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Saka Talks Broadleaf

danthebugman

danthebugman

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Saka talks about Broadleaf tobacco in a recent interview posted on CA:

On Friday, I had a smoke with Steve Saka, the chief executive officer of Drew Estate. Before long, we were talking about the smoke that put Drew Estate on the map in the minds of high-end cigar smokers: Liga Privada No. 9.

Liga Privadas have quite the buzz lately. In our most recent Cigar Insider poll of U.S. cigar retailers, Liga Privada was ranked No. 3 for hottest brands, the cigars consumers request most often in top-tier cigar stores. (It tied with Fuente Fuente OpusX—quite an achievement.) The hallmark of Liga Privada No. 9 is a very dark and very oily Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, and as Saka and I puffed we got to talking about making Liga Privadas, which are always on back order.

“It has seven different tobaccos from seven different vendors,” says Saka. “And it has the most difficult wrapper, Connecticut broadleaf, No. 1 darks.”

Broadleaf is not your usual cigar tobacco. It grows short and bushy, with fat, wide leaves from the open sunlight. Most cigar tobaccos are harvested in a process known as priming, where the leaves are removed from the stalk in groups of three, working from the bottom of the plant. Workers take three leaves from one plant, move to the next, and repeat the process. Days later, they take another three from each plant, until you’re left with bare stalks.

Broadleaf is stalk cut; when the time is right, a worker takes a hatchet, chops the entire stalk, lets the plant wilt a bit in the sun and then spears the plants on a lathe to allow them to hang upside down in a barn on the stalk.

Where Connecticut shade is mild and creamy, Connecticut broadleaf is full-bodied and muscular. It’s gutsy, flavorful stuff.

On paper, broadleaf is relatively cheap, say about $23 a pound, compared to nearly $40 for a pound of Connecticut shade, broadleaf’s more famous cousin. Connecticut-seed wrapper grown in Ecuador sells for a similar price. But Saka and other cigarmakers have told me that broadleaf, when you factor in all the effort and waste, is actually the most expensive wrapper tobacco in the world.

Drew Estate buys broadleaf straight from the barns. “We ship all the tobacco in farm bales in refrigerated containers to Nicaragua,” says Saka. It’s fermented for 18 months to two years at the factory before it can be used. “I still have tobacco from 2009 I haven’t used,” he says.

Broadleaf has remarkably low yields. A pound of broadleaf will deliver a lot less cigars than a pound of something else. Saka said give a cigar company five, maybe five-and-a-half pounds of top-grade Eucador Connecticut and you can make 1,000 toros. It can take as much as 33 pounds of broadleaf, sometimes even more, to make the same number of cigars.

“Everything about [broadleaf] is traumatically expensive,” Saka says.

So broadleaf is expensive, takes forever to work and all agree it’s a royal pain. So why use it?

“I personally love broadleaf,” says Saka, who started smoking cigars in 1984. Broadleaf blends, especially those by the late Frank Llaneza, were some of his favorites. “I’ve always been a broadleaf fan. It’s sweet, it’s earthy, it’s pungent. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed.”

Saka says last year’s broadleaf crop started rough but ended better, but don’t expect there to be a huge influx of more Liga Privada No. 9s. It was a big crop, in terms of leaves produced, but because it had a rainy end to the season it likely won’t result in many of the dark leaves Drew Estate needs for Saka's favorite brand.
Click to expand...
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/blogs/show/id/16719

Dan
 
xFreebirdx

xFreebirdx

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Thats was great read. ;)

On the bottom of the story there is a link to "For more on how broadleaf is grown and harvested, read my Cigar Aficionado story, One Tough Leaf" that was also a real good read. ;):)
 
danthebugman

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xFreebirdx said:
On the bottom of the story there is a link to "For more on how broadleaf is grown and harvested, read my Cigar Aficionado story, One Tough Leaf" that was also a real good read. ;):)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I enjoyed that one too. Somewhere there's an interesting and informative article on CA about Candela leaf also.

Dan
 
CigarGavin

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Very cool article, love how Steve is always having to explain the price and availability of the Ligas.... They are great cigars, that's why!!
 
StocktonJohn

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Great read. The more I read about how Liga does business the more justified I feel about hoarding my No. 9s... They are just unlike anything else out there.
 
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sneak_a_cigar said:
What does "#1 darks" mean?
Click to expand...
Connecticut Broadleaf is not classified in your traditional Spanish wrapper priming terminology - Volado, Seco, Viso, Ligero and Corona - btw these terms vary from Latin location to location and their meaning varies as it is seed variety dependent... Anyhow...

For CTBL, the terminology that is most commonly utilized as capa (wrappers) classifications are:

2LS (No. 2 Long Seconds)
1LS (No. 1 Long Seconds)
Mediums
No. 1 Darks

The terminology of "seconds", "no. 1" and "no. 2" have absolutely nothing to do the quality of the leaf good or bad, it is solely a reference to the stalk position from which it is harvested AND the thickness and texture of the leaf. 2LS are the thinest and are harvested lower on the stalk, whereas No. 1 Darks are the thickest and typically are just the top 2 or 3 leafs of the plant, i.e.. the "corona".

That being said every plant and every crop differs, so just because the CTBL leaf was harvested from the tippy top, is likely to be the thickest leaf and is undeniably a corona leaf, it is not automatically a No. 1 Dark. The actually final designation is determined upon the individual leaf's thickness and texture. So it is very possible to have a great crop of Broadleaf, yet it will yield next to no No. 1 Darks. For example the 2010 crop was great crop year, but it netted almost no No. 1 Darks and was even low in the percentage of Mediums.

On LP No. 9 we only use No. 1 Darks because to their texture and resulting flavor once fermented, this is the key limiting factor to their production. This does not mean the rest of the plant is not excellent, they just have a different strength level and flavor. For example we utilize very thick Mediums on the Feral Flying Pig, yet arguably it is a stronger cigar than the original No. 9 blend - this increase in strength is achieve via the filler recipe.

Some general rules of thumb are that the No. 1 Darks will provide the most body and earthy flavor, sometime quite barnyard pungent, the Mediums tend to be the best balance of earth and sweetness while the long seconds tend to have a leaner, racier taste to them. All of this is relative as CTBL by its very nature is an earthy, sweet leaf with thick veins and oil rich.

Hope this helps,

Steve Saka
CEO, Drew Estate
 
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S

ssaka

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No problemo - nice to actually have someone to share this stuff, Lord knows my wife ain't interested when I start babbling tobacco geek.

Steve
 
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