The act of smoking tobacco leaves has been a part of North, Central, and South American culture for far longer than any European explorer can claim.
Many indigenous tribes cultivated tobacco crops, intending to use the plant as a form of communication with the gods. Others found it to be more of a pleasurable form of gastric relaxation. One best saved for after-dinner downtime, when sitting around the fire allowed ample time for the tobacco's nicotine to provide some digestive support.
While we certainly still smoke cigars for relaxation and enjoyment, modern man has taken the tradition of burning tobacco leaves and turned it into a massive agricultural cash crop. Rooted in history, but bigger and better than ever before, tobacco farming remains one of the world's greatest niche forms of cultivation. For those of us who are more intrigued by the heritage of cigar culture than the botany behind it all, understanding the various parts of a tobacco plant is pretty much all that is needed.
Today, we will discuss in brief the components of the tobacco plant and how each leaf plays a role in the cigars we smoke, as well as some tobacco farming basics. Let's get to it, shall we?
Know Your Roll
Broken down to its bare bones, the typical long-filler cigar consists of a wrapper, a binder, and a filler blend. Regardless of whether it is a mild claro, an oily oscuro, or something in between, the flavor, aroma, construction, combustibility, and strength of the cigar can all be derived from these core components.
Keep this in mind as we discuss the following sections of a premium cigar, all of which make smoking and understanding cigars that much more enjoyable.
The Wrapper
Wrappers are the outer portion of a premium cigar blend that you see, and ultimately determine the classification of the cigar being smoked. Being that visual appeal matters to most people, this leaf tends to be of the highest quality, both in appearance and flavor, as well as texture. Anything that doesn’t make the cut is either repurposed as an internal ingredient or discarded in its entirety.
Since they must wrap around all of the tobacco leaf stuffed inside, a cigar wrapper must also be quite large and feature a certain level of structural resilience and elasticity. Much of a cigar’s initial aroma and flavor is also housed within the cigar wrapper, both when it is lit and unlit.
The Binder
Fermented for shorter periods of time, and commonly pulled from the softer, lower leaves on the plant, binders are usually of good quality, but come up short in the appearance department. This causes them to be repurposed as a second level of rolled tobacco leaf, one that keeps the filler in place, and from a construction standpoint, can make or break how evenly a cigar burns. Binder tobacco leaves also help regulate and accelerate burn rates, and are often associated with the more intense aromatic aspects found within a premium cigar blend.
The Filler
Filler constructs the core of a cigar and serves as the bedrock upon which all of the other attributes of a premium cigar blend rely. As opposed to short filler, which is a cheaper way of making a cigar with chopped-up tobacco scraps, long filler utilizes the entire leaf and runs from the head down to the foot of the cigar.
Filler tobacco may not be the most attractive or flavorful, but it plays a vital role in both burn and aroma. Certain types of filler tobacco can impart spicy, earthy undertones as well, especially when they are of the sun-grown variety.
Tobacco Nerd Note: The use of the term “long-filler” is utilized because, unlike products like cigarettes and pipe tobacco, premium cigars utilize entire leaves, and are only trimmed to size once rolled.
The Blend
When it comes to combining various combinations of wrapper, binder, and filler leaf, options truly are endless. However, endless doesn't mean easy, for a premium cigar blend must be balanced, well-constructed, and offer a memorable smoking experience that can be consistently replicated.
While a fair deal of experimentation must be made on the master blender’s end earlier on, the type of seed being grown, shade coverage provided (if any), region where the tobacco plant is being grown, and fermentation and aging process all influence how a cigar is perceived. Balance is key, and it all starts with pulling the appropriate part of the tobacco plant at particular points during its life cycle.
Tobacco Nerd Note: Being that a cigar wrapper can impart various nuances depending upon where in the world tobacco is grown, many cigars tend to offer an international experience. The only consistent exception to this rule is Cuban cigars, which are grown, harvested, cured, fermented, produced, and packaged exclusively on the island of Cuba.
