Roll your own or they roll for you!

[kuma]

This is a reply and some info to a post by Rob last week about rolling / buying your own tabac

so as to dictate what you can and will smoke.  I never knew it but 50 miles north from

where I live there is a place called "Conn. Valley Tobacconist LLC"  The web - site

is; www.cvtobacco.com ; phone 1-888-566-7879 town of Enfield, CT.  I guess what is grown in Ct is used by the growers

in Nic. as the wrapers for thier tabac.  Not sure if this will give the (CC.'s) a "run for the money" as is quoted

in an ad on the web - site but who knows it is all in the eye of the smoker!  So if you are ever in Conn.

driving say from Boston south to New York or vice a versa (you go right through Ct) who knows could be fun!

 

[NSXCIGAR]

I grew up in Western Massachusetts where much of the wrapper tobacco for cheap cigars is grown (Dutch Masters, White Owl, etc.) Shade-grown literally on the street I grew up on. Northern CT River Valley (where I'm from) grows cheap cigar wrapper and Southern CT River Valley grows the leaf for the premium cigars. Interestingly, I worked on several farms in the area, but never a tobacco farm. Only produce and flowers.

Anyway, often the farmers would roll cigars from this tobacco. It was bland as hell. There's a reason that the tobacco for specific parts of the cigar are grown in all sorts of different places. CT puros are absolutely bland and tasteless. That tobacco is prized for it's lack of flavor, good combustibility, attractiveness, and pale light brown color. In fact, I'm not sure that there's any sun-grown tobacco grown in the CT RV--at least not by professional farmers. Sun-grown might have some flavor, but probably not much, and good luck finding any. It's a waste of space for the farmers that make money only with shade-grown.

[Danimalia]

Isn't broadleaf sungrown and raised there as well? That can have a lot of flavor. 

I have actually been enjoying some CT Shade-wrapped cigars lately. They're definitely used on a lot of mild smokes, and so I had disregarded them for several years. I've found some recently, like the My Father CT and La Palina Nicaragua CT that pack a lot of flavor into a medium body. Of course, these cigars are full of Nicaraguan tobacco as well.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, Danimalia said:

Isn't broadleaf sungrown and raised there as well? That can have a lot of flavor. 

I have actually been enjoying some CT Shade-wrapped cigars lately. They're definitely used on a lot of mild smokes, and so I had disregarded them for several years. I've found some recently, like the My Father CT and La Palina Nicaragua CT that pack a lot of flavor into a medium body. Of course, these cigars are full of Nicaraguan tobacco as well.

I've never seen CT broadleaf sun-grown there, at least in the Northern Valley, but things may have changed in 20+ years. And yes, there are quite a few strong premium cigars utilizing CT wrapper but I'd attribute that to filler. 

Also, it appears that CT broadleaf is sun-grown in other countries and areas, but not necessarily in the CT River Valley. It also appears that much of the sun-grown CT boradleaf is, or at least had traditionally been used for machine-made cigars. However, apparently in recent years some sun-grown CT broadleaf has been utilized for some premium cigars. Not sure if that's just the wrapper, as some of these cigars are classified as maduro.

Here's a CI article about the CT broadleaf: http://www.cigarinspector.com/cigar-wrappers-a-z/connecticut-broadleaf

 

 

[Danimalia]

Interesting. I know Tatuaje makes a cigar that is all broadleaf, La Casita Criolla. I haven't tried it. Do you know if there is a difference between CT and PA broadleaf, aside from location?

 

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, Danimalia said:

Interesting. I know Tatuaje makes a cigar that is all broadleaf, La Casita Criolla. I haven't tried it. Do you know if there is a difference between CT and PA broadleaf, aside from location?

 

I believe Broadleaf is a specific strain, as is shade, so the location (CT Broadleaf, PA Broadleaf) would probably refer to where it is grown, meaning "PA Broadleaf" would be the strain Broadleaf simply grown in PA. However, I don't know for sure how this is classified.

Here's the Wiki on CT Shade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_shade_tobacco

Came across this site selling CT leaf by the pound:

https://www.leafonly.com