Blends often list Cavindish implying that it was a variety of tobacco instead of a process. For years I stayed away from Burley because I thought it was a large leaf cheap filler. All this time I was enjoying Cavindished Burley.
Cavindish Or Cavindished
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Yeah, its taken me a while to wrap my head around it too. It's my understanding that for all smoke-able tobacco, variety and process are necessarily intertwined. There's also plenty of flue-cured leaf that's heated/cavendished too, and variously typed as "stoved Virginia," "Virginia cavendish," "Dark Virginia", etc.
Given that perique, latakia, dark-fired are largely defined by their post-curing processes, there's consieveably weird combinations there too. The katerini perique in some of the Birds of a Feather blends, notably.
I guess you could make some Cavenished Latakia-ed Perique-ed bright leaf, theoretically. Not that one ever should...
Given that perique, latakia, dark-fired are largely defined by their post-curing processes, there's consieveably weird combinations there too. The katerini perique in some of the Birds of a Feather blends, notably.
I guess you could make some Cavenished Latakia-ed Perique-ed bright leaf, theoretically. Not that one ever should...
To over-simplify, you have three basic varieties... burley, Virginia, and oriental (which is actually several different varieties, but sometimes you can find blends that use a specific oriental, like Katerini/Macedonian for example). Then there's also Rustica, which you don't see much and is actually a different species (burley, virginia and oriental are varietals of the same species—Nicotiana tabacum; Rustica is Nicotiana rustica).
Then there's subsets based on various factors like harvesting and processing. Mahogany/mature/red virginia for example is harvested later than bright virginia, but both are from the same variety of plant. Same thing with white and dark burley. That's about it for harvesting.
Then you have variation through processing. Kentucky/Old Dark Fired is burley that's smoke cured. Latakia is oriental that's sun cured and then smoked in a specific way. As mentioned stoved and unstoved Virginias, flue cured anything, sun cured anything. Cavendish is typically burley but could be VA too, but that's a different processing thing and it can either be sweetened or unsweetened. Perique is another specific processing thing.
Probably easier to look at each regardless of whether their name comes from varietal, harvesting or processing and whether is started off as VA or burley as just different ingredients with different effects/tastes. Like VA in general is going to be herbal, but if you see bright VA think more cirtrus-y herbal and mature/red VA as more grassy herbal, stoved VA as more bready; burley in general as woody or nutty, perique as being more plummy or spicy depending on what it's mixed with, orientals as more creamy or incense depending on specific orientals used or variety, etc.
Because even then, various components can taste different depending on ratio and what they're paired with, or even what's used in the casing and/or topping. It'll also be helpful to not view burley as "cheap garbage filler tobacco".
Then there's subsets based on various factors like harvesting and processing. Mahogany/mature/red virginia for example is harvested later than bright virginia, but both are from the same variety of plant. Same thing with white and dark burley. That's about it for harvesting.
Then you have variation through processing. Kentucky/Old Dark Fired is burley that's smoke cured. Latakia is oriental that's sun cured and then smoked in a specific way. As mentioned stoved and unstoved Virginias, flue cured anything, sun cured anything. Cavendish is typically burley but could be VA too, but that's a different processing thing and it can either be sweetened or unsweetened. Perique is another specific processing thing.
Probably easier to look at each regardless of whether their name comes from varietal, harvesting or processing and whether is started off as VA or burley as just different ingredients with different effects/tastes. Like VA in general is going to be herbal, but if you see bright VA think more cirtrus-y herbal and mature/red VA as more grassy herbal, stoved VA as more bready; burley in general as woody or nutty, perique as being more plummy or spicy depending on what it's mixed with, orientals as more creamy or incense depending on specific orientals used or variety, etc.
Because even then, various components can taste different depending on ratio and what they're paired with, or even what's used in the casing and/or topping. It'll also be helpful to not view burley as "cheap garbage filler tobacco".
It is interesting that Cavendish processed tobacco is seldom if ever defined by the leaf itself. I'm a burley devotee so have never considered it a cheap or filler leaf. C&D has in so many blends illustrated that burley is right up there with other premium leaf. I've recently come to enjoy some Virginia blends, focusing on them, but that doesn't diminish burley in my enjoyment of it.
To over-over-simplify…bright leaf and oriental varieties were also originally burley
Cavendish is a little bit of an odd duck just on account of how many different ways it can be prepared for a completely different experience. For a long time I avoided it because I thought all cavendish was wet and goopy and sugary sweet, but then I tried Cornell & Diehl's Red Virginia cavendish in Autumn Evening and it was nothing like that. The same goes for their unsweetened black cavendish in Pegasus, Mac Baren's Virginia cavendish they use in Vanilla Flake, and Gawith Hoggarth's double fermented black cavendish in Kendal Black Cherry. That last one is a 100% black cavendish blend and I absolutely love it, which is something I would have never thought I'd say about an entirely black cavendish blend until recently.
Cavendish is sometimes used to smooth rough edges on a blend, to make a blend smoke cooler, to tone-down a blend, and/or used to increase the volume of smoke a blend produces... all without really adding any flavor.
Of course, cavendish can also be used to add or carry flavor.
I never let listed ingredients stop me from trying a blend. I look at them to get a general sense of what it maybe should taste like before I smoke it, but I make no hard presumptions about what a blend will be because of what's listed.