When it comes to exploring the world of pipe tobacco, there's lots to navigate. Of all the tobacco varietals, some are more exotic in history and characteristics than others. As we have ventured through Virginiaville, barrel-rolled through Burley Borough, and army-crawled across Aromatic Avenue, we've taken detours onto the streets of Orientals and English blends, which are expansive, complicated, and hard to traverse without a good road map to guide the way (or a GPS for those who are technologically advanced). Orientals are quite different from other tobaccos due to their small leaf size, complex character, and their vast possibility for blending with other tobacco families. Today we will be focusing on one type of Oriental, prized Turkish tobacco, and some varietals that comprise it, including İzmir, Basma, and Samsun.

Even the most experienced travelers may become lost in these roads and alleyways. We hope to provide a reliable map for weary travelers. We've previously discussed Oriental tobaccos in depth right here on the Daily Reader, including articles on their specific characteristics, and on cured Orientals, better known as Latakia tobacco, the result of a process that is important to the family of English blends. The complications persist when we get into Balkan blends, which often contain a significant amount of Orientals in their mixtures. Each of these resources serves as an excellent introduction to the topic of Orientals.

There's a great deal more to the world of Turkish tobacco. But before we launch into what makes Turkish tobacco so coveted, let us define Turkish tobacco.

What is Turkish Tobacco?

The term "Turkish" tobacco is in reference to what was once known as the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over the historic production areas of Thrace and Macedonia until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These areas are now divided among Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, and Turkey. Today, Turkish tobacco is also grown on the Black Sea coast, in Egypt, South Africa, and various other locations around the world.

Tobacco was initially brought to the Ottoman Empire by the Spanish. The local population developed their own growing methods and uses for tobacco, such as its use as shisha for hookahs. Turkish tobacco made its way to Europe during the 16th century. Tobacco cultivation was a crucial part of Turkey's economy due to agricultural exports made throughout the 20th century, supporting the livelihoods of thousands of farms in the Aegean region, the western part of Turkey. To this day, it remains a critically important export crop for the Turkish economy.

Turkish tobacco is aromatic and complex in flavor and scent while also being low in nicotine, due to the sun-curing process it undergoes after harvest. "Curing removes chlorophyll and removes sap from the leaf, and the end result leaves the plant with less of a nicotine count than other tobacco varietals," says Jeremy Reeves, Director and Head Blender of Cornell & Diehl. Turkish tobacco is predominantly used for cigarettes like Camel, which is the main driving factor motivating farmers to grow it. Its heavy use in cigarette production adds to the difficulty felt by boutique American pipe-tobacco blenders, such as Jeremy, when trying to get a solid amount for their own blends.

The Challenges of Turkish Tobacco

Sourcing Oriental tobacco is difficult for a number of reasons. One factor that Jeremy has experienced firsthand is importing and exporting issues. "Getting Oriental tobacco is difficult for small producers because it has to be imported from Turkey, or Macedonia, or Bulgaria, or Greece. And there's no cost-efficient way to import without filling a shipping container," says Jeremy.

"For most pipe-tobacco operations, a shipping container of Oriental, because of the quantities that you'd actually use in your blends, might be a really large supply. It might last you a really long time and it's going to be expensive to ship. The price of the product itself is fairly high as well because the leaves are very small and the growing regions where the tobacco comes from are difficult to farm. Very often, the yield of the crop is not massive."

Tobacco cultivation was crucial for Turkey's economy

Aside from these difficulties and the actual crop yield, the tobacco's grade can also be a hindrance to what can be exported for pipe tobacco. "Grade has to do with so many different variables that farmers can't control. It's based in part on the leaf's stalk position on the plant," he says. "You can't grow a crop of all top-tier leaves because you're going to have leaves from the middle and bottom tiers on those plants as well, so there's only so much of any particular grade you can produce at a time."

Turkish tobacco is also hard to source for use in pipe-tobacco blends specifically. "Other than 31 Farms in St. James Parish, Louisiana, where C&D sources all of its Perique, no tobacco farmer that I am aware of is growing their crop thinking that it will go into pipe tobacco," says Jeremy. "So the Oriental that is grown is intended for use in cigarettes, such as those made by R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. It is the same case for Virginia and Burley. The vast majority of Perique, outside of the production of 31 Farms, is grown to sell to Santa Fe to make American Spirit Black and Gray cigarettes. So nobody in the agriculture side of tobacco is thinking about pipe tobacco. Pipe tobacco is just too small for any one farmer to go to the risk, expense, and trouble of growing a crop for that small customer."