Primed for Harvest
From sheltered hothouse seedlings to freshly transplanted adolescents living outdoors, the first month of a tobacco plant’s life is filled with doting care. The decision to shade the plants or give them full sun plays a vital role as well, as the appearance, texture, and intensity of the tobacco leaf are determined by how much sunlight it is allowed to absorb.
After close to 45 days of growth, a clump of pungently scented, five-petaled flowers emerges from the top of the tobacco plant stalk. Plantation workers walk down the row, snapping off the flowering stalks, thus sending the plant into shock. This process is called “topping,” which results in nutrients going back to the larger leaves. Topping also causes a ton of little leafy offshoots to emerge. These offshoots are called "axillary buds," or for those of us who are into farm slang, “suckers.” Like unwanted weakling branches on a tree, these suckers, too, must be pruned out to encourage stable growth.
Since tobacco plants are far more fragile than an elm tree, these suckers will need to be repeatedly removed, or “primed” by hand until the tobacco plant is forced to concentrate all of its energy elsewhere. Where might you ask? Back to those bigger and far more beautiful tobacco leaves already growing along the length of the stalk.
Tobacco Nerd Note: There are a few different ways of preventing a tobacco plant from forming suckers. One of the most common is to use fatty alcohol to coat the lesions where the suckers are removed, which not only prevents disease but also hampers the development of future suckers in that region. Apparently, this method is particularly useful in organic tobacco farming since it meets most standards.
Types of Cigar Tobacco Leaves
All tobacco plants produce the same kind of leaves, most of which can be turned into the components that make up the structure of a cigar. Despite being of the same shape, each leaf has its unique attributes, and the location upon the stalk typically determines where the leaf is implemented within a cigar, along with any flavors or combustion benefits it might impart.
Like most plants that grow vertically toward the sun, the leaves at the bottom of the tobacco plant tend to be the oldest, whereas those toward the top are always the youngest. As the plant grows, this causes a multi-tiered shading effect, where the older leaves at the bottom become shielded from the sun by the newer canopy above.
Now, as for leaf categorization, that can be a bit confusing, for the leaves on the plant tend to be commonly grouped together in three generalized regions: Volado, seco, and ligero. While all of these sections are indeed part of the plant, there are two sub-categories of tobacco leaf that deserve recognition as well, viso and medio tempo.
Let’s start at the bottom, shall we?
Volado Leaf
At the bottom of the tobacco plant, you will meet the lowly volado leaf. Due to their proximity to the loamy soil beneath, this form of tobacco foliage is also referred to as “sand leaves.”
Even though it may bolster the burn rate and combustion of a cigar, many cigar manufacturers refuse to use volado leaves due to the risk of impurities from the ground coming into contact with the leaf. Tobacco is sticky by nature, and therefore the leaves are prone to picking up foreign contaminants, like pulverized soil and fertilizer, for instance.
Another issue with volado leaves is that they are prone to producing acrid off-flavors, either by organic design or from the impurities they pick up in the soil. Naturally, this is not always the case, especially when considering the wide array of seed varietals and the varying environments in which tobacco plants are grown.
So, in the rare occasion when a volado leaf does not droop down and touch the soil, it does stand a chance of being deemed long-filler worthy by certain cigar manufacturers. Granted, a thorough cleaning process and an additional inspection must be implemented before the leaf gets a final stamp of approval. This explains why it is so rare to see sand leaves in a cigar, instead of on a compost heap, where many farmers feel they belong.
Tobacco Nerd Note: Like any other form of pruning, the act of "priming" controls where the nutrients and energy within a tobacco plant are funneled. When done properly, priming forces the tobacco plant to produce bigger, thicker leaves and makes future primings off the plant all the more financially rewarding.
Seco Leaf
Seco leaves sit directly above the volado leaf on a tobacco plant. While it may be higher up, seco leaf still does not get a whole ton of direct sunlight due to the foliage growing above it, and therefore it tends to be a light green color. Wispy and aromatic, seco leaf is where a lot of those finer tobacco fragrances come from, with the upper levels of foliage being far more pungent than that which is further down the stalk.
