Is the tobacco in Marlboro Lights and Marlboro Reds identical and the only difference is the filter?
This article certainly implies so but doesn’t actually come out and say it.
http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/newsreleasesdetail.jsp?id=10324
I find it kinda hard to believe, as the taste is significantly different, and I doubt that the micro holes in in the filter makes such a huge difference.
Anyone know what the straight dope is?
My semi-educated WAG is that they come from different tobacco because they’re different sub-brands, not because one is Light, and therefore taste differently. The lightness is determined by the filter(as well as menthalation[sp?])
Except neither has menthol.
I’m sure there’s more difference - although whether it actually comes from the tobacco I couldn’t say. I smoke Reds and at very least the tobacco is packed tighter - it’s physically more effort to pull air through them than through lights. The claim that ultralights have as much nicotine as real cigarettes seems bizarre to me; I have a friend who smokes them and have on occasion shared hers; I’ll smoke two or three of them back to back, while with my Reds I have no desire at all to smoke more than one at a time.
Try taking the filter off an ultralight and smoke it filterless. It’s just as strong as a red. My red-smoking friends would do this when they bummed my ultralights so they could get their full head rushy goodness with a side order of higher tar.
Bump. Surely someone here knows?
Anyone here worked for a tobacco company or know someone who does?
Difference between a regular and a light?
The regular has more licorice flavoring, and the light has more air holes in the filter.
I thought Marlboros were flavored with chocolate, and Winstons with coffee, no?
whoosh?
No, no whoosh. Seriously. I read years back that all sort of flavorings are in cigarettes, with different ones favored by different brands. Marlboro using chocolate, and the next big brand (I think Winstons, but I’m not sure) coffee. That’s why different brands taste different - tobacco tastes pretty much like tobacco.
Lemme see if I can find a cite…
Well, here’s a list of additives and flavorings in Philip Morris tobaccos, including
Chocolate *and *cocoa. Hmm…Anyone want my urea?
So what you are saying is that the nicotine and tar in the tobacco itself (not including the filter) is the same but the Lights just have less flavor?
Why would the tobacco companies do that though? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to make the Lights just a flavorful as the regular?
Incidently, is the nicotine and/or tar in cigarettes inherent in the tobacco leaves or is it added in?
I doubt it, as I believe lights sell better than regulars. People don’t seem to want too much flavor in their smokes.
The nicotine is definitely an inherent part of the tobacco plant. It produces it as, I believe, an insecticide. And as far as I know, tar is produced by any plant material that burns.
It’s really more about the branding than the taste. Most people who smoke Marlboro Lights probably don’t even know (or remember) what Marlboro Reds taste like.
The tobacco in Basic cigarettes is swept up off the floor and rolled. :eek:
I worked in tobacco one day as a kid. I had to take bunches of leaves off the truck and place them over the sticks that someone else would tie the leaves on to hang up in the barn to cure. Every one worked in a line.
When it was time to break for lunch (which seemed like an eternity) my hands were actually black; and tarry. :mad: I thought I would never get it off.