Hmmm, so I'm just curious, are you saying that soil acidity, climate, humidity, etc., do not make a difference in the way any particular tobacco seed tastes? You're saying that Cuban cigars got their popularity because of their curing process and not their growing environment such as soil type, etc?
I didn't say that at all. In fact, I would say that everything has an affect in the way the seed tastes. You haven't been here long, but we have discussions like, how the shape of the inside of a pipe chamber has an affect on the way a blend tastes. And, guys will swears there is no difference in the way a blend tastes in completely different shaped chambers. So, if such a drastic change in flavors is not observable, I would say that yes there are drastic changes in flavors that happen with different environments, but your average Joe from the forum probably isn't going to detect a difference. It won't make a Havana 608 seed variety confused with a samsun variety. It's not going to be that drastic the first year.
Hit up Jitterbugdude for this conversation. We are both tobacco farmers, but he has way more experience than me.
But, none of this is about what the OP is asking.
He merely wanted to know why a cigar tastes different than the other leafs more commonly used in pipesmoking. Cigar processing garbledegook had nothing to do with the answer. The answer is the process.
Virginia leaf is processed in the color cure fermentation just like cigar leaf, (different companies call this different things, but it's all really the same thing) and fresh out of the flue, red virginias have an oily cigar note too.
But, all of that that you were talking about is what separates one cigar leaf from another cigar leaf. Not, what separates all cigar leaf from other leaf. Does that make sense?