Historical Photos Courtesy: The Connecticut Valley Tobacco Historical Society, The Windsor Historical Society, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

The great state of Connecticut has birthed some real superstars over the years, hasn’t it? Yale University, ESPN, Newman’s Own, color televisions, the first marketed hamburger, Polaroid cameras, helicopters, and early automobile laws all stem from this tiny Northeastern state.

But of all the things to come out of Connecticut, how did tobacco become the big cash crop? Surely, far more tropical, volcanic ash-rich environments closer to the Earth's equator would be more suitable, right? 

Yet somehow, Connecticut magically made its way onto the map as one of the greatest tobacco-producing places of the planet, and today, it remains a key player in the cultivation of Broadleaf tobacco in particular. It also still grows a hell of a lot of shade-grown tobacco, too, which is where the whole "Connecticut Shade" blanket term stems from.

So, if you are up for a little history lesson and are keen on Connecticut-seed tobacco, the following paragraphs are for you. A strange, surprisingly cutthroat story rife with tales of smuggling stolen seeds, success, failure, and the rise, fall, and gradual return of America's interest in cigar smoking.

How Connecticut of All Places Became a Tobacco Touchstone 

The Connecticut River Valley not only proved to be the ideal locale for European settlers, but it also exposed many of them to tobacco for the first time. Indigenous tribes of the Americas and their surrounding islands had been ritually smoking tobacco for thousands of years by that point, and the allure of this smoky experience proved captivating to the settlers.

For the longest time, the Spaniards had maintained a monopoly on tobacco crops grown in the Caribbean islands and South and Central America. But as the Spaniards were busy marketing tobacco as a luxury good to the elite back in their home country, American settlers up north began to get in on the action. Having developed a taste for tobacco, these settlers started to cultivate the crop anyway they saw fit, quickly turning the nicotine-packed plant into a sizable, locally-grown commodity.

But it would not be until the 1830s that the great-grandfather of the modern Connecticut cigar wrapper leaf would begin to materialize. It was around this time that Cuban tobacco seed started to make its way up the East Coast, and as one tobacco grower after another began cross-pollinating the plant with local varieties, a more resilient and pleasing hybrid strain began to emerge. 

It may have taken a few growing seasons to get right, but the subsequent tobacco crops were of high quality and far more resistant to pests and fungal root issues. And while the viso and seco types of tobacco leaves from the center of the plant were quite nice, smokers found the upper ligero leaves to be the most flavorful and aromatic. 

By the 19th century, Sumatran tobacco from Indonesia was both on Connecticut soil and being cross-bred with local strains. Within a few decades, a handful of hybridized variants were producing some truly delicious premium leaf, and with cigars steadily growing in popularity alongside pipe blends, the whole Connecticut tobacco business kicked into overdrive.

A Tale of Two "Seedies": Connecticut Shade-Grown & Broadleaf Tobacco

Today, there are two types of tobacco that are primarily being grown in the "Constitution State," with one being a Shade-Grown hybrid and the other being a sun-grown Broadleaf varietal.

Primarily recognized for its usage as wrappers, or the outermost leaf on a cigar, Connecticut tobacco has long been prized for its high-quality attributes. Appearance, texture, taste, aroma, elasticity, consistency, and a variety of other factors must all be in plentiful supply if a cigar wrapper is to make the cut, despite Connecticut's two main strains being very different from one another.

Connecticut Broadleaf

Veiny, dark, and oftentimes labeled as oily and leather-like, Connecticut Broadleaf tobacco is a sun-grown specimen that transforms into millions of maduro-wrapped cigars every year. According to an agricultural history report on tobacco we found on the Connecticut state government's website, Broadleaf was first brought in from Maryland in 1833. Since then, Broadleaf tobacco has been a constant Connecticut cash crop, even though tobacco-growing in the state dates back a full 200+ years prior. 

Squat and broadly built (hence the name), the Broadleaf varietal is incredibly resilient and loves to soak in the sun’s rays. Due to this fact, Broadleaf cigars tend to be veinier and come loaded with oils, sugars, resins, and the ever-popular tobacco staple: Nicotine.

As far as cultivation goes, the average Broadleaf cigar wrapper prospers best in silty volcanic soils, as well as loam-rich topographies that are heavy in clay. The latter of the two is where the Connecticut River Valley comes into play, which remains the primary growing region for tobacco in the state.

Commonly harvested all at once via a "stalk cutting" technique, where the entire plant is harvested in one fell swoop, Broadleaf is almost always reserved for use in maduro cigars. Relying upon its resilient genetics to withstand the hardships endured during the post-priming fermentation periods, Connecticut Broadleaf tobacco produces exceptionally rich, oftentimes oily cigar wrappers.

But while these dark leaves may have a complexion that is befitting of a piece of foliage that has just endured years of “controlled composting,” it doesn't always constitute a strong, or extremely heavy smoking experience. While the style of cigar type, or overall cigar profile, may be a bit bolder, the lengthier fermentation process that Broadleaf undergoes tends to round things out as it removes impurities and the tobacco matures.

A Few Fantastic Connecticut Broadleaf Blends

Crowned Heads "Broadway"

Rocky Patel "Sun Grown Maduro"

Diesel "Whiskey Row Sherry Cask"

Espinosa "601 Blue Label Maduro"

Rocky Patel "Vintage 20th Anniversary"

Connecticut Shade

The original version of Connecticut Shade tobacco was actually a hybrid strain resulting from cross-breeding Connecticut Broadleaf with Sumatran and Cuban crops. As the previously mentioned report states, this experiment was actually a government-backed project that took place in the early 1900s, as the increased demand for cigars had brought about a need for new varietals. 

