Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) recently licensed Cavendish Lloyd Tobacco to contract and support manufacture of shisha, a less hazardous type of tobacco.
Shisha is a combustible tobacco that has low nicotine content and will be produced locally with lucrative markets in Europe and Africa.
In a statement, TIMB said: "We have licensed Cavendish Lloyd Tobacco to contract and support shisha production in Zimbabwe.
"Shisha is different from the known traditional flue-cured Virginia tobacco. Unlike cigarettes, this type of tobacco is consumed using a device called a hookah or waterpipe.
"A hookah or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking the tobacco. An individual pulls from a pipe, and then the smoke is passed through a water basin, often glass-based, before inhalation. This is the reason why shisha is referred to by others as pipe tobacco".
Shisha tobacco is cultivated in almost the same way as the traditional Virginia tobacco with minor differences in agronomy. It uses staggered low amounts of fertilizer, and it is not topped (apical bud removal) to minimize nicotine amounts in the leaf.
Shisha tobacco (the end product) is usually a combination of tobacco prepared in molasses and flavoured with fruit flavours.
The water in the hookah does not remove any toxins and the fruit flavours do not make it a healthy choice, smokers are still prone to cancerous diseases.
"It is important to note that shisha is not burley tobacco, neither is it a cigar wrapper.
"The cured leaf has to have low nicotine content to protect the smoker from inhaling huge amounts of nicotine since shisha tobacco is about constant smoke inhalation in huge quantities.
"The cured leaf is preferred light and thin textured necessitated by low basal fertilizer applications," part of the statement read.
Having started in Manicaland during the 2022/23 seasons, Shisha tobacco has great potential to be cultivated across all regions by several other farmers since the crop has similar agronomic practices and the same curing facilities as Virginia tobacco.
