dstieger wrote:Really? I have NEVER had that problem with these. Unlike many (most?) short/med filler cigars....ever had a Fuente Curly Head - you spend the entire time spitting out tobacco flecks.
These are hardly floor scraps, garbage, etc....It's the table trimmings from LP's, some of the finest (and most expensive) cigar tobacco leaf in the world. The fact that they sort them and actually blend them into a cigar that has consistent flavor, holds its ash and doesn't flake in your mouth is fairly impressive...and not cheap to make.
So, as always, smoke what you like. I agree that these are a little pricey for me, but not extraordinarily so. I just don't understand the vitriol. If you don't like them, don't buy them.
If something falls and hits the floor at a cigar production facility, it can't be reused, in fact it's not even supposed to be touched by anyone handling product. It stays there on the floor until the constantly circulating cleaning crew sweeps it up and throws it in the trash. This is how all the major/large facilities operate and most, if not all, of the small ones. It's not all that different from how food packing / processing plants are handled, really.
I don't know exactly how much the LP tobacco costs, but it does most certainly cost more than Fuente's tobacco. A large part of this is because DE isn't a grower and also because they are using some leaf that simply isn't cheap. Curly Heads are made from regular line trimmings which are chopped, possibly mechanically, down to rather small bits then hand finished. PFs are made from LP trim, there is some level of sorting and hand re-cutting that goes on, certainly not to the level of the long filler cigars, but more than many others get. As for the tobacco used, it's apples and oranges really, when Fuente releases a Curly Head made from Anejo or Opus X trim, then it will be a legit comparison, until that point, it's like comparing a burger trimmed and ground in house at a steakhouse to a burger from some place like Applebee's.