The Smoke Shop owner Michael Heslop is working to bring back Bermuda’s first cash crop — tobacco — albeit in a smaller scale.

Mr Heslop has spent the last few months growing local tobacco for sale in his store in the Washington Mall.

“This is all going in the cigarettes we are selling in our shop,” Mr Heslop said. “We are also thinking about doing cigars at Christmas time with the leaves.

“We had a commercial tobacco industry here on the Island in the 1600s, and it was actually a form of currency. I think it’s sort of fun to get back to that.”

He said he first became interested in growing tobacco locally because he was concerned about the chemical additives in imported cigarettes. While he stressed that smoking in all forms is unhealthy, he felt that the additives, preserving agents and pesticides used in production made it worse.

“No smoking is good for you, I want to be clear on that, but this is just tobacco,” he said. “There are no chemicals, the plants aren’t sprayed with anything.

“They’re not sprayed with anything for the drying procedure. We just plant them and let them grow.

“I started growing because, being a smoker myself and having difficulty quitting, I was thinking about how it was practically impossible to buy a cigarette without all the chemicals. We are actually finding that people who smoke the 100 percent tobacco are smoking about 30 percent less than normal.”

Tobacco was first introduced to the Island by the Spanish before the wreck of the Sea Venture, and was a successful cash crop for the Island in the early days of colonisation. By 1624, Bermuda was exporting 70,000lbs of tobacco per year but by then Virginia’s tobacco exports had caught up to Bermuda.

Mr Heslop said that while there are a handful of farmers on the Island who grow tobacco for their own personal use, he believes he may be the first to grow it commercially on the Island in 200 years.

Mr Heslop said he was impressed by how quickly and easily the plants sprouted up, but admitted he had planted the tobacco at the wrong time of year.

“We planted it about two months ago, but if we had to do it again I would have planted it now,” he said. “It’s not so much that the growing is easier, but the drying is better in August and September. Now it’s a little too damp for drying the tobacco.”

Asked what the reaction from the public has been, he said: “Smokers are very faithful to their products. It started really slow but it’s picking up speed every day. It’s a mild sort of tobacco, and I think people are enjoying it.”