I purchased this tobacco in an attempt to come out of my comfort zone (mostly a VA/Per smoker). I was a little hesitant, my experiences in the past with Fuller and stronger blends (triple play and Jack knife plug for instance) have been good on taste, but not good on the nic hit. Upon opening the tin, I shoved my nose down into the flakes and was greeted by something close to a Latakia note, but more smokey wood, rather then a charcoal campfire (think meat smoker instead of campfire). The presentation is very handsome, gold foil wrapping, with three rows of neatly stacked flakes inside (3.5 oz tin). The flakes are very dark, thin, and moist. I was fearing a strong nic hit just looking at them. Rubbing them out was difficult compared to other flakes I've handled, this must be the result of the hot pressing. They almost felt glued together. This is not a bad thing, just an observation. I ended up with a pile of broken flake rather then a more ribbon like texture. I let them dry for about 10 mins and packed it loose. It took some effort to char it and get it going, I think some more dry time next smoke. The initial flavor is very full tobacco forward, no surprise here. The retrohale produced a ketchupy flavor, I'm guessing from the Virginias. I'm pretty inexperienced with burly forward blends, so other then some faint wood, I wasn't detecting any other flavor. This changed dramatically after the first half of the bowl. It went out, and upon relight, I was greeted with a very obvious and full chocolate flavor, with some hazlenuts. I would say my palate is below average so I was very pleased with the range of tastes I was experiencing. The Burley played the dominate role from then on and it burned down to fine ash with little dottle. Best of all, the nic hit was pretty low much to my surprise. It did burn faster then I expected, though that could just be my cadence. No bite whatsoever. All in all it was a great smoke and I think I'll be saving up for the pound bag. Great job Mac Baren!