Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
SCULPTURED CIGARETTE
The present invention relates to a novel cigarette
structure wherein tobacco in the cigarette is arranged
to provide improved smoking characteristics.
It is well known, for example, from U.S. Patent No.
1,829,559, to form cigarettes of two or more different
types of smoking materials, wherein one type of smoking
material predominates in an inner core while another
type of smoking material predominates in an outer
annulus totally surrounding and enclosing the core.
It is also well known that a substantial proportion
of the tobacco smoke entering a smoker's mouth results
from the burning of tobacco in the peripheral regions of
the cigarette. It is estimated that about 80% of the
volume of smoke entering the smoker's mouth originates
from only about 50% of the weight of tobacco in the
cigarette.
It is further well known that, when a cigarette is
first lit up, smoke from the burning of tobacco material
in the whole cross-section of the cigarette is drawn
into the smoker's mouth and not predominantly from the
burning of annulus material, thereby producing a
different taste for the smoker upon lighting up.
In our copending Canadian patent application Serial
25 No. 508,630 filed May 7, 1986, there is described a
cigarette in which additional quantities of the annulus
material are provided in the lighting end of the
cigarette, so that, upon the cigarette being lit, the
smoke reaching the mouth of the smoker is derived mainly
from annulus material. In this way, little or no change
in the taste of the tobacco smoke is perceived by the
smoker as the burning proceeds from light up to
continued smoking.
In our copending Canadian patent application Serial
35 No. 523,748 filed November 25, 1986, there is described
a novel cigarette structure in which two outer strips or
layers of higher flavour/tar ratio shredded tobacco
lamina material sandwich an intermediate layer of lower
flavour/tar ratio shredded lamina material at the same
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or similar tar level, which enables overall manipulation
of flavour and tar in a cigarette to be effected.
As described therein, in one procedure, highly
flavoured tobacco is trimmed from one side of the
cigarette and is recirculated in the cigarette-making
machine to provide the tobacco layer on the opposite
side of the rod. Dense ending techniques may be
employed to provide an increased quantity of the
highly-flavoured tobacco at the end of the cigarette.
Conventional dense ending techniques include the
use of a rotary cutter for trimming which has a pocket
or notch in it so as to trim a lesser thickness of
tobacco as the cigarette end segment of the rod passes
the trimmer. Instead of varying the height of the
tobacco trimming location, the tobacco segment just
prior to the trimming point may be compressed, for
example, with a rotary compression device having lobes
which mechanically compress the tobacco towards the
rod-carrying surface.
In accordance with the present invention, there is
provided a novel cigarette formed from two different
blends of tobacco and having an approximately uniform
delivery of flavour along its length as the cigarette is
smoked. Accordingly, in one aspect, the present
invention provides a novel cigarette having a tobacco
filler rod in a paper tube, comprising a first blend of
shredded tobacco lamina material having a first
flavour/tar ratic in a strip within the cross-section of
the rod, a second blend of shredded tobacco lamina
material having a higher flavour/tar ratio than the
first blend provided in a strip to one side of the
cross-section of the rod, and a lighting end having a
higher proportion of the higher flavour/tar ratio
tobacco in the cross-section of the rod than in the
cross-section of the rod other than at the lighting
end.
In addition, the present invention provides a
simplified method of assembly of a cigarette filler rod
comprising differing blends of tobacco. In accordance
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with another aspect of the present invention, in an
existing cigarette making machine, a first blend of
shredded lamina having a first flavour/tar ratio is
placed in the left hand side of the hopper, or the side
of the hopper which provides the tobacco closest to the
rod-forming and -conveying surface, while a second
blend of shredded lamina having a higher flavour/tar
ratio is placed in the right hand side of the hopper, or
the side of the hopper which provides the tobacco on the
opposite side of the rod from the rod-forming surface.
The hopper then forms a shower of tobacco particles and
a filler rod is formed from the shower by passing the
rod-forming and -conveying surface transverse to the
shower. The higher flavoured tobacco is trimmed from
the filler rod and the trimmed tobacco is returned to
the left hand side of the hopper to form part of that
blend. A dense end device is used to increase the
quantity of the higher flavoured tobacco in the end of
the cigarette.
The cigarette that results has an increased
quantity of highly-flavoured tobacco in the end and a
concentration of highly-flavoured tobacco to one side.
The increased quantity of highly-flavoured tobacco in
the lighting end increases the initial flavour impact to
the smoker, while the strip of highly-flavoured tobacco
to the side increases the overall flavour without
increasing the level of tar in the smoke to the same
extent. The effect also permits tar to be reduced but
at a lesser sacrifice of flavour.
one significant advantage of the cigarette of the
invention is that it can be produced on existing
cigarette-making equipment without any hardware change
and the only difference being the necessity to feed two
tobacco blends to the hopper in place of one, and yet
there can be produced a cigarette having significantly
improved smoking characteristics.
To increase the desirable effect of the dense end
. ~ of highly-flavoured tobacco, and to further enhance the
uniformity of smoking characteristics, the length of the
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dense end may be increased, for example, by increasing
the peripheral length of the notch in the trimming
wheels.