Thus, the vast majority of tobacco grown in Turkey, and in this geographical location, is grown because there is a big cigarette company or a group of companies that commission those crops, usually through a leaf dealer acting as the liaison. "The dealer deals with the farm relationships. The manufacturers tell the dealer what kinds of tobacco they want and the sort of quantities they want. And then the dealer contacts their farmers and commissions those crops. Inevitably, things don't turn out. Unfortunately, you can't plan what the yield of a tobacco crop will be, or the grade you'll be getting." Adding to the limited demand, in general, there are fewer cigarette smokers every day. "The overall use of tobacco is in pretty stark decline because people are not smoking cigarettes the way they did 30 or 50 years ago," says Jeremy.

Outside of production and the woes of importing, Turkish tobacco is also difficult to incorporate in blending because of its strong flavor and low nicotine content. There are a lot of oils in these leaves, making it more difficult for manufacturers to use a large quantity of Orientals in their blend while keeping it balanced and burning well. And still, the challenges don't end there.

Political Landscape

The political climate throughout history has limited how much Turkish tobacco can get to the United States. Turkish tobacco was first introduced to European trade in the late 16th century, and by the 17th century, it served as one of the largest exports for both the Ottomans and Europeans. It first made its way into American tobacco in the late 19th century. Fast forward to the 20th century, during the First World War, trade was disrupted from Turkish to Americans, spurring domestic cultivation attempts in other countries, like Greece and Bulgaria.

"It is difficult to navigate business relationships with tobacco farmers from Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, and so forth because of changes in the political climate," Jeremy says. "Now, Turkey has recently passed a 30% inclusionary law. That means that every tobacco product produced in Turkey must contain 30% locally produced tobacco. And so this further increases the conditions of shortage of Turkish-grown leaf to export interests because the Turkish government is saying, 'We need to use more of this locally in our own products.'

"It's for this reason that farmers are having to strike a balance between trying to prioritize what's needed from their crop for local production and whether or not there is enough demand to justify growing more to meet export needs," says Jeremy. "And so that, compounded with the supply-chain issues of COVID-19, all of these things have resulted in Oriental tobacco's overall rarity for us to get our hands on. So we source what we can when we can. And when we can, we get as much of it basically as we're able to because it is very feast or famine."

A question that may arise while hearing of all these struggles is "why even bother?" It seems that Turkish tobacco is more of a pain than it's worth in a blend. However, its desirable qualities make it well worth the effort.

Why is Turkish Tobacco Desirable?

Turkish tobacco, and the Oriental tobacco family in general, is known for its floral, fragrant characteristics. They add lots of flavor and complexity to tobacco blends, and it's known that a little goes a long way when mixing them into a blend. "Oriental tobacco is its own beast and there is nothing that really leaps to mind as being similar," says Jeremy. "When I smoke Burley, there are aspects of Burley that I can tie to other leaf types. I can find through lines or correlations between a Burley tobacco and a cigar leaf. I can find relationships between Burley tobacco and Virginia. But Oriental tobacco is in its own lane, so to speak."

Orientals such as Turkish leaf engage the senses in a profound way, perhaps more than any other tobacco. "It's like walking through an open-air spice market. Don't get me wrong, I think Virginia smells amazing. Being in a curing barn of Virginia is incredible. Being in the curing barn at 31 Farms, there's a beautiful, subtle, sweet smell there too. But Oriental is fragrant on a whole other level," says Jeremy. "It is so fragrant that it seems as though it's been perfumed. And it's just from these growing conditions that have baked those oils into the lamina of the leaf. The result is a wild array of flavors and aromas."

The political climate throughout history has limited how much Turkish tobacco can get to the United States.

In general, when we think of Aromatics, often we consider tobacco that has a pronounced topping, like a cherry additive that smells like it sounds. However, on the leaf side, a grouping of aromatics refers to Oriental tobacco specifically. Turkish tobacco is aromatic and packs a punch, with distinctive flavors that are spicy, sweet, zesty, and much more. It's higher in acidity than other kinds of tobacco that are air-cured or flue-cured, making it more pungent in its aroma.

