Natural tobaccos

[oldtoby]

I hear ya, condorlover1.
Even the most "plain-Jane" unadulterated Virginia or Burley you can buy in a B&M has been treated with a sugar/water solution just to make it palatable. Raw leaf from the field = crappola.

 

[shutterbugg]

I define natural tobacco as one with a neutral tobacco taste such as a straight VA or Burley. Royal Yacht (although said to be cased with some undefined topping) qualifies for me, as does Three Nuns. So in my definition, Latakia and Perique disqualify a blend as "natural tobacco" even though they are not topped with flavorings.

 

[wnghanglow]

Nika you may want to check that link it sent me to a payloan site.

 

[natibo]

I'm pretty sure if its grown, harvested and processed by the native species of this planet, it's natural.

 

[captainbob]

"Natural" is always an argument. Certainly, tobacco is tobacco. However, according to the late Craig Tarler, 70% of the tobacco sold contains an aromatic topping. Some are heavy and true aromatic. Others, are lightly topped and called Non-Aromatic. All of that is ok with me because I have smoked raw tobacco and it is not palatable. Even a slight amount of topping will smooth and enhance the tobacco, especially Virginia Leaf. Craig Tarler and I discussed this many times. His favorite tobacco (a predominantly Virginia Blend), contained a miniscule amount of topping to bring out the sweetness of the Virginia Leaf. I would hardly call it an aromatic. With all of that being said "Casing" is different from "Topping".
Casing is a treatment prior to blending and Topping is applied as a last step. Even those non-aromatic blends that are not topped are generally cased early in the process. Are there uncased and un-topped tobacco blends? Yes, there are. But, according to the late Craig Tarler, they are in a minority. I owe much of what I learned about blending pipe tobacco to my friend Craig Tarler. I miss him and shall always be grateful for the amount of time he gave me to develop my Blend. I learned a great deal from him and he was extremely generous with his time. I have been blending tobacco and studying the Art for many years. However, Craig took me to the "top of the mountain" with his interest in feeding my thirst for more knowledge.

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[blendtobac]

FYI - Kentucky Select Organic is no longer available. It seems that every time a tobacco hits the market labeled "organic", it winds up being pulled from sale, most likely due to regulators determining that they weren't, in fact, organically grown and processed.
Russ