Best Esoterica/Germain’s Blends I Should Buy?
- Thread starter fishmansf
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By the way, the ring is Bisbee touqouise. It’s even better than Margate.
Well I think I know how to pay for Christmas.... (just kidding I don't actually sell stuff. I just give it away)
Never had any Esoterica, but Germain’s is freely available over here. Faves are:
- King Charles: light latakia/ oriental. Actually sublime, one of my all time favourites, but you need to smoke a few bowls in the same pipe to sort of “season the bowl” and really taste it.
- Royal Jersey Latakia: latakia with a slightly plummy/ boozy topping (much nicer than I thought it would be)
Royal Jersey Perique: A different presentation of perique. The base tobaccos are more dry and earthy than the usual vaper “sugar-and-spice” that we all know and love.
- Rich Dark Flake: v.similar to Stonehaven as I understand (never tried SH)
- Medium Flake: smooooooth…along the same lines as Best Brown Flake. Weird sort of orange-zest notes at first light, which dissapates through the bowl.
- Brown Flake: sits somewhere between Full Virginia Flake and Brown Rope to my tastes
Yeah…I kinda like Germain’s!!
- King Charles: light latakia/ oriental. Actually sublime, one of my all time favourites, but you need to smoke a few bowls in the same pipe to sort of “season the bowl” and really taste it.
- Royal Jersey Latakia: latakia with a slightly plummy/ boozy topping (much nicer than I thought it would be)
Royal Jersey Perique: A different presentation of perique. The base tobaccos are more dry and earthy than the usual vaper “sugar-and-spice” that we all know and love.
- Rich Dark Flake: v.similar to Stonehaven as I understand (never tried SH)
- Medium Flake: smooooooth…along the same lines as Best Brown Flake. Weird sort of orange-zest notes at first light, which dissapates through the bowl.
- Brown Flake: sits somewhere between Full Virginia Flake and Brown Rope to my tastes
Yeah…I kinda like Germain’s!!
I got juked. I went in and when I went to grab the bag the tobacconist told me I needed to buy a pipe in order to take it home…. Damn shame@fishmansf so did you get anything, any pics to show us some goodies?
Kind of funny for those that remember when P&C had to offer free bags with the purchase of a Big Ben pipe several years ago to unload them.
Never had the Esoterica tobaccos as they aren't sold in England. I've tried all the Germain's blends that don't contain Latakia and I enjoyed them all. Medium Flake, Rich Dark Flake and Brown Flake are my favourites. Germain's Royal Jersey Cavendish & Virginia is great with a few years of age on it.
I've got a chance to get peacehaven, Cardiff, or Brighton; any thoughts on which one to go with? I'm pretty new to VAs but so far I've enjoyed NM400 and 507c, 515-rc, and 507s. I tried MB no. 1 which was ok but nothing I would've tried to pick up more of.
Those are three that I haven’t had. I will say that I’ve enjoyed the ones that I have been fortunate enough to smoke very much. The cut of the tobacco alone is a joy. If I could have a cellar of nothing but Esoterica, I could live with that.
I've had a sample of Margate that was very good and a friend offered me a sample of one of those Virginias since I started getting into them. Guess I'll shoot from the hip and see what happens.
Peacehaven is the most difficult to find. I have been hunting it for 5 years with no luck.
Germain's Rich Dark Flake is virtually identical to Esoterica Stonehaven, I say virtually because there are differences, but they aren't major. They're like non identical twins.
I have them all and like them all. Peacehaven is the most difficult to get, because it's not produced regularly. Personally, I prefer Cardiff or Brighton.
Peacehaven isn't highly topped. Cardiff has what tasted like a bit of pineapple in the topping, maybe mango. It's been a while since I last opened a bag, but initially I didn't like Cardiff and then it grew on me and I bought a few more bags.
Brighton is also a semi aromatic and quite good, although the last bag I opened was like smoking a flame thrower, and I'd never had that issue before with Brighton.
If I remember correctly, I heard Per Jensen mention in a recent interview that Germain's is going to be scaling up production a bit here soon with the consolidation of Mac Baren and STG? That might be more for the European market though, meaning we might not see much increase in US inventories.
As long as they keep the quality, I’m all for it. It seems to be getting harder for these companies to source good Virginia’s. And then they want to use less casings and not mature their stuff for as long and still charge 25$ a tin. It’s not what it used to be 5 years ago, but it’s still good stuff. I just hope they don’t mess with it too much, knowing that most people will still buy it for nothing other than the name.
The quality has already slipped, at least when I last bought a bag of Dunbar, in 2020, and found the Virginia base changed and not in a good way. I picked apart the component leaf and found this very hard stringy stuff that wasn't in past releases and which I had found in some late HU tins that fouled those releases. That was my last purchase of Esoterica. Not worth the $39 bucks I paid for it.
Maybe it's improved since 2020, but I have no need to buy more.
I was sent some Esoterica in a secret Santa a couple of years ago and it was pretty great (not sure of the year), but I prefer to purchase tobaccos that are more readily available. 2020 was when I switched from cigarettes to the pipe so I never experienced a time when Esoterica was plentiful.