I certainly haven’t tried all of the Pease blends—I’m extremely sensitive to perique, and Greg has a particular fondness for that leaf!—but, to me, Charing Cross is the most oriental-forward of the Pease Balkans.
In terms of latakia “weight,” I’d probably rank them like this, from “least” to “most” (although your mileage may vary!):
Charing Cross
Ashbury
Kensington
Caravan
Abingdon
Odyssey
I can’t think of another blender that offers so many variations on the traditional Balkan recipe as GLPease.
If you’d like strength (i.e., nicotine) in a heavy latakia blend, I’d suggest McConnell’s Latakia Flake. I’m a lightweight when it comes to nicotine, and I couldn’t make it past a couple of puffs of my first (and only) bowl.
For a strong oriental blend with very little latakia, I’d recommend Rattray’s Red Rapparee. To me, this is a couple of steps beyond Presbyterian in the oriental department.
And if I could I’d also recommend a number of the blends from the discontinued Grand Orientals series that McClelland produced. If you can find them gathering dust in the back of some shop—or on the estate market—you might really enjoy them. I believe there were six mixtures, each focused on a single oriental leaf. There were a wonderful way to figure out which orientals were sweet (Basma) and which were spicier (Drama), etc. As I recall, only one of these blends, Yenidje Highlander, also included latakia (which, technically, is still an oriental tobacco).
