While a blender will concoct his creations based on flavors that stem from certain plants grown from specified seeds in specified regions, determining the strength and intensity of the competing aromas in a complex cigar is an art all by itself. A typical tobacco plant has roughly 18 usable leaves that are spread among 5 primings. From the bottom to the top, these primings are referred to as Valado, Seco, Viso, Ligero and Corona. Because of the flavor intensity, mostly the middle three priming are utilized by blenders to alter the cigars intensity.

The strength of any particular tobacco is determined by the leaves thickness and this thickness is directly proportional to the amount of nutrients it receives from the soil and sun. For this reason, the leaves in the higher primings of the plant tend to have more texture and more flavor as they are exposed to more sunlight. Also, when the leaves are harvested they are picked from the bottom to the top over a two week period. With the lower primings removed, more of the soils nutrients and funneled to the top of the plant where the leaves remain for a longer period of time.

How does a blender use this? It depends. If he wants to increase the strength of the entire blend, he may amp up all of the leaves (ie make all the seco tobaccos viso, visos to ligero, etc). However, and most commonly, the blender will change the primings of only some of the tobaccos in an effort to balance the competing aromas. For example, if the sweet notes from a leaf of Cameroon are dominating the palate too much and overshadowing some of the other more subtle notes, the blender might change to a lower priming of the Cameroon (ie ligero to viso) or he might use higher primings from some to the other tobaccos to round out the blend.

As you might imagine, blending quality cigars is more than just throwing together random leaves of tobacco. Narrowing the flavor profile of tobacco down to seed, country, region, farm and priming leaves endless possibilities. For this reason, some of the world’s greatest potential blends have most likely not been discovered.