Smoke a mountain-fresh rush
HOW does menthol get into menthol cigarettes? – Charlene, Benoni
THOSE of you who have suffered head colds or sore throats will be familiar with the mountain-fresh rush of menthol that brings instant relief. In fact, the menthol that is used by the food and pharmaceutical industry is the same as that used to create the just-brushed taste of menthol cigarettes.
Warren Cuyler, product manager of the German-based company Haarman and Reimer (one of the world’s largest menthol producers), explains that menthol is an organic compound found in oil of peppermint, extracted from mint plants.
Although he declines to give details (one of those closely guarded “trade secrets”), he describes the process of creating synthetic menthol as “complicated”, involving forms of extraction and distillation. The result: “A synthetically produced menthol that is controlled and produced for 100% consistency.”
This “scientific” menthol is sent to tobacco companies in a “crystal pellet form”, similar to household sugar. According to Shamina Rajcoomar and Glen Ah Sing of the United Tobacco Company, this synthetically produced menthol accounts for 30% of the total amount used – the other 70% is “natural” menthol obtained from India and China in a similar crystal form.
Tobacco goes through an elaborate process to become cigarettes. Before being sent to the factory, the three types – Burley, Virginia and Oriental tobacco – are cured, using different methods. The tobacco bales are graded according to “the chemical differences in nicotine and sugar”. Upon arrival at the factory, the bales are “conditioned to a specific moisture content”, and cut.
Then the flavouring is added. In the case of menthol, there are two methods used. In the first, the menthol is added as a top-dressing, “by dissolving the menthol in ethanol [a type of alcohol – the same one found in beers and wine] and spraying it on to the cut tobacco”.
Alternatively, the menthol “is melted at 45C, and rolled on to the foil or cigarette paper”, resulting in the flavour distributing itself evenly throughout the pack.
The tobacco is now ready to be put together inside cigarette papers, with filters and “plugwrap” (the paper around the filter), to form cigarettes. The United Tobacco Company uses fully automated, computer-controlled machines that produce 8 000 cigarettes a minute.
Much like wine-tasting, tobacco companies employ “an official smoking panel” to check the various flavoured cigarettes (“Texan” cigarettes, for example, are flavoured with rum). According to Rajcoomar and Ah Sing, “the compounding of the finished total flavour is regarded as an art”.
Just to blow your mind with statistics, the Nielsen Wholesale Index, which measures the total cigarette market in South Africa, says menthol cigarettes account for 3,6 % of the total market share – equal to 964-million cigarettes a year. The total number of cigarettes produced yearly is just short of a staggering 26,8-billion.
See anything that puzzles you? We’ll try to find out how it is done. Write to Julia Grey, Mail & Guardian, PO Box 32362, Braamfontein 2017, or fax your queries to her at (011) 403-1025, or e-mail them to [email protected]