411 on Flor de Oliva

[T.G]

One of the things in working with tobacco is that to get the premium leaf, you can get stuck with some not so desirable leaf. Not all leaves are picture perfect. If you're buying tobacco, you often have to buy the less desirable to get the chance to buy the better stuff. The farmer certainly doesn't want to be stuck with only the less desirable stuff - no one comes looking to buy that. If you're growing it, well, not every leaf you grow is going to be ideal.

So what do you do with, say, 10 tons of ugly wrapper leaf that you had to buy in order to get 15 tons of premium leaf?

If you're lucky, you can cut them in such a way as to make some decent looking cigars with it. If not, you make the best cigars you can for the price point and figure out a marketing spin for them that doesn't require a lot of explanation to the consumer but yet simultaneously, completely justifies why they might look the way they do and appeals to the budget conscious.