How Is Turkish Tobacco Grown?

Like so many other tobaccos, Turkish leaf is largely defined by the terroir of the region. "If you take an Oriental seed and plant it in really rich soil and in a more humid environment, you're more likely to get something larger than the Oriental plant tends to be, as well as something that is overall less oily and less sugary," says Jeremy. "You're going to end up with something probably closer to Burley. If you grow it in sandier soil and in a more humid climate, you're likely to get something more akin to Virginia."

Turkish is a member of the Oriental family, and the definition of Oriental can be hard to pin down. "Oriental is not its own distinct strain of tobacco. It is basically what has happened by planting tobacco in the Mediterranean areas over and over again," he says.

Orientals such as Turkish leaf engage the senses in a profound way, perhaps more than any other tobacco out there.

Turkish tobacco does not grow awfully tall, and it produces very small leaves that are difficult to cultivate, especially if growing conditions are not ideal. The small height, typically three feet tall, is an evolutionary characteristic that Oriental plants developed due to the heat in this environment, with little to no cloud coverage to provide shade. "The plant realized that it can't grow to six feet tall and produce 22 to 24 leaves that are 18 inches across and 17 to 30 inches long. Its leaves would burn before they were fully grown, so the plant is shorter and produces 100 leaves on a stalk that are very small," says Jeremy.

The production of oil remains the same as if it were a much larger plant, yet it uses the oil in a higher concentration on each of the small leaves, acting almost like a sunscreen. "As the day goes on and the sun moves across the sky, these leaves are more tightly clustered together on the stalk and can be in direct sunlight for a much shorter period of time before they enjoy shade from their neighbor, or provide shade to neighboring leaves," he says. Due to the oil and growing conditions of Oriental tobacco, including Turkish variants, their presence is more fragrant, with a floral flavor and aroma.

"The plant has a baking experience in the sun. During sun-curing, the tobacco is strung together on little rings because if they were simply laid out, the leaves are so small that a good gust of wind could blow the whole crop away," says Jeremy. "When you're going through Oriental tobacco, you'll see these little pin holes at the back end of each leaf a lot of times, or places where that was ripped out, so it's apparent that the leaf was sewn together into a ring that could be hung on an A-frame and set on a reflective surface. Then someone is literally angling that A-frame to face toward the sun throughout the course of a day for around five to six days.

the plant is shorter and produces 100 leaves on a stalk that are very small

"Turkish tobacco provides a very olfactory-engaging, floral, spicy, complex, ethereal presence," says Jeremy. "As you smoke it, the notes you get kind of come and go, changing in a dramatic way, and that is due to the climate in which it's grown. It's really not what we would think of as the ideal climate to produce tobacco, but it works wonderfully for this Oriental."

The soil in the region where it's grown is quite different from other areas around the globe; it's sandy and like that of clay with gray and red-brown colorations, and a low acidity. These characteristics are thanks to the hot and dry climate in the Mediterranean region.

Growing Turkish Tobacco Elsewhere

Given the specific climate and soil necessary to grow Turkish tobacco leaves, it has sparked the interest of companies, namely cigarette companies, to discover other areas where this tobacco could thrive and grow. "R.J. Reynolds in particular has put lots and lots of money over the years into trying to find other areas of the world that they could grow Turkish or Oriental tobacco in. In particular, in the '60s, they did a lot of experimentation and spent quite a bit of money on trying to grow Oriental in California, Nevada, and in areas like Bend, Oregon," says Jeremy.

Depending on availability and crop yields of Turkish leaf, at certain points in C&D's use of Turkish Oriental leaf, their Turkish Ribbon has been a blend of both İzmir and Basma varietals. Sometimes, it has been purely İzmir. "Right now, we are using İzmir seed that was grown in Thailand, which is pretty cool, and it's delicious. I'm really pleased with this leaf."

It was intriguing to Jeremy that this varietal was successfully grown and cultivated in Thailand; though he was initially skeptical, he is pleased with the results. "It was kind of an experiment that was tried to see if there were other places outside of the traditional growing areas where Oriental leaf could be produced. It was quite surprising that it came from Thailand. I do think that there was quite some infrastructure and climate conditioning needed to achieve this in that area so that leaf won't be widely available," he says.

