452 



f December, 1912. 



THE FERMENTATION OF CIGAR TOBACCO. 



In a paper on the cultivation of cigar tobacco with special reference 

 to Java, which appears in the Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, Vol. X, 

 Nos. 2 and 3, the following account of the process of fermentation is 

 given :— 



The dry but still flexible leaves are stripped from the rods and placed 

 in large baskets for transport to the fermenting-sheds. These are large 

 well-built places, which cost about 30,000 florins (£2,500) each to construct. 

 The walls, which are freely provided with windows, are built of brick, 

 whilst the supports and beams consist of teak. The roof is generally 

 tiled and the floor cemented. As each load of tobacco is brought into 

 the fermenting-shed it is weighed and passed to the women labourers, 

 who make it into bundles of fifty or fifty-five leaves, which are used 

 to form the fermentation heaps. Through the greater part of the length 

 of the building runs a wooden platform, about 20 in. high, on which the 

 fermentation heaps are built. These heaps are formed in the following 

 way : A rectangular mat is spread on the platform and on this about 

 500 bundles of tobacco leaves are packed closely in a single layer. On this 

 is placed a second layer, and so on until a rectangular heap of tobacco 

 bundles, made up of twenty layers, each containing 500 bundles, is formed. 

 The bundles are so packed on the outside of the heap that the lower ends 

 ("butts") of the leaves are all outside. The heap is built round a bamboo 

 as a centre-piece, and this serves to hold a thermometer, which registers 

 the temperature throughout the fermentation process. The heap is 

 then covered with a mat to which a slate or board is attached on which 

 the temperature of the heap is recorded twice daily at a.m. and at 5 p.m. 

 After about five days the temperature has risen to 60° C. These primary 

 heaps are called a-heaps. Two a-heaps which have reached this stage are 

 then unpacked and re-built together into what is known as an A-heap, 

 which is of the same length and width as the former one but consists of 

 forty layers instead of twenty and is therefore twice as high as the a-heap. 

 When the ^4-heap has reached a temperature of 60° C. it is taken to pieces, 

 together with a second similar heap, at the same stage, and the two 

 are re-built together into a b-heap consisting of at least 50 layers, each 

 containing 750 bundles of tobacco leaves. When the bheap has reached 

 a temperature of 60° C. it may be either taken to pieces and re-built of 

 the same dimensions (B-heap,) or it may be amalgamated with a second 

 heap in the same condition to form a c-heap, consisting of over 50 layers, 

 each containing 1,500 bundles, and this in turn is allowed to ferment until 

 its temperature rises to 60° (J, At this stage fermentation is generally 

 complete. In amalgamating or re-building heaps care is always taken to 

 place the bundles that were on the outside of the previous heap in the 

 middle of the new one so that the tobacco may be uniformly fermented. 

 The heaps are shaken every day to prevent the bundles sticking together. 

 The process thus outlined is that normally followed, but the rapidity 

 of fermentation is dependent on many variable factors and consequently 

 the whole process has to be carefully supervised by an expert, and modi- 

 fications are introduced as required ; thus it is not uncommon for a-heaps 

 to be re-built directly into b-heaps, and so on. It is clear from available 

 data that as the tobacco ages and becomes more highly fermented, the 

 fermentation temperature rises more slowly ia spite of the fact that; 

 the heaps are steadily increased in siae, 



