Abstract: The invention describes a tobacco substitute composition comprising leaves of coffee plants having no detectable amount of nicotine or nicotine related compounds; the method for the preparation of the said composition and the tobacco-like articles prepare from the said composition. The said composition is useful in the manufacture of smoking products such as cigarettes, cigars and pipe material as well as in the manufacture of chewable tobacco-like products. The said composition may be use without any tobacco at all or in combination with different tobacco amounts, thus providing tobacco products having variable amounts of nicotine and useful in controlling the nicotine contents and in methods to reduce or quitting the use of tobacco products.

Abstract: Dried tobacco leaves evenly spread by a vibrator, cleaned and sorted out, are directed through the opening of two converging cylinders, and tightly held on between two belts.Now, the belts carrying the leaves, enter into a hot wash basin full of warm water at a temperature of 40 degrees C. They are washed for 4-5 minutes and moved thereafter into a second basin with water heated at 100 degrees C. The bathing of the leaves takes 6-8 seconds and immediately thereafter they are moved into a third, filled with cold water. The three consecutive baths cause the removal by extraction of resins, tars and nicotine. Dissolved by the water and washed away also the are pesticides.The cold water washes away the nitrogenous substances. Hydrolysis removes the textrines. If stronger intervention is desired, the leaves after the first bath may be directed into freezing dry chamber.The wet leaves fall now into another system of reversible conveyors, located in a heated tunnel.

Abstract: A tobacco leaf cleaning device for removing foreign particles, such as lint and string, from tobacco leaves as the tobacco moves from one point to another on a conveyor in a processing plant, is in the form of a flexible canvas sheet suspended from a rod parallel to the conveyor and extending downwardly into engagement with the leaves on the conveyor. The lower end of the sheet is slit into a plurality of fingers and the surface which engages the moving leaves has male Velcro fastener material attached to it for engaging and removing the lint and string as the leaves pass beneath the canvas sheet.

Abstract: A tobacco leaf cleaning system for removing foreign particles such as lint and string from tobacco leaves comprises a succession of side-by-side rollers mounted for rotation in the same direction for transfering tobacco leaves supplied thereto from one roller to the next. The surfaces of the rollers have discontinuities on them and each roller is covered with a sheet consisting of a plurality of densely packed resilient hook members. These hook members may be made of the male portion of a Velcro fastener for engaging and retaining lint and foreign particles as tobacco leaves are transferred from one roller to the next. The sheet of resilient hook members is removably mounted on the surface of the roller for replacement when it becomes filled with lint and foreign matter.

Abstract: A loose leaf chewing tobacco product is prepared from leaf tobacco by removing the stems and major veins, then cutting the leaves across the grain of the remaining veins in a uniform manner with the cuts being spaced no greater than 1/4 inch apart, then casing the leaves with a casing mixture and finally drying the cased leaves.

Abstract: In a device for spreading tobacco leaves which, subsequent to having been moistened, are smoothed by passage in their transverse direction between a base and a sweeping brush or an analogous smoothing tool, said tool may be "broken" from its normal or straight operating position into a position in which its ends are raised higher from the base than its center portion. The operator is thus left more space for his hands that seize the leading edge of the tobacco leaf to be pulled across the base, and the smoothing operation at the largest portion of the tobacco leaf can be started earlier than the smoothing operation closer to the point and stalk ends of the leaf.

Abstract: A device for cleaning or refining herbage or herbal substances which operates to separate out twigs, seeds or other roughage by an agitating and straining process. The device includes a cylindrical main body internally divided into a pair of chambers by a fixed strainer or wire screen with a pair of removable end caps enclosing the chambers at each end of the cylinder. A plurality of metallic balls, preferably four, are loosely confined within one of the chambers within which the herbage to be refined is introduced. Vigorous shaking of the device will cause refined herbage to pass from the chamber containing the balls, through the strainer or screen and into the other chamber where the refined herbage may be collected in one of the end caps.