Loose leaf chewing tobacco

A loose leaf chewing tobacco product is prepared from leaf tobacco by removing the stems and major veins, then cutting the leaves across the grain of the remaining veins in a uniform manner with the cuts being spaced no greater than 1/4 inch apart, then casing the leaves with a casing mixture and finally drying the cased leaves.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to a chewing tobacco product, and more particularly 
to a product and a method for making the same in which the tobacco is a 
loose leaf product having small, uniform leaf size with virtually no 
objectionable stem parts. 
Chewing tobacco has been manufactured in various forms for many years, such 
as pressed plugs, rolled twists, and loose leaf tobacco, formerly called 
"scrap tobacco". The name "scrap" probably evolved from the origin of the 
tobacco used in the manufacture of the end product. Originally, some of 
the tobacco was obtained from other tobacco manufacturing processes such 
as cigar trimmings. With the advent of homogenized wrapper leaf, cigar 
trimmings became unsuitable for use in loose leaf chewing tobacco. 
Therefore, it became necessary to manufacture "scrap" tobacco from virgin 
air-cured cigar tobacco. Eventually, the term "scrap tobacco" fell into 
disuse and was replaced by the term "loose leaf" tobacco. 
Traditionally, loose leaf tobacco has been made from non-uniform pieces of 
tobacco, including not only leaf parts, but also stems and veins in 
various forms. 
Essentially two approaches to the production of a commercially acceptable 
product have been taken: (1) the incorporation of the stem and vein parts 
into the final product; and (2) the removal of these part from the final 
product. The latter approach involves primarily mechanical treatment of 
tobacco leaves, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,176,511 to Rundell in which 
the stems are torn from the leaf web; 2,398,450 to Rundell in which the 
stem is separated and cut from the leaf blade; and 4,237,909 to Jenkins, 
Jr. et al, wherein the stems are ripped away from the leaf lamina by 
rollers. In the former approach, various techniques have been employed to 
incorporate the stem and vein parts in a tobacco mixture. For example, 
U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,514 to Hind et al discloses a tobacco product in which 
stems and veins are passed between rollers to break up or crush the bulky 
rigid parts. To facilitate an improved, less harsh, more aromatic taste, a 
slower burn and reduced heat for smoking tobaccos, an aqueous solution of 
ammonium phosphate is added to the parts either before, during or after 
rolling thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 3,425,425 to Hind discloses a tobacco 
product in which stems and veins, first treated with a solution containing 
a water-soluble carbohydrate, are puffed or expanded, and then mixed or 
incorporated into a conventional tobacco product, with or without 
subsequent threshing. 
In general, when the prior art refers to stemming (destemming), it concerns 
primarily the removal of essentially the main stem only. The products, 
even if cut, consequently retain the major veins which the public often 
perceives, in a negative way, as being "stems." Indeed, in the prior art 
processes the tobacco is normally threshed, i.e. passed through a 
hammer-mill type device having brackets thereon which causes the tobacco 
leaves to break into pieces which tend to parallel the veins, and thereby 
leave the veins generally intact. 
The inclusion of stem and vein parts in these various forms of smoking-type 
tobacco products may have been acceptable, if only for economic reasons. 
However, the use of such parts in chewing tobacco products has often met 
with adverse reaction. U.S. Pat. No. 421,373 to Wilson discloses the 
shredding, splitting, cutting, crushing or pulping of stems after 
softening in water. The patent proposed a method of stem inclusion in 
which the stems were first ground to a powder and then sprinkled on 
successive layers of tobacco during packing or casing. During this method, 
a dampening solution was added to impart flavoring and moisture to the 
final product. The Wilson process is similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 
1,407,274 to Hibbert in which, in a method of making plug and chewing 
tobacco products, the objective was to maintain uniformity in moisture and 
consistency. This was accomplished by incorporating in the tobacco a 
mixture of glycols with water, or glycols alone. And in U.S. Pat. No. 
214,638 to Emery, a tobacco-treating method and resultant product was 
disclosed for fine-cut chewing tobacco or plug tobacco. The disclosed 
process for making the chewing tobacco involved dipping or spraying the 
tobacco with a sweetener, removing the stems from the leaves, pressing the 
destemmed leaves into cakes, and then cutting the cakes into fine threads, 
strips, or shreds. The process for making plug tobacco involved dampening 
or steaming the leaves, removing the stems, saturating the destemmed 
leaves with sweetener, drying the saturated leaves and then cutting and/or 
pressing the leaves into the desired shape. 
Tobacco products made by the above-described processes suffer from many 
undesirable qualities. For example, many people do not like the 
"fluffiness" and large, non-uniform leaves found in loose leaf. In many 
present loose leaf products, there is found an unacceptable amount and 
degree of stems and piece sizes inadvertently left in the final product. 
For these reasons, many people will use another type of tobacco product 
such as plug tobacco, even though they do not find acceptable the hardness 
of the plug product. There is therefore a need for a loose leaf tobacco 
product with a smaller, more uniform leaf size which would appeal to both 
loose leaf chewers and plug users. In addition, such a desired product, 
unlike that of the prior art, should be easy to use and contain few, if 
any, objectionable stems or veins, and therefore be appealing to both 
loose leaf and plug users. 
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION 
It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome the defects 
of the prior art, such as indicated above. 
It is a further object to provide for an improved smokeless chewing tobacco 
made from destemmed tobacco leaves, wherein the perception of stem-like 
veins is diminished by cutting the tobacco leaf across the veins. 
