Mac Baren's HH Balkan Blend and Cyprian Vs. Syrian

[carolinachurchwarden]

So I just saw a release in my email that Mac Baren has just issued the Balkan Blend in their HH line. This will reportedly replace their Vintage Syrian because of the "casualty of Syrian Latakia". What will be the major difference between Cyprian versus Syrian in an English blend moving forward? Would be able to tell the difference between a blend with Cyprian and one with Syrian if they contained the exact same other components to the blend? Maybe smoking them straight and comparing them to one another you might, but actually blended into a mix would you know the difference? In any case, this sounds quite good. I'm kind of digging the Mac Baren HH line right now.

 

[prairiedruid]

I find Cyprian to have a stronger flavor than Syrian, of course most Syrian you encounter is over a decade old so that may have something to do with it. Syrian is softer with some musty wine flavors where as Cyprian is more campfire like.

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

Okay, well, I may give the Mac Baren Balkan a try and see how it goes. They seem to be knocking it out of the park for me, lately.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Does anybody know if Ashton Artisan Blend still contains Syrian Leaf or was that too replaced with Cyprian lately?

 

[prairiedruid]

It has been replaced with Cyprian.

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

I'd almost assume any blend that was tinned up before the shortage would still have tins in circulation that contained Syrian, but who knows when the cutoff could have begun? I mean one blender could have made the switch early if they ran out of Syrian, while another was able to blend it a little longer. Depends on how deep their Syrian Lat ran I reckon.

 

[prairiedruid]

The blends that Jim reviewed yesterday have Syrian latakia; just have to order it from Argentina. As far as I know that is it unless you find some forgotten B&M that has some old 3 Oaks Syrian or HH Vintage Syrian hanging around. Ashton's switched to Cyprian a bit over a year ago I believe.

 

[brooklynpiper]

Here's an article GL Pease wrote about the difference. Pease Blog

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

Quite the interesting read there, brooklynpiper. I reckon I should be trying to pick up some of that Vintage Syrian before it's gone, just to see how it relates to blends using Cyprian. I never realized that the two had completely, almost opposite ends of the spectrum, nicotine contents. So basically, with Syrian, you get the Lat flavor and a pretty good buzz going if a blend contains a good portion, but if you're smoking more Cyprian, you're getting the flavor and not necessarily a lot of nicotine in the process.

 

[lazar]

The new version of HH Vintage Syrian is called HH Vintage Latakia. http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/11487/mac-baren-hh-vintage-latakia
This Balkan is a new blend - presumably more Oriental-forward.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Not really a version of Vintage Syrian, though; it's a version of a Latakia blend.

Notes: After the stock of Syrian Latakia ran out, Per Jensen wanted to keep this blend around and replaced the Syrian with Cyprian Latakia. The HH Vintage Latakia is a successor of HH Vintage Syrian.

 

[rotate]

Earlier this year (2018) Cypriot farmers appealed for a financial aid package from the government of the Republic of Cyprus to restart growing Latakia tobacco in northern Cyprus. The farmers, who claim that Latakia tobacco has NOT been grown in Cyprus for more than ten years require government financial help from the Agricultural and Fisheries Department to restart their rural economy which would provide business growth opportunities and employment to the Karpas Region of northern Cyprus.

Lots of politics in this as as the region of the island of Cyprus where Cyprian Latakia is historically grown is not under the control of the internationally recognised government of the Republic of Cyprus and has not been so since the summer of 1974. The European Union (EU), of which the Republic of Cyprus is a member state is not noted for its support of the tobacco industry and may have an opinion on a member states support of tobacco growing in its country which will not generate revenue for the member state or increase overall EU production and export figures.

Opinions differ on if what we are smoking is Cyprian Latakia or not, if what the farmers say is correct and Latakia has not been grown in Cyprus for more than ten years then there must be enormous stockpiles of Cyprian Latakia held somewhere although it should be noted that the island of Cyprus is small and the tobacco growing region while once very productive is very small in comparison to tobacco fields elsewhere in the world.
I live within 60 Kms of the region where Cyprian Latakia tobacco was grown, until 1974 I lived less than 40 Kms away and have for various reasons not visited the area since then,.

 

[grimpuffer]

@rotate
I was always under the assumption that the EU is not tobacco friendly at all. Their war against smokeless tobacco for instance (Snus in particular).
Never understood why smoking was ok, but god forbid you wanted to use a harm reduction product like snus.

 

[perdurabo]

The EU isn’t friendly to tobacco or to humanity (History Proves this) for that matter.

 

[lazar]

@rotate - very interesting post. I've wondered how Cyprus could produce so much Latakia, being a fairly small island and still showing the effects of ancient Roman deforestation. A lot of wood is used to smoke tobacco to make Latakia, which is why they banned it in Syria. If the currently available Lat is not Cyprian, I wonder where it's from.

The EU isn’t friendly to tobacco or to humanity (History Proves this) for that matter.

What happened to the eye-roll emoji?

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

+ 1 for Perdurado, I know this on my own experience,

To Lazar, my guess is that latakia comes today from somewhere southern eastern European countries, such as parts of the former Yugoslavia or Bulgaria,or Macedonia region of Greece

 

[bazungu]

I read somewhere on a Dutch forum that Latakia nowadays is mainly grown/cured in Turkey, as when someone travelled to Cyprus and asked about tobacco farms and was told there havent been any for a long time. My guess is like Paulie has already mentioned, possibly it comes anywhere from the Balkan/South Eastern European countries and Turkey.

Perhaps we should start talking about Turkish Latakia now? It must cause quite a variation in different batches of Latakia as I assume each country will has its own curing methods and indigenous wood. Perhaps any blender can give more information? (Although I believe it might be hard to really pin point where each tobacco comes from as there might be many middle man involved or crops from different countries just gets thrown together perhaps).