Three Oaks Syrian Pipe Tobacco Review
-
Kevin Godbee - Aug 16, 2011
- 5 min read
By Adam J. Smith
Tin Notes: Rare Syrian Latakia, with its renowned mellow smokiness, is balanced with naturally sweet Oriental tobaccos and aged Virginia leaf to create a satisfying blend reminiscent of classic Syrian Latakia blends of old. Formulated by Tad Gage to reflect the character of original Three Oaks Pipe Tobacco, it tantalizes with intriguing differences.
Before I start this review, you should know that I went through hell to obtain, and finally, smoke this blend. After calling around to half-a-dozen tobacconists, I finally found one with it in stock. The wife, on hearing that I am headed downtown, decides that her and our son should join in, and make a day of it. Packing up a picnic lunch, we traipse off to the city center.
Abandoning the wife and child to their own devices, I made my way up to the pipe counter. Half listening to the tobacconist help the customer in-front of me (a fellow purchasing his first pipe and blends, I might add!), I scanned over the selection of pipes, and finally the tobaccos. The McClelland section was fairly well stocked – names likeBlackwoods Flake, St. James Woods, and all the Frog Mortons jumped out at me. Tins of Three Oaks Original abounded. But alas, no Syrian! With a gulp, I approached the counter, and asked the proprietor if they had any tins I wasn’t seeing.
"Nope, what you see is what you get."
Head hung low, I again began to scan the shelves, looking for…something…different. After 15 odd minutes, the fellow wanders back over to me."Was that Three Oaks Syrian you wanted?" He asks, "Were you the guy that called up? I set our last tins aside, to make sure we had it in stock.", and with that, he produced a box from behind the counter with a few tins, stamped 2010, marked Reserved.Scurrying off with my purchase like Gollum with the one ring, I met up with my wife, and now very angry, child.Informing me that he needs to eat lunch, we agreed to head to find a park to sit down and enjoy our picnic lunch in. Wolfing down my meal, I reached for my newly acquired tin and favourite pipe. Reaching for the tab, I notice the sign, under which sits a pair of uniformed police officers, enjoying a break;
"Vancouver Parks are Smoke Free"
Damn! Foiled by the man! Finishing our lunch, we head back for home, where I know I’ll finally get my smoke. As we traveled along, a good friend phoned me, seeking a partner for a mid-evening hike. With the wife’s blessing, I once again packed up my favourite pipe, grabbed my new tin, and hit the road. Finally, a chance to smoke a bowl, my municipality has no compunctions about allowing me to smoke in our parks.
Let me tell you, it was well worth the wait.
Upon breaking the seal, the tin note is rich and smoky, with just a hint of the ketchup odour McClellands Virginias are known for. After breathing for 10-15 minutes, this note begins to undergo wonderful changes, with strong notes of apricot and apple-cider, underpinned by the perfumey-smokiness of the Syrian Latakia leaf.
The tobacco itself is a rough cut ribbon; with mixture of browns, tans, bronze and black leaf, and ready to smoke directly out of the tin, with no drying time required beyond a few minutes breathing.
I find this blend works the best for me in a squat, wide bowl, such as a pot or squashed-tomato shape. I prefer a hybrid "2 Stage" packing method. The pre-light draw brings very mild hints of perfumey-incense with an underlying smokiness.
With the false light, the high sugar leaf makes itself known, with flavours of butter-toffee and sweet herbs (cardamom, saffron) prevail, with just the slightest tang of smokiness from the Latakia leaf.
With the true light, the full complexity of this blend comes to light. Through the first quarter of the bowl, the blend stays true to the sweetness detected upon the false light, with the prevalent flavour of butter-toffee taking center stage. The Oriental leaf backs up the sweet notes with mild hints of cardamom, saffron, and star anise, while the Syrian Latakia melds beautifully in the background with its unique perfume-like smokiness. This is underscored by a mild spiciness, akin to green-peppercorn, with an almost dusty note.
As the bowl progresses through half-way, the flavour becomes markedly more robust, with the smoky Latakia taking a slightly larger role. Supporting the rich, salty, incense like flavour are hints of apples and citrus, and rock sugar, while the underlying herbal notes of the Orientals continue to come through.
Around the three-quarters point, the blend undergoes yet another shift, with a salty-sweetness again taking the forefront. Very mild notes of chocolate and peppermint dance fleetingly across the tongue, while the Latakia and other Oriental leaf seem to combine into a flavour not unlike green-tea leaves.