"The importation into the United States of fine Sumatra tobacco in the 1890s posed a serious threat to United States growers as cigar manufacturers preferred it to the American leaf. The Department of Agriculture and the Connecticut Experiment Station tested a number of growing methods and discovered in 1900 that the Sumatra plant could be grown in Connecticut under shade with excellent results. The Secretary of Agriculture reported to Congress that year that 'The leaf produced has been so fine that the New York tobacco men say that it cannot be told from the imported Sumatra leaf. They predict, as a result of this work, a complete revolution of the tobacco business in the Connecticut Valley.' In 1901, Marcus L. Floyd, a government expert, grew the first shade tobacco in South Windsor on Rye Street." —Wood Memorial Library, South Windsor, CT

Now, as for the advent of the shade growing technique, this experiment began like any other experiment, with trial runs utilizing cotton sheeting. What farmers found was that the leaves on the plant grew more slowly and became silkier under partial shade. Without direct sunlight, the plants were able to send all of their energy into growing larger leaves, instead of focusing their resources on toughening up to protect that foliage from the sun's rays. Suspended on poles and rigging, materials soon shifted from cotton sheeting to cheesecloth, and eventually, over to nylon.

The hybridized strain loved the shade more than any of the other crops, and before long, Connecticut Shade wrapper leaves were being shipped all over America for rolling up in local factories. Light in color, elastic, and silky to the touch, Connecticut shade-grown tobacco proved to be far milder than its sun-grown Broadleaf brethren, and was a huge hit with smokers, eventually leading to it being considered the "gold standard" for claro, shade-grown cigar wrappers. 

Tobacco Nerd Note: Unlike Connecticut Broadleaf tobacco, where harvesting tends to be a hack-and-slash affair, shade-grown crops are meticulously harvested by hand via a process called "priming." A gradual foliage removal process that starts at the bottom of the plant and gradually moves upward as the leaves reach maturity.

Some Kick-Ass Connecticut Shade Cigars

Dapper Cigar Co. "La Madrina Shade"

Room101 Cigars "Johnny Tobacconaut"

Jake Wyatt "Appendix II"

Fratello Cigars "Oro"

Macanudo "Estate Reserve Flint Knoll No. 1"

The Great Connecticut Tobacco Takeaway

Over the past few decades, one Connecticut tobacco strain after another has found a new home in lands many leagues south of its home state. Call it fate, but it was just a matter of time until cigar makers took this type of tobacco back to its roots. 

In a never-ending search to produce superior products with each consecutive crop, cigar makers began to tinker with both sun-grown and shade-grown versions of the Connecticut tobacco plant. Luckily for us cigar enthusiasts, this successful endeavor has produced some stunningly scrumptious stogies. So much so that many of the world’s highest-rated Connecticut wrappers are often grown in Central and South America. 

Where tobacco is cultivated is ultra important, not only for the quality of the crops themselves, but also for the logistics that go into growing, harvesting, aging, and turning this specialized consumable good into cigars. Being that it is so far north, Connecticut’s tobacco-growing season is rather brief, so there is very little room for any margin of error. In comparison, countries near the Earth's equator have a growing season that often lasts well into late fall, with nary a sign of frost or snow to be seen.

Connecticut shade and sun-grown tobacco have been proven to thrive in places like Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Honduras, where the prolonged growing seasons and tropical conditions make for an ideal atmosphere. Soil that is rich with loamy bio-matter offers roots the nutrients they need, as volcanic ash provides that silty, mineral-rich substance tobacco cannot get way up in Connecticut.

Oh, and let’s not forget that in the mountainous tobacco-growing regions of Ecuador, continuous cloud coverage, mist, and fog from the surrounding rainforests, as well as airborne volcanic ash, all form an organic canopy for shade-grown Connecticut claro varietals.

Then there’s the matter of getting the tobacco to the facilities where it is aged, and if of the Broadleaf variety, fermented into maduro cigar wrappers. Being that many of these southern plantations are located right up the road from the cigar manufacturer’s aging, fermentation, and rolling facilities, the logistics side of getting a crop into production is about as straightforward as it gets.

Since the majority of all hand-rolled, long-filler cigar types are still being produced in countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, transporting Connecticut-grown tobacco to these facilities is a mandatory procedure. Just imagining the sheer cost of moving dozens of metric tons of tobacco from New England down to the tropics multiple times a year makes our pocketbooks quiver in fear, yet cigar makers still manage to make it happen.

That being said, more than half of all forms of Connecticut tobacco grown today are cultivated outside of the U.S. This may be a slap in the face to American tobacco farmers, but it makes complete sense from a cigar manufacturer’s standpoint.

Parting Puffs

By now, it’s pretty safe to say that Connecticut cigar wrapper leaves are one of the most misunderstood forms of tobacco on the planet. Every year, countless fledgling cigar smokers get duped into believing that their Connecticut shade-grown natural or Broadleaf-wrapped smokes are coming to them straight from the state bearing its name, and don't bother to question or even care, for that matter.

Half of the time, cigar box "shelf talker" sales cards don’t emphasize precisely which region of the world where that Connecticut wrapper is grown in. The other half of the time, it is clearly stated, but the consumer either does not read all of the descriptions and instead merely settles on the word “Connecticut.”

Either way, we here at Klaro Cigars both adore and respect all forms of Connecticut tobacco leaf. May it be silky, stretchy, and shade-grown, or stout, heavily veined, and of the sun-grown variety, it all produces memorable moments of relaxation and smoking pleasure.

So get your fingers on one of our popular cigar 5-packs, or enroll in our exclusive boutique and legacy cigar brand monthly subscription service to get some sun and shade smokes, and you just might find some Connecticut blends in your next shipment.