For four hundred years, people have taken tobacco for the simultaneously soothing yet stimulating properties of nicotine. Health effects aside, smoking, snuffing, chewing or dipping tobacco can clear the addled mind. With countless blends of varying quality available in various forms, today’s consumers are truly spoiled for choice.

Understanding Types of Tobacco

Though fairly few kinds of tobacco are commercially cultivated, these pure varieties are combined in a cornucopia of blends. Dark-leaf tobaccos tend to be stronger, while lighter varietals are milder. Virginia tobacco (also called “Brightleaf” or “Gold-leaf”) and Burley, both light tobaccos, are the main mixture in most American cigarettes, commonly alongside much stronger Turkish tobacco. Darker, smokier tobaccos are used for snuff or for pipe-smoking, while the strongest are exclusively a part of pipe blends. Broadleaf and similar tobaccos are preferred for premium handmade cigars, including Cuban cultivars such as Corojo, Criollo and Habano, as well as Connecticut shade tobacco. Like a sommelier with wine, a “vitolier,” or tobacconist, is an expert on tobacco types and blends and an excellent resource to help customers find new favorites based on their current tastes.

Picking Your Product

There are several techniques for using tobacco. Besides the blend, people want products that match their intake preferences. Discerning smokers may appreciate their daily cigar, a thick roll of tobacco wrapped in whole tobacco leaves, or its little brother, the cigarillo. Others spring for cigarettes, cigars’ paper-wrapped baby cousins. Cigarettes are sold either as “roll-your-own” or by the pack in hundreds of brands, many of which have loyal fan bases. People who prefer bolder flavors or who take particular pleasure from the act of smoking may partake of a pipe or a hookah. Those who enjoy tobacco but not smoking can buy snuff to inhale or chewing tobacco, typically in long “loose leaf” strands that go between the cheek and gum or in fine-cut “dips” that are held under the lip.

In the modern marketplace, tobacco products come in copious forms and flavors. With teaching and time, you can become a connoisseur who fully enjoys a tobacco experience.