This blend takes to a flame wonderfully; although not truly a "fire and forget" blend, it seems to require minimal maintenance. It should also be noted that this blend does actually burn to a fine light grey ash – I know, I know, believe me, I feel like I am cheapening this review by writing this, but it really does…when I tip my bowl, it looks like crushed cigar ash with just a sprinkle of dottle.
The room-note on this blend is on the sweeter side of the spectrum, and while the perfumey, incense like Latakia smoke does dominate, it doesn’t overpower the herbal sweetness of the rest of the blend. The wife scale (my measure of room-note) places this blend firmly at 7/10, making it the most pleasant "English" type blend in my stash.
If there is any downside to this blend, it’s the nicotine level. Although I don’t crave a cigarette while I am smoking it, I do find myself wanting one within an hour of finishing a bowl.
To summarize, this is a superb blend, providing a mild and complex, yet delicate balance of sweet and savoury flavours sure to intrigue. This blend is a true chameleon; while there certainly is Syrian leaf, it is used very sparingly, allowing the Orientals to really shine. At times, this blend could almost be confused with a cased aromatic, it’s simply that sweet. Perfect for all day smoking, this blend can be pushed fairly hard without bite, and despite the overwhelming number of flavours detected, tongue fatigue doesn’t ever seem to become an issue.
A great blend to either cut your teeth with Syrian Latakia, or as a rest from the usual brash blends, this blend is a welcome addition to the cellar.
Highly recommended!
-Adam J. Smith
Give us your review, or read others reviews – 3 Oaks Syrian Tobacco Reviews
3 Oaks Syrian – Click Here to Order Now!
3 Oaks Syrian – Click Here to Order Now!
Written by Kevin Godbee
6 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 641. Our featured interview tonight is with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl and is featured in our recurring series, “Ask the Tobacco Blender”. However, tonight he will be the interviewee as we learn about how he became a pipe smoker and collector, when he got his first pipe and how he progressed from there. At the top of the show, Brian will have a review of the rare German tobacco blend, Tumblin’ Dice.
I remember the first time I heard someone else say it. “How many pipes do I need? Just one more.” It’s glib, sure, a bit of a joke, but it also rings a bell of truth, at least to me. I certainly have “enough” pipes, but pipes are seductive little things. Just when we think we’re all set, we have enough, another will come along that tempts us beyond any sense of reason. I suppose it’s the same way with any sort of collecting. There’s always another white whale we’re in pursuit of. When we finally track that one down, though, another will almost inevitably breach the surface, taking its place as the new object of our desire, enticing us to change course and set sail once again. But, there’s a potential problem with having a lot of pipes. Maybe. The more pipes we may have, the harder it can be to keep them in rotation. It makes sense. We tend to gravitate towards our current faves, the ones that most appeal to us for whatever reason, and sometimes, maybe they stay in rotation longer than they really should. The side-effect of this, of course, is that another favored pipe might end up too-long forgotten. That’s exactly what happened recently. Exhibit A: The Castello pictured is one that has been long overlooked. It’s a Trademark shape #55. It’s a really nice example of the shape. The red pearlized stem is beautifully done. The wood isn’t really anything special to look at, but it’s evenly covered, without any bald spots. When I look at it, I wonder why it wasn’t done in the more typical dark ruby-red finish that adorns most Trademarks. I’ve seen a great deal of variation amongst the grade over the years, including one really nice bent-bulldog that left the factory with a brown sandblasted finish. (For those who don’t know, Trademark has long been the lowest Castello smooth grade, usually finished in a dark red.) Was this a stamping/grading error, or is there just more leeway in the grade than we’ve come to expect? I might never know. This example is from the early 1970s, maybe even the late 1960s, identified by the upper case Ks in the grade designation. (On Sea Rock and Old Antiquari pipes, the Ks reflect the size, while with the smooth finishes, Trademark, Castello and Collection, the Ks represent the relative grade.) It has been living in a different rack than the one housing the majority of my #55s. I don’t recall why I put it there, but as many of us can relate to, rack space is often at a premium. I stumbled upon it while looking for something completely different. “Oh, you? Why are you there? I remember you smoke pretty well.” Yeah, I sometimes talk to my pipes – one of many quirks, I suppose. I won’t begin to worry until they start talking back. I grabbed it from the rack, dusted it off, and decided to give it a fill with a bowl of a slightly aged VA/perique blend, Telegraph Hill, from 2018. What a delightful smoke! At five years, the tobacco is expressing a lot of the complexities of aged Virginias and the perique adds a delightful fruitiness. When