Sullana. Swiss tobacco with Peremochez Orient from Swiss soil.

In 1916, Feiwel Beer - known as Philipp - founded the Cigarettenfabrik Union on Badenerstrasse in Zurich. Its range featured brands with orientally inflected names like Hera, Péra, Apollon, Stamboul and Byzanz - reflecting an era when Oriental tobacco was, in Europe, the very idea of a fine cigarette. In the 1920s the factory moved to Zurich's Sihlquai, where it would stay for decades.

During this period Sullana first appeared as one of several varieties from the Beer factory. It became so popular that the variety turned into a brand name: in 1939, when Beer & Cie. was converted into a stock company, the Sullana A.G. was founded. From the 1930s to the 1950s Sullana confidently advertised itself as the best-selling 1-franc cigarette in Switzerland. The small manufactory on Sihlquai exported around the world - with the promise Cigarettes Orientales, meaning cigarettes with Oriental tobacco, at the heart of the brand.

In 1967 Sullana moved to Wetzikon. The factory was later acquired by the Dutch Rothmans group, which used it to make small runs of brands like Peter Stuyvesant, Dunhill, Cartier and Vogue. Sullana itself became a factory rather than a cigarette: the in-house brands Palette, Effendi, Club and eventually Sullana itself disappeared from the shelves. In 1997 the Wetzikon site was finally closed - by that point Sullana as a brand was already history.

Today's revival does not pick up the last industrial years but the original character of the Sihlquai era: a Swiss brand with Oriental tobacco at its core - only more consistent, because the Oriental tobacco itself now comes from Swiss soil.

The base is Swiss Burley. Burley is air-cured, ageing in open sheds over several weeks and developing a nutty, slightly earthy aroma profile with substantial body. In Sullana it provides structure, depth and the carrying substance of the smoke - it is what lingers on the palate.

The second component is Swiss Virginia. Unlike Burley, Virginia is flue-cured and therefore retains a high residual sugar content in the leaf. This yields a finer, slightly sweet burn behaviour that brightens the Burley and carries the blend longer on the palate. Both Swiss varietals are naturally fermented for at least 18 months in Payerne before they enter the blend.

The third and defining component is Peremochez - an Oriental tobacco that does not come from Turkey, Greece or Bulgaria but is grown in Switzerland. Exclusively for Sullana. This varietal changes the character of the mix: a solid Swiss tobacco becomes a Swiss-Orient blend with an independent aroma profile.

Botanically Peremochez belongs to the small to medium-leafed aromatic tobacco varieties traditionally cultivated in the eastern Mediterranean and Eastern European growing regions. It is characterised by a high content of essential oils, a relatively low nicotine level and a dense, oil-rich leaf. European seed catalogues list Peremochez as a late-ripening varietal with pronounced aromatic character.

That this varietal grows in Switzerland is anything but obvious. Oriental varieties are climatically demanding: they need sun, warmth and lean soils to develop their typical aromatics. Cultivation for Sullana takes place at a tobacco farmer in the region - in comparatively small quantities, using traditional sun-curing instead of the air- or flue-curing normally used for Swiss tobacco. The harvested leaves are strung up and dried in the open sun until sugars, resins and essential oils are fixed in the leaf.

This Swiss provenance is a rarity in the international tobacco market. Oriental tobacco is usually imported from its classical countries of origin and travels tens of thousands of kilometres before entering a blend. With Sullana's Peremochez, the growing field, drying area and processing bench are only a few hours apart - an extremely short value chain that exists nowhere else in this form. For connoisseurs this is more than a provenance detail: it is its own variation within the Orient family, with the terroir of a Swiss region as its signature.

Oriental tobacco is a group of small-leafed, aromatic tobacco varieties traditionally grown around the eastern Mediterranean. Classic origin countries include Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and parts of Syria. Compared to Virginia or Burley the plant stays small, the leaves cluster tightly and are relatively thick and oil-rich. Well-known varietal names include Yenidje, Samsun, Smyrna, Basma, Katerini and Peremochez - each with its own aroma profile, leaf colour and regional tradition.

The defining feature of all Oriental varietals is sun-curing. Right after harvest the leaves are dried on strings or frames in the open air, often for several weeks. Biochemically this works differently from air- or flue-curing: sugars are broken down less, essential oils and resins concentrate, and the typical warm, resinous-sweet aroma develops. Sun-cured tobaccos burn cooler and slower than flue-cured Virginias and develop notable aroma depth per gram of leaf.

In blends, Oriental tobacco is therefore rarely used as the main component but as an aromatic accent. Even a single-digit percentage fundamentally changes the flavour picture of a blend - comparable to Perique from Louisiana, which produces exactly this effect in pipe blends in tiny amounts. Sullana has always worked with higher Orient proportions than a classic American Blend, and that is precisely what distinguishes it from brands like Marlboro, Camel or Parisienne.

In the dry cut Sullana smells clearly of hay, wood and a warm, almost resinous sweetness - the signature of Peremochez. The Swiss Burley provides a darker, nutty base note, the Virginia adds a light, slightly honeyed tone. Even just rubbing the tobacco in your hand before lighting it makes clear that the typical sweet, perfumed impression of a casing-heavy industrial product does not dominate here.

That is the second design decision: Sullana avoids the heavy casing sauces with which industrial brands harmonise their tobacco - no sugar solutions, no glycerine as a humectant, no ammonia for aroma boost, no added flavourings. What comes through in the taste comes from the leaf itself: from varietal selection, terroir, fermentation and sun-curing. This is more demanding in production because crop-year variation cannot be masked - but that is precisely the point of a brand that wants to be understood as honest tobacco.

The Orient share shows particularly in the burn behaviour: Sullana burns rather cool, with a calm, somewhat dry smoke picture, and releases its aroma in waves rather than as one full-bodied impression. In the retronasal taste - what rises back into the nose on the exhale - Peremochez emerges most clearly: resinous, slightly sweet-warm, with a noticeable but never intrusive aromatic.

Heimat Original is the only cigarette made from 100 percent Swiss tobacco - a pure Burley and Virginia composition from Swiss cultivation, without any foreign admixture, without casing, without additives. Anyone smoking Heimat Original chooses the Swiss varietal world in its purest form.

Sullana sets a different accent. Swiss Burley and Virginia again form the base, but Peremochez shifts the mix towards a warmer, spicier-aromatic character. Both lines share a commitment to Swiss cultivation, natural fermentation and casing-free production - but they deliberately differ in flavour profile.

In short: Heimat Original is the Swiss tobacco base in its clearest form. Sullana is that base plus a deliberate Orient note - remarkable because that Orient is not imported but grown in Switzerland.