Sullana. Swiss tobacco with an Orient blend, made in Steinach.

Sullana has been a fixture in Swiss tobacco tradition for decades. Over the years the brand was produced by various manufacturers, but its positioning stayed constant: a Swiss brand with a recognisable Orient character, far away from the classic American-blend taste of Marlboro, Camel or Lucky Strike.

While Marlboro, Camel and Lucky Strike rely on a sweet, full-bodied American blend of Virginia, Burley and casing flavouring, Sullana goes its own way. The taste is drier, more aromatic and clearly shaped by Orient tobacco - a profile that has its own following.

Today Sullana is produced at our manufactory in Steinach on Lake Constance. The brand thus continues a Swiss artisanal tobacco tradition that has largely disappeared from industrial mass production.

Heimat Original and Sullana are made in the same manufactory - in the same artisanal environment, on the same machines and by the same team. What sets them apart is the blend, not the producer. We disclose this openly because transparency is at the core of the Heimat manufactory idea.

Concretely this means: the Swiss tobacco share in Sullana comes from documented Swiss cultivation - mainly Burley and Virginia from the Broye valley (Vaud / Fribourg) and additionally from the Lake Constance region. Refinement takes place in Steinach: stripping, cutting, blending with the Orient share, conditioning with mountain spring water from the Alpstein, and packaging.

This clarity of production is the exception in the tobacco market. With most international brands, casing, blending and tobacco origin are spread across several countries and harvest years - with Sullana the value chain is short and traceable.

The main share of Sullana consists of Swiss Burley and Virginia. Burley provides the structure - nutty, slightly earthy, with moderate nicotine content and a robust smoke character. Virginia adds a milder, lightly sweet note and a finer burn behaviour. Both varieties come from naturally fermented Swiss cultivation, matured for at least 18 months in Payerne.

On top of that comes a defined share of Orient tobacco. Orient varieties are smaller-leafed, shaped by climate and traditionally sun-cured. They bring what tobacco blenders call 'spice': a resinous, aromatic, slightly sweet and unmistakably warm note that clearly sets a blend apart from a classic American blend.

Important: like Heimat Original, Sullana relies on an honest tobacco blend without the heavy casing sauces with which industrial brands artificially harmonise their taste. What is in the leaf comes from the leaf.

Orient tobacco refers to a group of small-leafed, aromatic tobacco varieties traditionally grown in the Eastern Mediterranean - classic countries of origin are Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and parts of Syria. The plant stays small, the leaves grow densely together, are rich in oils and intense in aroma.

The most defining feature of Orient tobacco is sun-curing. After harvest the leaves are dried on strings directly in the open sun (sun-cured). This curing fixes essential oils, resins and natural sugars in the leaf and creates the typically warm, spicy flavour profile that sets Orient tobacco apart from air-cured Burley or flue-cured Virginia.

Well-known variety names are Yenidje, Samsun, Smyrna and - from specialty cultivation - varieties such as Peremochez, an Eastern European Orient relative with a particularly fine, aromatic leaf. In a blend with Swiss Burley and Virginia the Orient share complements a warmer, more aromatic flavour profile. A comparable concept in another tobacco world is Perique from Louisiana - a very distinctive fermented variety with a similar function: small quantity, large aromatic contribution.

Heimat Original is the only cigarette made from 100 per cent Swiss tobacco. No foreign additions, no Orient, no Brazil, no US component. Anyone who smokes Heimat Original smokes exclusively Burley and Virginia from Swiss fields - naturally fermented for at least 18 months, refined by hand in Steinach, without additives.

Sullana is positioned differently. The focus here is on a deliberately composed flavour profile with Orient character. The Swiss tobacco share forms the base, the Orient share sets the aromatic accent. Both without industrial casing sauces.

Put simply: Heimat Original = 100 per cent Switzerland pure, for the connoisseur who wants to experience the Swiss variety landscape unaltered. Sullana = Switzerland plus Orient, for the smoker who likes the Swiss tobacco base but additionally appreciates the warmer, spicier note of the Orient leaf. Both from the same manufactory, both without casing - but two clearly distinguishable characters.

Sullana is produced at a Swiss manufactory. This has concrete consequences for quality: every batch is blended, cut and packaged on a manageable scale. We know where the Swiss tobacco share comes from and can document this information at any time. For the Orient share we work with selected suppliers from the traditional growing countries.

The decision to forgo casing - the industrial flavour mix of sugar, glycerine and aromas - is deliberate. Sullana is made without this flavour standardisation. The character comes from the leaf itself: from variety selection, terroir, fermentation and blending. This is more demanding in production because variations cannot be hidden - but it is exactly the kind of tobacco craft our manufactory stands for.

For the consumer this means: a product whose origin, processing and composition remain traceable. No black-box blend from global mass batches, but documented Swiss production with clearly named components.