Curious references to Latakia

[SmokingUnicorn]

I love Latakia and am always keen to learn more about it (whether I'll ever have the wherewithal to actually produce my own remains to be seen—but one can dream!), and during the course of my research I came across two letters from 1970 written by someone called Glyn from Gallaher that really confused me. They refer to the 'process' associated with Latakia involving 'a steam jacketed oven', 'steeping for some hours', and 'cooking at a high temperature'. I've put the links to the documents below (I would attach the docs, but I'm not sure whether that would breach the copyright of the UCSF archive). Can anyone explain exactly what was being referred to, as these are not things that I would normally associated with Latakia? Smoking over smouldering hardwoods—yes, but steeping and cooking has me baffled...

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

Manufacture of Latakia: Letter from Hilary Glyn

Process sheet for our Latakia: Letter from Hilary Glyn

 

[deluxestogie]

Very bizarre. That particular document site appears to have no easily accessible search function. The actual process sheet is missing. One letter mentions "steeping", while the other suggests a drum with a heated jacket. Also, that company seems to be marketing tobaccos of marginal quality (alluding to "Indian" tobacco, for example). Heaven only knows what the intended purpose of his processed Latakia might have been.

Real Latakia for pipe blending is really outside the purview of Big Tobacco's interests. It is fire-cured for several months over the smoke of specific Mediterranean woods, then allowed to age. That's it.

My suggestion would be to save the calories that might be required to understand what those two letters were about. Check the Key Forum Threads (link above) for discussions about Latakia production.

Bob

 

[SmokingUnicorn]

Thanks for the really speedy reply

Aye, the UCSF site has a horrendous search function - its a treasure trove of info but hellish to actually pin down what you need. As you say - the actual process sheet is missing. It's really interesting what you say about Latakia being outside of the purview of Big Tobacco as I'd noticed how little information is available from those sort of archives. I guess as they import(ed) it direct from Syria or Cyprus in cured form they had/have little interest in how it is/was actually made.

You've definitely cleared up my confusion though - the 'process' must refer to some dubious concoction that they made from Latakia rather than the process of making the stuff itself. I was just worried that I'd missed something important other that the fire-curing part. As you suggest, I won't exert myself trying to figure out what they were actually doing. Plenty of really useful info in the Latakia threads here

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Way back there were several big companies trying to make a Latakia extract that could be sprayed onto leaf to give a Latakia flavor at a considerably cheaper price than buying the whole leaf. This is probably part of what you are seeing. I have some similar documents in my files that I might dig up and post.. but motivation is lacking these days..

 

[burge]

Maybe it was attempting to make it quickly. Just a thought that may work for making cavendish.

 

[deluxestogie]

I'll try again. Are you complaining about your recent personal experience, or your experience from years ago?

Bob

 

[SmokingUnicorn]

Way back there were several big companies trying to make a Latakia extract that could be sprayed onto leaf to give a Latakia flavor at a considerably cheaper price than buying the whole leaf.

Aye, that makes sense. I've seen a few of those 'latakia flavouring' type docs myself. I think a lot of them were dismal failures by all accounts . Be interested to see your docs if you do rummage them out