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1. Tobacco bales are received from the various collection centres throughout the country. They are regraded for quality according to evaluation scales for optimum blend homogeneity.
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2. The tobacco blend, called “block”, composed by the customer, goes to the vacuum pre-humidification unit and comes out supple for greater ease-of-manipulation.
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3. The blocks are then brought to the blending-line. The tobacco is conveyed and pass into a cylinder where they are heated and re-humidified, before arriving on the picking tables.
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4. Often there are 20 finishers working in the picking workshop. They remove any leaves which do not correspond to the specific nature of the blend.
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5. The following step is the threshing stage which enables separation in a tobacco leaf of the parenchyma veins. At the end of this stage, the quality strips can be distinguished from the fine scrap particles and leaf stems.
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6. The strips are then re-dried. This is a natural treatment which tobacco undergoes in order to stabilize the product. The tobacco is first of all warmed and dried, then cooled and finally re-humidified and re-heated.
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7. The strips are then packed into cardboard boxes. The temperature and humidity are the same as when the strips leave the re-dryer, according to customer requirements.
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8. All stages of this process are controlled in detail in the laboratory and meet individual customer specifications.
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