During the smoking of a cigarette, the quantity of
flavour components in the smoke tends to increase as the
cigarette is smoked, so that the last puffs usually
contain approximately three times the amount of flavour
components than the first puff. It is possible to vary
the cross-sectional relative proportions of tobacco in
the layers in the filler rod along the length of the
cigarette, so as to provide a more uniform distribution
of smoking characteristics along the length of the
cigarette.
The cigarette sculpturing techniques described
herein may also be combined with the linear layering
techniques described in our aforementioned Canadian
patent application Serial No. 508,630. In such a
combination, both sides of the cigarette may be trimmed
to provide complimentarily-arranged sides of the
cigarette.
In the present invention, the filler rod can be
further modified to provide a more uniform distribution
of the flavour component. In the dense end device noted
above wherein lobes are employed to mechanically
compress the tobacco against the tape, the lobes
conveniently can be shaped in order to vary the amount
of tobacco trimmed as the filler rod moves past the
cutter. In this way, the quantity of the
highly-flavoured tobacco can be shaped as a function of
distance along the finished cigarette, and thereby the
quantity of highly-flavoured tobacco along the length of
the cigarette is controlled.
By controlling the quantity of highly-flavoured
tobacco across the cross-section of the cigarette rod in
each portion but not all portions necessarily of the
length of the cigarette, it is possible to provide a
more uniform flavour to smoke drawn from the cigarette
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by the smoker along the length of the cigarette. At the
same time, since the provision of a separate blend of
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highly-flavoured tobacco located to one side of the
filler rod permits flavour and tar characteristics of
the smoke to be modified, considerable versatility is
provided with respect to the overall smoking
characteristics of the cigarette.
The provision of tobacco lamina blends with
differing flavour-to-tar ratios can be achieved by
selecting tobacco from different parts of a tobacco
plant. Generally, leaves from the upper part of the
tobacco plant have a higher flavour/tar ratio than
leaves from the lower part of the tobacco plant. In
blending the tobacco for inclusion in the cigarette, the
higher flavour/tar ratio tobacco normally included in
the blend is maintained as a separate blend, although
some of such higher flavoured tobacco is present in the
lower flavour/tar ratio blend by the recycle of trimmed
tobacco, as described above.
The invention is illustrated further by the
accompanying drawings, wherein:
Figure 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of a
novel cigarette provided in accordance with one
embodiment of the invention, taken along line 1-1 of
Figure 2;
Figure 2 is a cross-sectional view of the
cigarette of Figure 1 taken along line 2-2 of Figure 1;
and
Figure 3 is a schematic sectional view of a
cigarette making machine constructed in accordance with
one embodiment of the invention.
Referring to the drawings, Figures 1 and 2
illustrate schematically a novel cigarette 10 comprising
a tobacco filter rod 12 and a filter 14 at the smoking
end. The filter rod 12 is enclosed within a paper tube
16.
The tobacco filter rod 12 comprises a first portion
18 of higher flavour/tar ratio tobacco lamina located to
one side of the rod 12 and a second portion 20 of lower
flavour/tar ratio tobacco lamina occupying the remainder
of the cross section of the filter rod 12.
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At the lighting end 22 of the cigarette lO, the
filler rod 12 has a higher proportion of the higher
flavour blend tobacco in the cross-section of the filter
rod 12. The increased quantity of the more highly
flavoured tobacco in the lighting end 22 increases the
initial flavour impact to the smoker, while the strip 18
of highly-flavoured tobacco to the one side of the
filter rod 12 increases the overall flavour of the
cigarette without increasing the level of tar in the
smoke to the same extent.
Referring now to Figure 3, there is shown therein
permanent cigarette rod forming apparatus 30 having an
upwardly extending tobacco shower guide 32 for leading a
shower of tobacco particles 34 upwardly against the
underside of a transversely moving rod forming belt 36.
As the belt 36 moves laterally with respect to the
tobacco shower 34, a filler rod 38 is built up on the
undersurface of the belt 36. The shower 34 is comprised
by first side portion 40 comprising a blend of shredded
tobacco lamina material having a highly flavour/tar
ratio than the tobacco in the remainder 42 of the width
of the shower 34.
The filler rod 38 is formed with more tobacco than
is ultimately required in a cross-section of the rod and
the tobacco is trimmed from the rod by a trimmer 46.
Since the more highly flavoured tobacco is provided in
the side portion 40 of the shower 34 and this tobacco is
laid down last on the filter rod 38, a layer of the
highly flavoured tobacco is provided on the side of the
filler rod 31 facing the trimmer 46.
More highly flavoured tobacco which is trimmed from
the filler rod by the trimmer 46 is collected and
recycled by line 48 to the shower portion 42. In this
way, the final trimmed rod 50 has a layer of more highly
flavoured tobacco on one side of the filler rod.
In summary of this disclosure, the present
invention provides a novel arrangement of tobacco in a
cigarette which enables considerable versatility and
uniformity of smoking characteristics to be achieved.
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The present invention also provides a method of forming
such cigarettes by simple yet effective modification of
- existing cigarette manufacturing operations.
Modifications are possible within the scope of this
invention.
