With Pipe and Pen Blog » Tobacco Reviews
By Bob Tate

The pouch aroma is a nice straight forward tobacco smell with a light hint of tanginess. The moisture content is perfect for smoking right away with no drying time needed. The cut of this blend is rough, coarse, and chunky. I loaded the pipe using the Three Step Method and proceeded to the charring light.
On the charring light:
Flavor: Is a straight forward tobacco flavor.
Aroma: Is a straight forward tobacco aroma with a hint of sweetness.
I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for the smoke.
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By Bob Tate

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The tin aroma of this blend is very sweet and tangy. There is also a very strong vinegary smell that reminds me of ketchup. I have a bit of experience with McClelland tobacco blends and I know that this is a common smell in a lot of their tobacco tins and that it does not affect the flavor and room note aroma of the smoke. It goes away almost instantly upon lighting. The moisture content of this tobacco is pretty moist out of the tin and some drying time is recommended. I took a few of the broken flake pieces, fully rubbed them out, loaded my pipe, and proceeded to the charring light.
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By Bob Tate

The tin aroma of this blend is a nice sweet and tangy straight forward tobacco smell. It smells pretty good. The moisture content is perfect for smoking right away. I loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light. Upon the charring light, I am greeted by a straight forward tobacco taste and aroma accompanied by a slight sweetness. There is also a sort of a sharpness to it has well. I detect the sharpness on my palate, but it is not a bite. That may be the Kentucky tobacco. I finished lighting the pipe to see where this blend would go.
At the start, I taste a nice naturally sweet tobacco taste. There is a bit of fullness to the smoke that I would attribute to the Kentucky. The sharpness is still there, but it moved more to the background. There is some smokiness to it as well, but not a Latakia smokiness. It’s more of a natural straight type of smokiness. The sweetness is very light and subtle and seems to be detected more on the finish than the actual smoke. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate
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The pouch aroma of this blend is a nice smoky, sweet Latakia. The moisture level is perfect for smoking right out of the bag. This blend is a coarse cut and is quite chunky. I left it in its original state and did not rub it out into smaller pieces. I loaded the pipe using a two step method and proceeded to the charring light. Upon the charring light I was greeted by the taste and aroma of a nice smoky, sweet Latakia mixture. I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for the smoke. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate

The pouch aroma of this blend has that sweet and tangy smell of a good Virginia blend. The moisture level is perfect for smoking right out of the bag. This blend is a flake, so I took a couple of the flakes (Fig. 1) and fully rubbed them out (Fig.2), I did leave some of it a little chunky. Since this flake was a little fluffy when rubbed out, I opted to use a two step packing method instead of gravity filling like I usually do when I rub out flakes. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate
I just thought that I would explain a little bit about how I do my tobacco reviews. Everybody has a different way of doing a review and I wanted to explain my way so everyone understands them a little more. When I do a review, I do them from a flavor perspective. I do not get into the whole break down of the tobaccos in the blend and get into all of the details and science of the tobacco components. I do list the components in the blend as well as other information in the layout at the bottom of my reviews. When I do my reviews, I do them from a smoking perspective. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate
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The pouch aroma of this blend is quite tangy and tickles the nose a little and induces a little mouth watering effect. There is also a very light sweetness to the aroma that sits far in the background. The moisture content of the tobacco is perfect for smoking right away, as most of C&D blend are. The tobacco is what I would call a coarse cut, because it is quite chunky. I left it chunky and did not rub it out at all.
I filled the pipe using a two step packing method. I packed it a little on the loose side and proceeded to the charring light. On the charring light, I picked up a little sweetness in the aroma but none in the taste. The taste was a straight forward tobacco taste. I settled in for the smoke. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate

The tin aroma of this blend has that great smoky aroma that Latakia lends to a blend. There is also quite a bit of sweetness mixed in with the aroma. The moisture content is a little on the wet side and some drying time is recommended. I filled the pipe using a two step packing method and proceeded to the charring light. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate

Scotty’s Bulk Blends are another brand of house blends from Pipesandcigars.com. This blend is called Milk & Honey and is only available in bulk. I am not picking up on any discernable aromas from the pouch. It is just a sweet smelling Cavendish blend. The moisture level is just about perfect for smoking. However, a little drying time wouldn’t hurt. I filled the pipe using my two step packing method and proceeded to the charring light.
On the charring light I picked up on a very light hint of vanilla and then there was nothing else really there. There was no vanilla in the aroma, just a hint in the flavor. I settled in for the smoke hoping that this blend would get better tasting as I smoked. Read the rest of this entry »
By Bob Tate

This tin that I am smoking from is at least three years old. The date that I put on it when it arrived says August of 2006. There is quite a bit of sugar crystallization on the flakes, look at the pictures below and you can see it (Fig. 1 & 2).
The tin aroma is amazing! There is a sweet but strong tobacco smell that I find very pleasing and mouth watering. This tin has been open for quite awhile and the moisture content is pretty dry right now. I do remember how it was when I first opened the tin and the moisture was almost perfect for smoking then. It might have needed a little drying time, but not much.
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