Filler leaves that one MUST have in stock

[Dominican56]

I find it difficult to subscribe to the idea of reducing an intuitive skill and craft down to a mathematical formula.
To me, making a fine cigar is an art not a science.

 

[Marc L]

Since diagrams help me understand, I found this:




Which shows 5 criollo primings, not 3. (I am ignoring the corojo primings shown on the right of the diagram, because quite frankly I have never seen these offered for sale on the websites I purchase from.) I assume that each leaf gathers strength as it occurs on successively higher points on the plant, and the "primings" are merely arbitrary lines drawn on a linear progression.

Now my question when shopping to purchase leaf, should I be aware of what type of plant/country of origin the leaf is, or are all leaves sold retail to folks like us graded and packaged to a common standard, IE Volado is milder than seco is milder than visio.... etc.

Also, how come I never see corona leaf offered for sale?

Finally, Why are binder and wrapper leaves not identified by primings? Are they uniformly gathered from the volado priming?

The terms on the right are used more in Cuba and in the Hispaniola speaking communities.
Ligero means light (closer to the light of the sun). the lower leaves get less of it and in turn are less robust, lending to the lesser caricatures.

The leaf we get has had a minimal of sorting. so we need to learn all that our selves. and, using the given name at point of sale for that position needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

There may be some corona leaves in what you get. they will be smaller and thick. also corona aka Medio Tiempo we are hearing more about recently in commercial sticks.

Volado aka lug or sand leaf because it will tend to touch the ground and may be left behind or used less in premium cigars. You can find volado in some other named pounds. Binder and wrapper tend to be whole crop design. (more profit) binder may be wrapper with holes. higher primings of wrapper is needed to produce a true maduro shade. Binder and wrapper do not get the fermentation the filler does because of the delicate nature. There for it is left at color cured so that it can be elsewhere finished.

 

[Dominican56]

I wish LO and WLT would pass along the nic content in their leaf offerings. I'm pretty sure the broker has that information for their leaf.