young, the composition is a bit brighter, maybe a little spicier, but time has polished any edges, and amplified the sweeter notes. Like the pipe, I’d forgotten about this blend for quite a while, but one evening in March, after chatting with my good friend Nate, who is quite a fan of it, I decided it might be time to revisit it. I got a couple of fresh ones, and excavated a couple older tins from the library. I normally reach for Fillmore when I want a VA/perique thing because of its boldness and depth, but in revisiting this one, I’m finding something soothing and comfortable about it that I’ve really been enjoying, both young and aged. Sticking with the theme of the forgotten, and as a perhaps interesting tidbit to the photographically inclined, I shot the pictures for this month’s column with my old Nikkor-O 35mm/2.0 mounted on my trusty Nikon Df. The last time I used this lens, it was adapted to one of my Fujifilm bodies, and I didn’t care much for the results, so I put it away and pretty much forgot about it. But, I’ve recently been exploring some of my old kit, deciding what to keep, what to pass along, and this one once again came to my attention, kind of like that old Castello. On the Df, there’s something about its vintage rendering that I find truly appealing. Another forgotten treasure, and just like with that old pipe, it seems that, at least today, everything old is new again. If your collection is on the large side, are there pipes or tobaccos that you’ve all but forgotten, only to come back to them one day to find yourself wondering why? Maybe it’s just another fun dimension to this endlessly fascinating journey.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 640. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Ben Rapaport. Ben has been known internationally as an avid pipe smoker, antique pipe collector, and book author. His first book on pipes was published in 1972, and his latest book – his 10th – is out now in very limited quantities. The distribution has already sold out, but you can still get a copy of “The Wide World of Wood Tobacco Pipes. Two Centuries of Craftsmanship and Creativity” by contacting him directly at ben70gray@gmail.com. At the top of the show we’ll be turning the tables on our recurring Ask the Pipemaker segment. This time, Jeff Gracik will ask the questions, which Brian will answer as a pipe collector, and you can give your answers too.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 639. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Per Billhäll. Per is the owner of Scandinavian Pipes, which is an online retailer of high grade pipes. He started smoking pipes in the 1960s. His first high grade pipe was made by Hans “Former” Nielsen, who is one of the living legends from Denmark. That led to Per becoming a huge pipe and tobacco collector, and show attendee where he became well known. Along with pipe book author Jan Andersson, they started The Pipe Club of Sweden in 1991. Then in 1999, Per started “Scan Pipes”. He is now one of the pipe retailing legends from Sweden. At the top of the show Brian will talk about holiday blends, and other special pipe tobacco blends.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 638. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Fae “The Sassy Pipe Lady” Simmons. Fae is the owner of Tobacco Treasures, which sells new, vintage, & estate pipes, and smoking accessories on Etsy. She has been in business since 2017, and has been surrounded by pipes and tobacco most of her life. Her father and his brother smoked pipes, and so does Fae. Her husband is also a retired tobacconist that worked all over the industry from coast to coast for several different companies in the industry. She has a great story of how her business got started with a great inventory of unsmoked vintage pipes. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
Adam, amazing review of one of my favourite blends.
Coolness, I just ordered a tin of this!
Great review Adam!!!
Very well written and detailed review. I’ve got a tin of this aging and I think I’ll be dipping into it before too long — can’t resist the thought of a sweet English.
Adam, thanks for the review! Thanks to the folks who have contributed their thoughts, and to those who have bought a LOT of my Syrian 3Oaks. As the blend’s creator, I would like to mention how important it is to have quality tobaccos to work with, and the tobaccos provided by McClelland are second to none. Yes, I worked hard to balance Virginia sweetness with quality Orientals and a secret mix of Latakia, but it really hinges on the quality of the Latakia.
I will not reveal the mixture’s proportions, for obvious reasons, but you would all be surprised at the amount of cool-smoking Latakia in this blend. One hint: if you pick apart the tobacco, you will see the preponderance of dark leaf. So keep on guessing. There is a surprising ingredient you might not expect. As long as you like/love it, I’m a happy blender. Please do try the Original 3Oaks. It will surprise and delight you, especially with a bit of aging. It will be a bit sweeter than Syrian 3Oaks, given 6 months to a year in the tin. Am I a tobacco tease or what?
Hmmm … we have to see if we can figure out what the secret ingredient is. It will be interesting to smoke the original 3 Oaks and compare.