Additive-free tobacco Dokha Dokha is tobacco originally grown in the
UAE,
Iran, and other gulf states. Traditional dokha is 100% additive-free tobacco.
Dokha is Arabic for dizzy, which refers to the extremely high nicotine content of dokha. Dokha is not cured like many other commercial tobacco products and is minimally processed. The green leaves are dried and shredded into small flakes which are smoked through a pipe called a
medwakh.
Tobacco with additives Aromatic fire-cured Prior to the
American Civil War, the
tobacco type mostly 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. Aromatic fire-cured smoking tobacco is dark leaf, 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
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. See also
Latakia.
Mu‘assel Muassel (, meaning "honeyed"), or
maassel, is a syrupy
tobacco mix containing
molasses, vegetable
glycerol, and various flavorings that is smoked in a
hookah, a type of waterpipe. It is also known as
shisha.
Not sorted under additive or additive section yet Bright leaf tobacco 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. Slade owned an enslaved man named Stephen, who around 1839 accidentally produced the first true bright leaf 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 leaf tobacco, cultivated on poorer soils and using charcoal for heat-curing. By the outbreak of the
Civil War, the town of
Danville, Virginia, had developed a bright-leaf market for the surrounding area. Danville was also the main railway head for
Confederate soldiers going to the front. They brought bright leaf tobacco with them from Danville to the lines, traded it with each other and Union soldiers. At the end of the war, the soldiers went home, and a national market had developed for the local crop.
Burley The origin of white burley
tobacco was credited to Mr. George 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 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% 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 about 70% produced in
Kentucky.
Tennessee produces around 20%, 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.
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. It was used as a wrapper extensively for many years on Cuban cigars, but its susceptibility to various diseases, blue mold in particular, caused Cuban genetic engineers to develop various hybrid forms that would not only be disease-resistant, but also display excellent wrapper qualities such as: Honduran 'Corojo', 'Habano 2000', Mexican 'San Andrés Corojo', and other hybrids.
Criollo Criollo also 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", 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'.
Ecuadorian Sumatra Jose Aray Marin, the founder of the Don Cervantes factory, developed the world-famous Ecuadorian '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 capital. Habano tobacco wrapper is darker in color, has a much spicier flavor and a richer aroma, and has been grown in Nicaragua's Jalapa Valley and Estelí since the 1990s.
Habano 2000 'Habano 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 is more resistant to blue mold 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'.
Kizami Kizami is a tobacco product produced in Japan and intended for smoking in Japanese
kiseru pipes.
Latakia Latakia tobacco is fire-cured over smoldering local hardwoods and aromatic shrubs in
Cyprus and
Syria. Latakia has a pronounced smoky taste and aroma, and is used in Balkan and English-style pipe tobacco blends.
Oriental Tobacco Oriental tobacco is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety (
Nicotiana tabacum) that is grown in
Turkey,
Greece,
Bulgaria,
Lebanon, and
North 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 (like
Murad,
Fatima...); today, its main use is in blends of pipe and especially cigarette tobacco (a typical American cigarette is a blend of bright Virginia, burley, and Oriental).
Perique Perique comes from
Saint James Parish, Louisiana (
Paroisse de Saint-Jacques). 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 The Northeastern 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. The Connecticut River valley north of
Hartford is known as "Tobacco Valley". Until recently, shade-tobacco fields and drying sheds were visible to travelers on the road to and from
Bradley International Airport, a 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. Prized for its subtle sweetness and elegant, refined flavor, it is used as outer wrappers for some of the world's finest cigars. Who introduced this method of growing tobacco is unclear, but the New York firm of Schroeder & Bon or its founder
Frederick A. Schroeder likely was 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, 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. The temperature in the curing sheds sometimes exceeds , and no work is done inside the sheds while the tobacco is being fired. Connecticut tobacco production peaked in 1921, at 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 former minimum in 1992 of under cultivation. Since then, cigar smoking has become more popular again, and in 1997, shade-tobacco farming had risen to , but only of shade tobacco were harvested in the Connecticut Valley in 2006. Connecticut seed is also 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 broadleaf plant, which produces an excellent Maduro wrapper, as well as binder and filler for cigars, is increasing in the area in the Connecticut Valley. By 2023, less than of shade tobacco were planted in all of Massachusetts, and none in Connecticut, a dramatic decrease from its former peak.
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 Counties in Middle Tennessee. Its principal use is in the manufacture of chewing tobacco. Type 22 is harvested, stripped and hung inside curing barns and a fire is set to provide optimum conditions for curing the product for sale. Incidentally, several barns are lost to fire each year, usually representing a substantial loss for the grower.
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 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. == Strains ==