Considering the climate, Jeremy doesn't believe it was grown outdoors. Orientals are typically grown in more arid conditions. "In Thailand, the air is thinner, the soil is sandier, and there is much more humidity and rain. Maybe there's a high desert area of Thailand, but when I think of it there, I think of sweltering humidity, much like a jungle climate. And that wouldn't be where I'd expect this crop to be produced."

Turkish Varietals

There are three varietals that make up what has come to be referred to as Turkish tobacco: İzmir, Samsun, and Basma.

İzmir tobacco is known for its small, aromatic leaves with a distinctive flavor that's captivatingly nutty, spicy, sweet, and sour. The largest city in the Aegean region, İzmir serves as the namesake of this varietal. "The older word for İzmir leaf is Smyrna," says Jeremy.

Perhaps the most prominent use for Turkish İzmir is in Turkish cigarettes. However, İzmir tobacco is used in many pipe tobacco blends, including plenty of Cornell & Diehl mixtures you know and love, like Sunday Picnic or Star of the East. You can also purchase İzmir on its own in a 2oz tin of ribbon-cut flakes from C&D for smoking pure or home-blending purposes. Other pipe tobacco brands that incorporate this unique varietal include Warped, G.L. Pease, and Low Country.

"İzmir is the blending component that we use for the majority of our blends that call for an Oriental. The tobacco that we put in that tin or in that bulk bag is literally the same Turkish that we are using in our blends," says Jeremy. "Since we don't have this constant, consistent supply of leaves, it can change, but the character of the tobacco remains consistent. My job as a blender is to use what we have now and source things to keep a flavor profile that is consistent, transitioning into different grades of tobacco."

"İzmir often makes me think of coconut curry. There are these really unique, spice-driven flavors. And when I say spice, not so much pepper, but more like baking spices," says Jeremy.

Samsun tobacco is named after the city of Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta and Amisos, resting on the northeastern coast of Turkey, and also serving as a major Black Sea port. This leaf is the darkest of the Turkish varietals, grown in brown podzolic forest soils. Samsun grows the best in slightly sloped areas away from the shore in regions containing strong soils. Like İzmir, Samsun has small leaves with thin veins. These leaves have a high hygroscopy with long-lasting leaves, are slightly red in color, and evoke a lightly spicy aroma and a sweet flavor when smoked.

My job as a blender is to use what we have now and source things to keep a flavor profile that is consistent, transitioning into different grades of tobacco.

"I find Samsun to have this really interesting sort of not sweet but savory spice and peppery aspect. But there's also a pronounced oily, creamy note that kind of reminds me of olive oil," says Jeremy. Samsun can be found in an array of blends that call for Orientals, including Eight State Burley from Cornell & Diehl.

Lastly, Basma is mostly grown in the Black Sea region, featuring a sour and sweet taste. Similar to its counterparts, it has high hygroscopicity, easily absorbing moisture, and a low nicotine content, but adds a lot of sweetness in small amounts within blends.

Basma tends to be utilized often in Virginia/Oriental mixtures, like the popular summer staple from C&D, Sun Bear, and the various iterations of it that have come out in recent years, as well as the tribute to Oriental blends of yesteryear, C&D's Palmetto Balkan.

Packed with Flavor, Depth, and Exotic Complexity

Turkish tobacco is quite complicated. Based on politics, the environment, and use in more than simply pipe tobacco, its availability can be hard to count on. However, the complex and unique characteristics are worth the effort, which Jeremy Reeves can attest to. "I really love Oriental tobacco, and it's because it is so fragrant, tea-like, and complex. There is nothing quite like it."

I really love Oriental tobacco, and it's because it is so fragrant, tea-like, and complex. There is nothing quite like it.

As Shane Ireland has often noted in Tasting Notes videos, meerschaum pipes are incredible selections for tasting the flavors of a tobacco. A Meerschaum may be a great choice for the next time you're smoking an Oriental, or adding some İzmir to your own mixtures from C&D for added sweetness and complexity. Relax, enjoy, and consider the difficulty in growing and obtaining those Turkish varietals, and delight in the exotic charm of this prized tobacco.

Bibliography

• About Turkish tobacco. Real Tobacco Extract. (n.d.).
• Nadel, D. (2024, March 22). What's Turkish tobacco and why do pipe smokers enjoy it so much?. BnB Tobacco.
• Tobacco Varieties. SUNEL. (n.d.).