After the first round of priming has been completed, with just a few leaves per plant being removed, a week-long waiting period is typically implemented. While not all plantations utilize this technique, this gap between harvests is quite commonplace. The reasoning behind this pruning methodology is that it allows the next layer of seco leaves to absorb the nutrients that would normally be sent to their neighbors above. Increased leaf size, superior elasticity, and more potent flavors have all been attributed to this technique, making it the preferred method for priming seco tobacco leaves in particular.
Viso Leaf
While not always recognized as its own separate section of the tobacco plant, viso leaf is highly revered for being the multitool of the tobacco world. Growing high enough on the plant where it can receive a fair deal of sunlight, yet not so far up that it gets leathery and overtly potent, viso provides the best of both worlds for a premium cigar blend. However, due to its location on the plant viso tends to get categorized as ligero, even though it technically is its own category.
Silky and stretchy, yet flavorful and fragrant, viso leaf can be found in virtually any part of a premium cigar blend. From binder and wrapper to filler and cap, there’s nothing that this tobacco leaf cannot do, with superior combustion being one of its more notable fortes. This gives cause for many cigar makers to utilize volado leaves as cigar binders, and/or as a way of increasing the potency of a particular blend via the quantities utilized within the filler.
Ligero Leaf
Closing things out is the tallest leaf on the tobacco plant, which coincidentally is also its youngest, and last to be harvested. But don’t let their tender age fool you. Ligero soaks up more sunlight than any other portion of the plant, and therefore provides the most intense concentration of body, strength, and flavor within a cigar.
Harvested almost at a point where they appear to be wilting, ligero tobacco grows to massive proportions due to being the last of the plant to be primed. Sugars, oils, resins, and nicotine content are all in abundance within ligero leaf, making it a prized commodity for full-bodied cigar manufacturers.
As the plant strives to channel all of the nutrients within the soil to those remaining ligero leaves, a unique fermentation process begins. The chlorophyll has begun to break down, and as it does so, all of the sugars, oils, and resins housed within the blade begin to decompose inside the leaf. This causes late-harvested ligero leaves to develop intense, earthy undertones, which lend themselves to being favored as a prime candidate for maduro cigar wrapper production.
Medio Tiempo Leaf
While not categorized as a core part of the tobacco plant, medio tiempo leaf does play a role in cigar production. At least when you can find it. Naturally occurring, but only on random occasions on certain plants, this additional "bonus priming" typically develops as two small leaves at the top of the plant, right about where the tobacco plant flowers.
Since there is no rhyme or reason behind this miracle leaf's emergence, it tends to be prized as one of the rarest and most highly sought sources of premium tobacco on the planet. As to be expected, medio tiempo is incredibly potent due to its proximity to the sun, and therefore is only used in strong cigars.
Tobacco Nerd Note: Once the flowers have been removed, or "topped," unwanted sand leaves have been discarded, and all of the suckers have been removed, a healthy tobacco plant is often left with anywhere between 15–21 leaves. These numbers will vary depending on the environment in which the tobacco is cultivated and the preferences set in place by the cigar manufacturer itself. The more tobacco that is discarded in favor of prime foliage, the more potent and lush the remaining leaves will become.
Three cigars made with medio tiempo leaf.
Warped Cigars Sky Moon
La Palina Goldie
H. Upmann 180th Anniversary
Parting Puffs
All told, it typically takes 90 days for a tobacco plant to go from freshly sprouted seedling to a completely stripped stalk. Although certain tobacco strains can be harvested sooner or finish their life cycle a tad later, three months remains the norm for much of the world's cigar tobacco. However, varied growing environments, inconsistent weather patterns, and farming logistics can all affect these timeframes.
From a cigar production standpoint, having a bit of everything on hand is pretty much mandatory. Blending various primings from an array of different types of tobacco plants hailing from a multitude of countries and regions can foster an extremely complex smoking experience. Adding further depth to the topic are the different forms of fermentation that are commonly implemented, with the types of tobacco leaves we just discussed all receiving specific levels of care.
But that’s not to say that a single-origin "puro" cigar is not going to rock your socks off. With the right seed varietals planted in various farm plots, the leaf that is grown, primed, cured, and fermented can be built around much, if not all, of the leaves on a tobacco plant.