It is yet a further object to provide an improved chewing tobacco product 
which is appealing to both loose leaf users as well as plug users. 
Another object of the present invention is to provide a loose leaf chewing 
tobacco product of small, uniform leaf size. 
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a tobacco product 
containing virtually no objectionable stem and stem-like vein parts. 
These and other objects are attainable in accordance with the present 
invention in which cut, hand stemmed leaves are first treated to remove 
some of the major veins are cut across the grain of the veins to produce a 
specific number of cuts per inch of tobacco, and then cased with a casing 
liquid. The cased product is dried to a finished moisture content of 21 to 
24 percent, and then packaged. 
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS AND PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE 
PRODUCT 
The chewing tobacco product of the present invention employs cut, hand 
stemmed leaves of one or more varieties of tobacco, from which some of the 
objectionable major veins are removed by threshing. These leaves are then 
further cut on a multi-bladed rotary cutter set to produce a specific 
number of cuts per inch of tobacco. In this way, a blend of tobacco with 
very uniform leaf size can be obtained. Additionally, the blend is 
remarkably free of stems and objectionable veins in comparison to 
currently available loose leaf blends, as will be shown later in the 
examples. 
In manufacturing tobacco by this process, hand stemmed leaves, such as, but 
not limited to, Wisconsin, Pennslyvania, or Connecticut Shade Grown cigar 
wrapper leaf, which have been threshed to remove some of the objectionable 
veins, are blended in the desired proportion. This blend is fed into the 
above-mentioned multi-bladed rotary cutter at a constant input speed. With 
the appropriate number of blades and rotation speed, from 4 to 12 cuts per 
inch of tobacco can be made, thereby producing cut leaves of very uniform 
size. The spacing of the cuts is important and should not exceed 1/4 inch. 
Because of the random nature of rotary cutting, cuts are made across the 
"grain" of the stem. 
The blend of leaves thus cut are next cased with a blend of ingredients 
including, but not limited to, licorice, sugars and various syrups. The 
casing liquid can be applied either by spraying the liquid on the tobacco 
as it passes into a rotating mixing drum, or by passing the tobacco 
through a reservoir of the liquid casing. This is followed by squeezing of 
the excess casing from the cased tobacco. Thus, in contrast to previous 
processes, the process of the present invention provides that the tobacco 
is cased after cutting, rather than casing and then cutting the cased 
tobacco. This difference in processing produces a more uniform product due 
to more uniform cutting, the product having also no cut edges of tobacco 
without casing. 
At this point, the tobacco will contain from 35 to 40 percent moisture. It 
is then held in this state from 4 to 24 hours in a holding silo to allow 
the product to equilibrate. After the holding period, the wet tobacco is 
passed through a dryer where the product is dried to a finished moisture 
of 21 to 24 percent. The product is then held in another silo to allow the 
moisture to equilibrate again before packaging the product in foil 
pouches. 
By way of the following examples, the tobacco blend and the finished 
product are compared to representative products currently on the market.

EXAMPLE 1 
In this example, the size distribution of the tobacco blend obtained by the 
above process is compared to the size distribution of a typical blend 
normally used in producing loose leaf tobacco. The size distribution is 
determined on a vibrating screen sizer containing screens with 1/8", 1/4", 
3/8", and 7/8" square openings. 
______________________________________ 
PERCENT RETAINED 
Screen Size Commercial Blend 
Present Blend 
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7/8" 16.2% 0.87% 
3/8" 49.0% 15.65% 
1/4" 19.2% 43.48% 
1/8" 13.0% 33.04% 
Fines 2.6% 6.96% 
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As can be seen from the table, over 75% of the present blend is in a 
desirable size range of less than 3/8" but greater than 1/8". In addition, 
there is a very small amount of pieces greater than 7/8". Thus, the 
present blend has a more uniform size than normal commercial blends as 
well as being smaller in size. 
EXAMPLE 2 
In this example, the amount of undesirable or objectionable stems or veins 
in the product manufactured by this process is compared to the amount of 
undesirable stems or objectionable in loose leaf products currently on the 
market. Undesirable or objectionable veins or stems are defined as a stem 
or leaf vein in excess of 0.75 inches in length and/or 0.02 inches in 
diameter. The percentage of undesirable stems or veins in a product is 
determined by hand picking a weight amount of tobacco and weighing the 
amount of undesirable stems thus obtained. It can be seen in the following 
table that a loose leaf product made by this process contained only 0.054% 
or objectionable stems or objectionable veins compared to 0.42% to 0.96% 
objectionable stems or objectionable in commercially available loose leaf 
products. 
______________________________________ 
Objectionable 
% Objectionable 
Tobacco 
Stems or Veins 
Stems 
______________________________________ 
Present Product 
37.0 ozs. 
0.02 ozs. 0.054% 
Brand #1 40.2 ozs. 
0.17 ozs. 0.42% 
Brand #2 35.8 ozs. 
0.33 ozs. 0.92% 
Brand #3 34.6 ozs. 
0.33 ozs. 0.96% 
Brand #4 37.4 ozs. 
0.18 ozs. 0.47% 
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It will thus be seen from the above examples, that the loose leaf products 
produced by this process have physical properties which are significantly 
different and more desirable than currently available loose leaf products. 
It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments 
disclosed which are illustratively offered and that modifications may be 
made without departing from the invention.