Pipe Tobacco Varieties: English Blends

The English blends normally include no artificial additives. Usually they contain as a vital ingredient strong and smoky Latakia coming originally from Syria. There is an old myth about Latakia, namely that it gets its personal taste from camel dung. Tobacco was supposedly dried by hanging it on the rafters inside of a primitive building heated by burning camel dung in a stove. Normally at least Virginia and/or Burley, perhaps also some Oriental tobacco are with in the English blends. Often but not always the English blends also contain a very strong, peppery tobacco called Perique. It is only grown in certain restricted areas of Louisiana. Actually Perique is not a a special species of Nicotiana like Burley or Virginia but an old method of fermentation. The process is very arduous. Tobacco is put many times under a high pressure that makes it ferment in its own juices. Gradually and arduously out of this comes a very special tasting, strong and spicy tobacco, added carefully in some blends. Perique gives the typical flavor and bite to many of those mixtures, called English. It might be added that the well-known Tabasco also comes from Louisiana. In fact, there indeed exists certain similarity with Perique and Tabasco.

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