Tobacco

Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the Nicotiana genus, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of the plant. Dried tobacco leaves are mainly used for smoking in cigars and pipes, as well as snorted in snuff form. It is a cash crop grown by colonies of the Espérian and Avalonian empires in the New World, particularly in the West Bharats.

Basic Information

Growth rate & Harvesting

Tobacco is cultivated annually, usually harvested in late summer. The entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a tobacco knife; it is then speared onto sticks, four to six plants a stick, and hung in a curing barn. Curing and subsequent ageing produce certain compounds in the tobacco leaves that gives a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavour that contributes to the "smoothness" of the smoke.
Tobacco can be cured through several methods, including:

• Air-cured tobacco is hung in well-ventilated barns and allowed to dry over a period of four to eight weeks. Air-cured tobacco is low in sugar, which gives the tobacco smoke a light, mild flavour, and high in nicotine. Cigar and burley tobaccos are 'dark' air-cured.

• Fire-cured tobacco is hung in large barns where fires of hardwoods are kept on continuous or intermittent low smoulder, and takes between three days and ten weeks, depending on the process and the tobacco. Fire curing produces a tobacco low in sugar and high in nicotine. Pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff are fire-cured.

• Flume-cured tobacco was originally strung onto tobacco sticks, which were hung from tier poles in curing barns. These barns have flues run from externally fed fire boxes, heat-curing the tobacco without exposing it to smoke, slowly raising the temperature over the course of the curing. The process generally takes about a week. This method produces tobacco that is high in sugar and has medium to high levels of nicotine. Certain types of pipe and cigar tobacco is made this way.

Scientific Name

Nicotiana tabacum