different strokes for different folks

[maxpeters]

I just read Mate's thread about adding more activity to the discussion forum, and I agree.

I have been a member for about a month now, and have not added much myself. I do enjoy reading what everyone else writes though, but it does seem that only a half dozen members ever get into the discusions, so I will start one myself, and see if anyone agrees with me, or not.
Back in the mid to late 90's, I went to a pipe show and met Craig Tarler of Cornell and Diehl Tobacco. He had quite a few belnds on his table, and I sampled a few by smelling them. He let me light up a couple to see if I would like them.

I ended up buying 4 different blends I think. When I got home and tried them out, they all tasted generally the same. I don't remember which blends they were now, but I remember not liking any of them much.
Sometime around 2005, I decided to try Cornell and Diehl again. I purchased another blend my mail, and that blend also tasted similar to the ones I tried years before, even though it was an aromatic, and the other had been english types. There was a single overiding taste that I couldn't make out, but I remember I didn't like it.

I can't remember which blend that one was either now.
Just recently, I decided to once again give his blends a try. I read the reviews of course, and since they seemed positive, I decided to buy a can of his "Pennington Gap" and a can his "Two Friends- Heritage".

Again, there was that taste. I can't quite place it, but it reminds me of either licorice or maybe too much perique?
Has anyone else noticed this in Cornell and Diehl blends? Or is it maybe just my body chemistry that doesn't agree with them.
I have also noticed there seems to be a similarity with every Mac Baren's blend that I have tried. Something like molasses and rum tainting everyone.
On the other hand I haven't been able to detect the katchup taste people talk about with the McClelland blends.
Just curious. I see that Cornell and diehl has over 200 different blends. I can't imagine they all taste the same.
Input anyone?

 

[pstlpkr]

Max,

I thought (at first) you were talking about a touch of latakia (mild pepper flavor) but I don't think so. I recommend that you point your questions toward Bob. He has a profound understanding of the nuances inherent to many different blends.

 

[admin]

Yes, Bob is the resident expert.
There are some C&D blends that I love and others that I have no taste for.
I love Billy Budd and completely dislike Three Friars.
When you have 200 blends, you may end up with 200 opinions about them.
I like Mac Baren's tobaccos, but I agree that several of them are similar.
I don't get the ketchup aroma from McClelland either, but I did get a little bit of tomato skin aroma, which is almost the same I guess.

 

[peter]

I'll add my voice to Kevin's. I like Mac Baren blends quiet a bit, but most of their non-english blends do seem to have a comonality in flavor profiles. Reminds me of honey. I wonder if you could trace it back to a single source for their tobacco, meaning that they use the same variety of cavendish grown in a certain geography. Believe it or not, but water can make a difference from location to location. Beer made in CA tastes slightly different than been made east of the Mississippi. Maybe it really is something in the water they use to case with or the steaming process.

 

[python]

There are quite a few blends from C&D that I like and/or love, but there are also some blends that I think are just so-so. I don't know what it is that you are tasting, because C&D only use distilled water for moisture in their blends. It is just tobacco and distilled water.
I do not get the same taste from all of their blends as you do Max. I am not saying that you are imagining it though, because I have the same experience with other manufacturers blends, namely Peterson and Altadis.
I think that it pretty much breaks down to the individual smoker. I am not saying that Peterson and Altadis blends are bad. I am just saying that I don't really care for them all that much, but other people love them. Almost every blend that I have smoked from both of these manufactures seem to have the same, for lack of a better term, backbone taste. I am not saying that Peterson and Altadis taste the same as each other, I am saying that there is a distinctive backbone taste to all Peterson blends and a different and distinctive backbone taste to all Altadis blends.
The above statement seems like it could be a tad confusing, so I will try to explain a little more. Almost every Peterson blend that I have smoked has this underlying 'backbone' taste that I call The Peterson Taste. The same applies to Altadis blends, I call it 'The Altadis Taste'.
It sounds to me that you are experiencing the same type of thing, but with C&D. I do not experience it with C&D. That is why I think that it just comes down to individual tastes. I would suggest that if you are tasting the same thing in all of a certain brand and are not enjoying it, not to smoke that brand.
Life is too short to smoke something that you do not enjoy, even if everyone else seems to enjoy it.