Star Of The East

kashmir · May 3, 2013

Cornell & Diehl's Star of the East is by far my favorite pipe tobacco. I buy it in 5lbs. lots and have perhaps 50 lbs. of it cellared. I also like the flake version, but for me it doesn't match the original. For those of you familiar with the blend, I'd like to ask: What blend is most similar to SOTE? Thanks.

doctorthoss · May 3, 2013

If you mean "similar" to mean "lat bomb," then I can think of several good examples such as Odyssey (my fave), Ten Russians, Lancer's Slicers, etc.
But I find SOTE to be a unique blend. Nothing on the market tastes quite like it, IMO. The good thing, though, is that SOTE is already a bulk blend so you can't really beat the price.

erichbaumer · May 3, 2013

I've actually only been smoking the flake, I originally tried the blend because I was looking for a latakia flake. I'll have to compare to the ribbon cut sometime.

kashmir · May 4, 2013

Not all Lat bombs are Lat bombs. Like Pirate Kake is 70% Latakia, with no VAs, just Cavendish cut burleys, and Turkish, but the Latakia doesn't dominate. So too with SOTE, which is 50% Lat. True I taste the Lat in this one, but there's a lot more going on there besides the Lat. Strong Oriental component. It has a peculiar buttermilk sour note to it, the likes of which I have not found in other blends. Like chewing salted leather soaked in brined buttermilk.

kashmir · May 4, 2013

Yes. I like to mix Ten Russians 1:1 with Drama Reserve. Bumps up the Orientals to make a fine smoke. Straight is fine too. But for me its not so close to SOTE. I was just thinking Odessa and Red Odessa come close to SOTE. Perhaps also Engine 99 and Campfire do so as well. But SOTE is unique. Presumably due to the Orientals and VAs.

thesmokindragon · May 4, 2013

Love SOTE , IMHO there are none comparable ;-) if you want

SOTE....smoke SOTE
I had some the other evening which had about 2 years on it,

WOW what a great blend. It also smokes great from a fresh

tin as well

haroldt · Oct 9, 2014

to Kashmir:

chewing salted leather soaked in brined buttermilk.

Some how, that doesn't sound appealing to me. But I do like Star of the East. Just opened an 8 month cellared jar night. My wife loves the smell. Funny, most non smokers (and females in particular) enjoy the smell of the aromatics. Not my wife, she finds the earthly smell of English more to her liking.

fnord · Oct 9, 2014

Harold:
Several months ago I did that back channel communication thing when Kashmir was posting regularly and asked him for a bowl or two of his beloved SOTE. He sent me a generous sample and I was hooked, man. Straight through the liver.
I'm normally a DH Nightcap smoker but this SOTE blew me away. In fact, I recently traded a slightly opened and gingerly sampled jar of an 8 oz. bag of Stonehaven for an lb. of SOTE. (I do hope we both ended up satisfied with the trade.)
Harold, you are so unbelievably lucky to have a bride who prefers Lat forward blends.
Fnord

mso489 · Oct 9, 2014

Anyone heard from Kashmir lately? He used to be a regular, and he's a devoted English pipe restoration guy, Dunhills and

Comoy, etc. He had a job change about eight or ten months ago, and someone said he was still a regular on another pipe site.

Anyone heard from him?

cosmicfolklore · Oct 9, 2014

He runs some of the Facebook pipe pages. He posted a few times on here recently (within the last few weeks), but I think his job keeps him busy with other things.

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