Making our Cigarettes
What is a cigarette?
Not all cigarettes are the same. The tobacco crop is harvested, cured and shipped ready for the leaf processing and ageing before the cigarette manufacturing stages and the final distribution.
Initial Processing and Ageing
The tobacco leaf must be processed at the leaf processing facility, where moisture is added to make the tobacco pliable enough to remove its large stems. Once the stems and foreign matter are removed, the tobacco is hydraulically compressed into boxes. These are stored in special warehouses, while the tobacco undergoes a natural aging and mellowing process.
Primary Processing
The tobacco undergoes a conditioning process where high temperatures and humidity restore moisture to suitable levels for cutting and blending tobacco.
Cigarette Making and Packing
The blended tobacco is delivered by a pneumatic feed system to cigarette making machines within the SATG factory.
At the maker, the tobacco is stored temporarily in hoppers which continuously allow measured amounts of tobacco to drop down onto prepared cigarette paper. The paper is wrapped around the tobacco and sealed to from continuous rods. These are then cut to proper length for cigarettes. Filter-tipped brands have a double length filter inserted between every two cigarettes; filters are sealed to the rods and then cut in half to produce two cigarettes, each one having a filter on one end.
Packer machines insert cigarettes into packs, packs into cartons and cartons into cases. The cases are then conveyed to the SATG finished goods department for temporary storage. From there they are shipped to warehouses to be sold to SATG authorized wholesale distributors worldwide retailers buy from these wholesale distribution channels.
Varieties of Tobacco and Cigarette Components:
Cigarettes are made up of three major components
1. Tobacco leaf, is the main ingredient in all our products and comes from the tobacco plant.
2. Tobacco ingredients, are used to maintain freshness and achieve consistency in the taste of the tobacco
3. Non tobacco materials are essential components used to contain the tobacco, produce the filter and keep the resulting cigarette in tact.
Tobacco
The tobacco in a cigarette often contains a selection of different types of tobacco form different countries, blended for aroma, taste and character to meet smokers taste preferences. There are three main types of tobacco used in cigarettes-Virginia, Burley and Oriental.
SATG American finest blend cigarettes are a blend of two main tobaccos: Virginia and burley. Most is grown in the USA, South America and Indonesia.
Virginia Tobacco: matures from the bottom leaves up, so they are picked first, then each succeeding layer as they mature, until only the top leaves are left for final harvest. Leaves are graded according to their position on the stalk.
Burley tobacco is similar to that of Virginia but there are significant differences in the way burley is harvested and cured.
Cigarette Paper
Cigarette paper is especially made, and influences how the ash holds together and how much air enters through the paper, thus diluting the smoke. Choosing papers of different abilities to let air through can help in the design of low tar yielding cigarettes.
Filter
Filters are designed to reduce the amount of smoke reaching the smoker. Most are made form textile fibre –cellulose. It has no taste, and is firm enough to hold its shape. Along with other design elements such as ventilation, different filters can result in different yields of tar and nicotine, resulting in different strengths of the taste of the smoke.
Ventilation
A cigarette can be ventilated to dilute the smoke which in turn reduces delivery of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide. All cigarettes are ventilated through the paper, through which air can penetrate, and many are also ventilated through small air holes on the filter tip. When a smoker inhales, air is drawn in through these small holes, and mixes with air drawn in through the lit end, diluting the smoke. Filter ventilation can be important feature of lower tar cigarettes.
