Virginia

I usually think of Virginia as having no Perique,Latakias or Orientals
Tom

I'll attempt to address your question Nick.

For the most part; every tobacco is a blend of some type or other.

There are five basic types of tobacco.

Virginias, Cavendish, Orientals, Latakia, Perique, and Burleys.

I'm including Turkish in the Orientals, and Latakia is "technically" an aromatic.

There are straight tobaccos available; those would be for blending purposes.

So, bearing that overly simplistic summation when someone mentions a Virginia AND mentions a specific Name of a tin... It's going to be a blend.

That being said, while there are a considerable variety of tobacco species, the "classification" is actually a generalization about "HOW" a tobacco is cured.

Virginia is "fire cured."

Here are some links to Wikipedia that will help you to discern between the various "types" of tobaccos.

I grant you the information is rudimentary, but very helpful when trying to understand what you are actually experiencing when you smoke your pipe.
Latakia

Turkish

Oriental

Perique

Virginia

Cavendish

Burley

I would assume that when one says I'm smoking some virginia, i would think it's a straight virginia...

Caution, never smoke a straight Virginia. Kinda jokin but kinda serious. Personal number 1 worst pipe smoking experience with a straight Virginia. Love the smell of that baccy though. :?

I would assume that when one says I'm smoking some virginia, i would think it's a straight virginia...

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sjpipesmoker, in that context I would say that a "straight Virginia" is a blend of different Virginias. Or, more specifically, a blend that excludes tobaccos with different curing methods. No Cavendish, no Perique, no Latakia, etc. (IMHO)

I'm not really into the different curing methods, or production in general, but I don't think Virginia leaf for pipe tobacco has been fire cured in any significant quantities since the mid 1800's -- not the Brights, orange and reds, anyway.
As for what is straight and what is blended, I'd say you pretty much have to trust the tin descriptions, or that which you hear and read from other sources. Even then, you run into problems. Mac Baren Virginia #1 is the only Mac Baren product composed entirely of Virginia leaf, albeit probably not just one variety of Virginia leaf; but you have to dig pretty deep to discover that fact. This implies that all their other products, like Virginia Flake, HH Matured Virginia, Virginia Blend, etc., have non-Virginia type tobaccos in them.
Orlik Golden Sliced (and 'little red') was widely considered to be a straight Virginia, but if you read the fine print -- I think on the little red square tins -- it says it has Burley tobacco in it. Kevin checked up on that and discovered that not only did it not have Burley in it, there was actually a bit of Perique! (And none of the self-anointed tasting experts ever suspected that!)

Caution, never smoke a straight Virginia. Kinda jokin but kinda serious. Personal number 1 worst pipe smoking experience with a straight Virginia

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That's you. The OP might have no problems with 'em. I like 'em.
Cortez, MacBaren says right on their website,in the description of the blend,that HH Mature Virginia is not pure Virginias. ::

Right. My only point was that product names and labels are not definitive.

Clear as mud?

Right. My only point was that product names and labels are not definitive.

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I have been struggling with this for a while...
I am not fond of Latakia (or, I assume, Perique). I have been sticking with aromatics. (I thought that I wouldn't like them, and tried some mild English when I first started, but I just can't handle them.)
Anyway, I have been sticking to the bulk tobaccos I can get from my local B&M, (mostly Altadis, I think) and I mostly like them. Now that I am branching out, it has been hard to find descriptions on tins that make sense to me. I found MacBaren 7 Seas, and I will be trying all of them, and McClellan Best of Show. But, that's the extent of the clear packaging.
I have been reading up on some reviews, and I plan to start looking for some of them soon.
But,

Right. My only point was that product names and labels are not definitive

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Sure - you need to do a little homework.

I'm not a big stickler on the subject.
I would usually consider straight Virginias to contain nothing but a mixture of different Virginia tobaccos, but something as subtle as Orlik Golden Sliced (where the perique isn't really detectable) is close enough to my definition...
As long as Virginia makes up the vast majority of the blend, and there are no condimental tobaccos making their presence known as you smoke, then I find one can use the VA term pretty loosely without causing any harm...
With that said, it is very different to brand your product "Virginia X" when it is full of burley and cavendish. I don't think that is a very good practise and it ultimately confuses the consumer...

I've been reading reviews on www.tobaccoreview.com (a GREAT site for pipe tobacco review) I recently learned in their search I can sort by blends. I'm learning that's a great way to see all the types of blends a manufacture makes. For example Hearth and Home has 72 blends reviewed and of that about 15 are Virginia.
This lead me to this thread hear discussing Virginias. I think I"ve going to start to try some Virginias and then some Bureys.