A tobacco for vaping grown in Corrèze

Corrèze has always been a cradle of tobacco growing, but since 2009 only four active producers remain. One of them, Bernard Blanchard, has reinvented his farm around a tobacco intended for electronic cigarettes. A closer look.

Specialising in tobacco for electronic cigarettes: a niche worth the effort

Tobacco growing in France has been in real difficulty since 2009, when the government withdrew all production subsidies for the leaf. Rather than give up, Bernard Blanchard, a tobacco grower based at Varetz in Corrèze, decided to produce a variety designed specifically for vaping devices.

This tobacco is nothing like its conventional counterpart. It calls for far more manual work. The standard mechanical harvester and the other usual machines are out, and Bernard Blanchard had to learn everything again. Once cut, the leaves have to be left to wilt in the sun for a while so that they do not break.

It means going back to the way things were done long ago: relying much more on ancestral techniques than on modern machinery. The methods are different, but they are exactly those the old tobacco growers used. The leaves have to be gathered by hand after their spell in the sun, then whipped so that they stretch without snapping. Drying is then far less demanding, since there is no sorting to do.

A stronger tobacco

Tobacco grown for vaping is dark and stronger than conventional tobacco. Its nicotine content also has to be higher, at the expense of the subtlety of its aromas. Growers working on this type of product know it: the aim is no longer to chase quality, but to obtain a very high nicotine content.

It is also a tobacco sold at a higher price than the conventional leaf. Bernard Blanchard hopes to double the market price of a kilo of his dried leaves. He also hopes that support for tobacco grown for e-liquids will be introduced in the years to come, a request he bases on the use smokers make of these products.