Hey guys,
Finally made my trip to Cornell & Diehl in Morganton, NC. Chris & Patty welcome the wife and I with open arms. After a brief chat with Patty, Chris proceeded to show us around the facility. Although the building seems small for such an operation every square foot was utilized efficiently. We saw the raw tobacco that comes in in 400lb boxes, the Latakia that's in large blocks wrapped in burlap. And yes you can smell the Latakia through the wrappings. We saw the cutters that cut up the tobacco both raw and the blends that have been pressed. We saw the blender doing his thing, sorry I forgot his name but you know him from the pipe shows. We went upstairs and saw several larger 'tables' where the tobacco dries for at least 24 hours depending on the blend. One of the tables was covered in Autumn Evening and it smell wonderful. Once back downstairs I asked and was granted to opportunity to smell perique all by itself. I was surprised at how mellow it smelled but after thinking about it I have to admit that by this time my olfactory nerves were most likely saturated with all the wonderful smells.
We finally saw the area where the tinning is done. It appeared that GL Pease blends make up a lot of the blends produced here. Finally I presented my list of 10 tobaccos that I wanted to take with me and Chris was happy to oblige me. Most of them he was able to pull off the shelf but some had to be tinned and one of them even had to be blended. What an awesome visit, if you're ever in the area you must stop by and see them. They do ask that you call the day before to make sure that they can accommodate you.
Thank you, Chris and Patty for the tour.
You can see the pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cox.geoff/CornellDiehl?feat=directlink
Finally made my trip to Cornell & Diehl in Morganton, NC. Chris & Patty welcome the wife and I with open arms. After a brief chat with Patty, Chris proceeded to show us around the facility. Although the building seems small for such an operation every square foot was utilized efficiently. We saw the raw tobacco that comes in in 400lb boxes, the Latakia that's in large blocks wrapped in burlap. And yes you can smell the Latakia through the wrappings. We saw the cutters that cut up the tobacco both raw and the blends that have been pressed. We saw the blender doing his thing, sorry I forgot his name but you know him from the pipe shows. We went upstairs and saw several larger 'tables' where the tobacco dries for at least 24 hours depending on the blend. One of the tables was covered in Autumn Evening and it smell wonderful. Once back downstairs I asked and was granted to opportunity to smell perique all by itself. I was surprised at how mellow it smelled but after thinking about it I have to admit that by this time my olfactory nerves were most likely saturated with all the wonderful smells.
We finally saw the area where the tinning is done. It appeared that GL Pease blends make up a lot of the blends produced here. Finally I presented my list of 10 tobaccos that I wanted to take with me and Chris was happy to oblige me. Most of them he was able to pull off the shelf but some had to be tinned and one of them even had to be blended. What an awesome visit, if you're ever in the area you must stop by and see them. They do ask that you call the day before to make sure that they can accommodate you.
Thank you, Chris and Patty for the tour.
You can see the pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cox.geoff/CornellDiehl?feat=directlink
