An embarrasment of riches . . . . This year's ops production has been outstanding so far. It hasn't been easy--I'm talking virtually daily tending or fussing of one sort or another since March, from watering to fertilizing to battling bugs of all kinds to picking and hanging and bunching and worrying about storms and hail and the ever-vigilant pre-emptive work to prevent mold. I've already got a beaucoup of kilned dried and bagged aging leaf, more in the kiln, and even more still growing. Even if a hurricane wiped everything else out right now that wasn't complete I finally have a good bit of leaf that's safely dried and bagged and aging in the garage. Despite last year's resolution to grow only six strains I ended up growing a total of sixteen different strains. From experience I know the six are the most delicious, mindbendingly wonderful heirloom Cuban-seed leaf I've ever experienced. I figure of the ten new ones, at least a few will also be great. Each strain has it's own unique profile. This year I've grown (and am still growing) Criollo 98, Wisconsin Seedleaf, Pennsylvania Red, Lancaster Seedleaf, Florida Sumatra, Conecticut Shadeleaf, Connecticut Broadleaf, Lancaster Seedleaf, Habano 2000, Maryland 609, Catterton, Havana 608, Havana Long Red Leaf, Little Dutch, Long Red, and Glessnor. The "seedleaf" varieties are all heirloom varieties derived from Havana strains. Many of these are the old original Cuban types from the turn of the century and into the 1940's or so, before new strains were bred to be more disease resistant, have greater yield per acre, suckered less, more tolerant of drought and poor soils. Some of these strains have tastes that are familiar to most (peppery, earthy, leather, creamy, chocolatey, licorice), and some are different than anything else but absolutely mindbogglingly wonderful. It's like you know what chocolate and licorice and butterscotch taste like, but there are tastes just as good and uniquely identifiable but that are new, like if you never tasted chocolate before and you tried it for the first time and tried to describe it. Glessnor is one of those--I can pick out its hallmark sweet nuttiness when used as a wrapper the same way you can tell the taste of ginger ale from sprite or root beer. Blending these different strains together makes for crazy good combinations limited only to the imagination and one's palate. Here's a pic of some of the kilned, dried, pressed and ready-to-age leaf, and the link is to my overall 2012 ops so far.
http://s1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff419/Tektremis/2012%20Tobacco/
http://s1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff419/Tektremis/2012%20Tobacco/
