November 7, 1986. The definition states that type 22 tobacco
is a type of dark fire-cured tobacco, known as Eastern District fire-cured,
produced principally in a section east of the Tennessee River in southern
Kentucky and northern Tennessee. Most type 22 tobacco in northern Tennessee is
grown in Robertson and Montgomery County. Its principal use is in the
manufacture of chewing tobacco. = White Burley=
White Burley similar to Burley tobacco is the main component in chewing
tobacco, American blend pipe tobacco, and American-style cigarettes.
In 1865, George Webb of Brown County, Ohio planted Red Burley seeds he had
purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. He
transplanted them to the fields anyway, where they grew into mature plants but
retained their light color. The cured leaves had an exceedingly fine texture
and were exhibited as a curiosity at the market in Cincinnati. The following year
he planted ten acres from seeds from those plants, which brought a premium at
auction. The air-cured leaf was found to be mild tasting and more absorbent than
any other variety. White Burley, as it was later called, became the main
component in chewing tobacco, American blend pipe tobacco, and American-style
cigarettes. The white part of the name is seldom used today, since red burley,
a dark air-cured variety of the mid-19th century, no longer exists.
= Wild Tobacco= Wild tobacco is native to the
southwestern United States, Mexico, and parts of South America. Its botanical
name is Nicotiana rustica. In Australia Nicotiana benthamiana and Nicotiana
gossei are two of several indigenous tobaccos still used by Aboriginal people
in some areas. Nicotiana rustica is the most potent strain of tobacco known. It
is commonly used for tobacco dust or pesticides.
= Y1= Y1 is a strain of tobacco that was
cross-bred by Brown & Williamson to obtain an unusually high nicotine
content. It became controversial in the 1990s when the United States Food and
Drug Administration used it as evidence that tobacco companies were
intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.
Y1 was developed by tobacco plant researcher James Chaplin, working under
Dr. Jeffrey Wigand for Brown & Williamson in the late 1970s. Chaplin, a
director of the USDA Research Laboratory at Oxford, North Carolina, had described
the need for a higher nicotine tobacco plant in the trade publication World
Tobacco in 1977, and had bred a number of high-nicotine strains based on a
hybrid of Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana rustica, but they were weak
and would blow over in a strong wind. Only two grew to maturity; Y2, which
"turned black in the drying barn and smelled like old socks," and Y1, which
was a success. B&W brought the plants to California
company DNA Plant Technology for additional modification, including
making the plants male-sterile, a procedure that prevents competitors from
reproducing the strain from seeds. DNA Plant Technology then smuggled the seeds
to a B&W subsidiary in Brazil. Y1 has a higher nicotine content than
conventional flue-cured tobacco, but a comparable amount of tar, and does not
affect taste or aroma. British American Tobacco began to discuss the trialling
of Y1 tobacco in 1991, despite it not being approved for use in the United
States. B&W promised in 1994 to stop using Y1, but at that time they had 7
million pounds of inventory, and continued to blend Y1 into their
products until 1999. References