Old school flue cured and air cured

[Jim_in_Portland]

Greetings...

I am a chemistry professor interested in the chemistry of tobacco smoke. We are interested in how different types of tobacco give different smoke chemistries. Conventional wisdom holds that the type of air cured tobacco that was produced in the early 1800s gave a pretty harsh smoke because it was chemically basic, so that the nicotine was mostly in the base form which makes for a harsh smoke. Later in 1800s, flue cured tobacco was discovered, and that makes a more acidic smoke which is much more mild when inhaled. Supposedly this is what made smoking more popular...

I would like to examine these ideas by buying some air cured that is closest to the early form. I don't know if this means "light air cured" or "dark air cured", or maybe both because both were produced in the early days. Also, I'd like to get some flue cured that is classic flue cured, giving a very mild smoke. For both types, it would be nice to get tobacco that does not have any additives. We actually have bought some tobaccos from one vendor trying to do this, but they all seemed to have a humectant chemical added, in particular propylene glycol and probably also glycerin.

So, would anyone be able to suggest some specific varieties available from a retail vendor that would be good for us to look at? I'll be happy to post the results of the work in this thread when we are done with the measurements.

Thanks everyone...

Jim

 

[Alpine]

Welcome to FTT. Take a look at the forum Wiki to have an idea of the various market classes of tobacco and the difference between them. Whole Leaf Tobacco (banner at the top of the page ) is the owner of this site and sells first class tobacco leaves with no chemicals added. Maybe some forum member near your area can give you some leaves for your test, just out of curiosity.
It would be nice to know the results of your research.

pier

 

[BrotherJ]

Welcome! I ended up here because I was also looking for tobacco with no additives whatsoever. I wanted a selection of just the raw leaf and nothing else, and that is what WLT sells.

There are a few members that are most familiar with historical tobacco use, so I won't attempt to address that. I do know that one of the goals of flue-curing is "locking in" sugars so they don't get broken down as they normally would. The burning of the sugars contributes to the acidity of the smoke. Flue-cured tobaccos are often blended with more alkaline tobaccos to control the pH of the smoke. The pH of the smoke has a lot to do with which parts of the body can efficiently absorb nicotine from the smoke and how efficiently it can be absorbed. The acidity of the smoke from flue-cured tobacco prevents the lining of the mouth from absorbing nicotine efficiently, but it can still be absorbed in the lungs. The nicotine in the more alkaline smoke (which we tend to associate with pipes and cigars) absorbs well in the mouth and in the lungs. This is one of the reasons you don't want to inhale the smoke from a cigar or pipe. Not only does it feel harsher on the throat, the pH of the smoke makes a huge difference in the nic hit, even if the nicotine content of the smoke is similar. Too much will make you sick.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum, @Jim_in_Portland. I don't mean to discourage your project, but it seems to be based on mythical categories of tobacco of the past. Keep in mind that both before and for a half-century following the advent of the flue-cure process, nobody understood the genetics of tobacco. While today, there are thousands of identified varieties of Nicotiana tabacum, during the 19th century, what nearly everyone grew was a mish-mash of variants, dependent on what their neighbors (and the neighbors of their neighbors) happened to be growing.

Most of the varieties now classed by ARS-GRIN as "flue-cured" were initially derived from so-called Orinoco strains, and were always air-cured, though that might have included an open fire in the tobacco barn to prevent mold, or even a fire with its combustion products vented out of the barn by a flue, instead of directly into the barn air. Tobacco from every tobacco farmer was different. Tobacco from the same tobacco farmer, grown in different crop years was different.

The character, nicotine strength and even color of tobacco leaf depends directly on not only the specific variety, but the stalk-level at which the leaf grew (the priming level), the degree of ripeness at which it was removed, and the curing conditions and scheduling of the cure. Of course, different flue-cure varieties give different results. Studies on TSNAs have well demonstrated that different flue-curing technology yields different chemical results.

My expectation would be that the only meaningful chemical analyses (say of just flue-cured) would entail separately analyzed samples of multiple priming levels of each variety, and multiple varieties, resulting in a set of 3D graphs of the gazillion variables.

A second problem is a variety (or group of varieties) to be chosen for your "air-cured" variety. Again, scores of choices, none of which is likely what was grown back then. The same issues arise from differences in growing season, growing location, priming level, maturation choice, and importantly, curing weather. There is no typical.

Another potential issue is "harsh" vs "mild". That has different meaning for different tobacco users. It may be persistent terpenes because of inadequate curing or insufficient aging. Even with a more specific sensation, that of tongue bite, there is the question of whether it is the front of the tongue (suggesting lower pH), the back and sides of the tongue (suggesting higher pH), or none (suggesting a "balanced" pH somewhere between the two extremes. "Throat hit" is yet another vague sensation, typically ascribed to burley.

Since flue-cured tobacco is un-sellable unless it has been flue-cured, your only potential source of air-cured leaf from flue-cured varieties will be from a home grower. You might contact @OldDinosaurWesH, who is in Dayton, WA, and grows tobacco.

Bob

EDIT: The very notion of "old-school" would make a nice chapter of its own in Herbert J. Muller's Uses of the Past.