What Are The Best Bright and Red Virginias for Home Blending

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LotusEater

Lifer
Apr 16, 2021
4,084
55,928
Kansas City Missouri
I've been recently trying my hand at blending as well.
Thus far using Sutliff 515s, red ribbon, Turkish mix and perique.

I stumbled across a thread on another pipe forum that was started by Ernie Q from Watch City, that provided some really good tips for novice blenders.

One of the bigger take aways I gleaned was to not re case already cased tobacco (don't add additional sugars). As simple as that sounds, for a beginner blender (me) that was an important tip.

I'd like to also hear what Virginias others are using to blend...
This is a great read but my understanding (and I may be wrong) is that Ernie makes a distraction between commercial blends and blending tobacco.
Quote-
“ I said earlier that blending tobacco is cased. The thing is that in my opinion it isn’t cased enough. They sort of give you a start, but they only case enough to bring the ph down a bit and maybe take the edge off the raw leaf.”
 
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Bluemonter

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 29, 2021
161
456
This is a great read but my understanding (and I may be wrong) is that Ernie makes a distraction between commercial blends and blending tobacco.
Quote-
“ I said earlier that blending tobacco is cased. The thing is that in my opinion it isn’t cased enough. They sort of give you a start, but they only case enough to bring the ph down a bit and maybe take the edge off the raw leaf.”
There were a few tobacco types he specified not to recase. Perique being one of them..
Total newbie revelations here.
 
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Would you be willing to share a listing of some of the books on this subject you found most useful/interesting? I would love to acquire and read them.
On blending? That would be where opportunity lies…. there just aren’t any specifically about blending. Some have sections that briefly talk about it, but nothing really “useful.” But, I think it would make a nice niche book. The problem is that things like casing and toppings are mostly commercial concepts. Getting the commercial blenders to give recipes probably isn’t going to happen. But, I’d buy someone’s experiments and recipes…. Like a Home Tobacco Gourmet Recipe Book thing.

My books are mostly growing, curing, processing, history, etc. mostly curing stuff was what I was looking for. That’s where I think the magic is, IMO. Fire cured virginias, twisted into rope with some perique processed semois. Maybe a smidge of sun cured Japan8.

Adding flavors is interesting and I’d play around with it. But, growing a cherry red, and processing it to get a slight natural cherry hint in the tobacco is more what I want.
 

Ahi Ka

Lurker
Feb 25, 2020
6,520
31,473
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
When starting out I found this book helpful as well as this sprawling thread. I focused on understanding the ratios between leaf, how this impacts pH balance and flavour


 

Ahi Ka

Lurker
Feb 25, 2020
6,520
31,473
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
No, thank god!

Edit: well, semois. And maybe C&D comes close. But, I do not try to copy commercial stuff. I try to just make good tasting stuff for my taste buds.
That reminds me I need to send you some semois grown in the whenua of Aotearoa. As a ‘single origin’ type blend, you can notice the impact of terrior. To be fair I don’t toast my leaf after air curing either
 
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