The Half Ashed Cigar Forum

You can get whole tobacco leaf for rolling your cigars at a number of sites. The businesses that i prefer because of their selection and quality are:

http://www.leafonly.com
and
http://www.wholeleaftobacco.com

The leaf sizes and appearance will vary from country to country and strength to strength. Seco is a mild leaf, viso is the next strongest, and lijero is the fullest. Binders will vary with the leaf type, although most are not strong. Wrapper is by far the most expensive and changes the character of your cigar considerably. In the pictures, the leaf is, from left to right: EcuadorSumatra binder, Dominican seco, Nicaraguan viso, Dominican lijero, and San Andreas wrapper (already peeled in half lengthwise).

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Wholly agree. I have seen a couple of YT videos where someone made their own unit of basic boxes/plastic for this.

star, I can't vouch for the effectiveness here, but perhaps it will give you some ideas on home fermentation. Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8YMe5pwMaY

I opened a new bag of Ecuador shade wrapper from LeafOnly.com tonight. It is easily the best bunch of wrapper leaves i've ever received. This will be a good test of my rolling skills, as leaf condition, i've always felt, has always held my sticks back a bit in their appearance. These should look really good. If not, i'll have to reassess my technique.

A view of my tobacco "warehouse." Some 35-40 lbs of leaf from 9 different countries. Of course, it's not doing me much good in the bags. Gotta get my roll on...

http://www.wholeleaftobacco.com/Cigar-Wrappers_c28.htm

Whole Leaf Tobacco has a pretty nice selection of wrapper leaf. They have, plus a couple more, Ecuador Connecticut shade, Ecuador dark shade, Habano 2000, San Andres, Criollo, and Corojo wrapper leaf. A good variety, to be sure...

I'd be interested in a way to determine how good the quality of all this tobacco is. Is there any reference that you've found (besides an obvious taste)? I have had some really positive results with your more recent focus on south American tobaccos (also plus San Andres). I'm curious if these tobaccos are just a higher quality than some of the others. I know I love corojo, criollo, habano, etc but these newer ones just taste more well rounded to me than your earlier blends with the more "normal" tobaccos.

Unfortunately, taste and smell are all I have to go on. I will also say that those S Amer leaves came from Whole Leaf Tobacco, as opposed to Otoao Cigars (whom I no longer use). You may recall me talking about how I had to hang several hands of leaf (from Otoao) in my garage last summer, misting them daily to get rid of some ammonia. Leaving them may be the biggest difference maker...