Shag (tobacco)

Shag or rolling tobacco is fine-cut tobacco used to make self made cigarettes by hand rolling the tobacco into rolling paper or injecting it into filter tubes. Various types of cut are used; most shag blends use a simple mixture of cutting styles, consisting mostly of loose cut but also crumble cake, ribbon cut and flake may be used. Some shag blends even use more exotic cuts, reminiscent of pipe tobacco.

A cigarette made with shag tobacco may be called a rolley, a roll-up, or, more commonly, a hand-rolled. The flat bags in which shag is typically packaged are often called tobacco pouches.

Different shag styles
There are several shag blends or tobacco styles using different tobaccos, curing techniques and cutting types. Sometimes additives like sugar, glycerol and fruit flavors are added, creating blends that are akin to the shisha smoked in the Middle East.

American shag is typically a mixture of flue cured domestic and/or imported tobacco and air cured Burley.

Virginia or Light blends are mainly made up of several flue cured Virginia Tobaccos.

Smooth adds Georgia tobaccos to a Light blend.

Halfzware is a combination of Light and Zware shag. A typical Dutch style blend.

Turkish is a blend that mainly consists of Turkish (Native American) Tobaccos ([Nicotiana rustica]) like Yenidje, Samsun, Bafra etc.

Zware shag is a Dutch style "power blend" consisting mainly of fire cured Kentucky, Latakia and air cured Paraguay.

Brands of shag

 * Amber Leaf
 * American Spirit
 * Bali Shag
 * Belgam
 * Brandaris
 * Camel
 * Champion
 * Craven
 * Cutters Choice
 * Drum
 * Ducal shag
 * Golden Virginia
 * Gruno
 * Holiday
 * Jakobs
 * Javaanse Jongens
 * Judo shag
 * Look Out
 * Longbeach
 * Marlboro
 * Old Holborn
 * Peter Stuyvesant
 * Rolling
 * Samson
 * Van Nelle
 * Taribi shag
 * Unic shag
 * White Ox
 * Winfield