Pennsylvania broadleaf

Blunt, dark and powerful - sweet black earth, cocoa nib, sourdough and a sharp black-pepper spike that hits harder and earlier than Connecticut broadleaf. There is a rustic, almost barnyard edge to it that some smokers love and others cannot get past. It is among the highest-nicotine leaf in commercial use, and it burns hot, so blenders use it in small measured percentages rather than as a backbone.

Sorting is by stalk position after stalk-cutting. The upper leaves are the notorious Pennsylvania double ligero used as a strength accent; the lower and middle leaf is milder and functions well as binder or as ordinary filler.

Deep limestone-derived silt loam across Lancaster County - some of the most naturally fertile non-irrigated farmland in North America. The high calcium and nutrient load builds a thick, tough, nicotine-heavy leaf.

A short humid continental season with hot summers and reliable rainfall. Like Connecticut broadleaf the crop is stalk-cut and air-cured in slatted barns, then fermented hard.

Lancaster County has grown cigar leaf since the mid-nineteenth century and supplied the filler and binder for the American stogie industry, including the dry-cured Italian-American cheroots still made from it today. Its use in premium handmade cigars is a twenty-first-century development.

Recovering from a long decline - acreage shrank drastically as the domestic cigar industry contracted, but premium demand for high-strength ligero has revived interest in a small way.