Burley

Burley is one of the leading air-cured tobacco varieties. Emerging in the United States in the nineteenth century, it became one of the indispensable building blocks of both pipe and cigarette blends owing to its low natural sugar, high nicotine, and porous leaf that absorbs flavoring well. In the pipe world it is known for a nutty, cocoa-like character and is regarded as the foundation leaf of the American blending tradition.

History

The emergence of today's known light-colored variety ("White Burley") is dated to 1864. When George Webb and Joseph Fore planted seed brought from Bracken County, Kentucky, on the Frederick Kautz farm near Higginsport, Ohio, they obtained unusually pale, whitish leaves. Sources differ on whether this difference was a spontaneous seed mutation or the selection of an existing variety. After Webb's first large harvest in 1866 drew great interest at the St. According to the records, within about twenty years it came to make up more than a third of US tobacco production. Whether the name "Burley" derives from a surname or from a local term has not been documented with certainty.