I will try that. Smoking Commonwealth this afternoon and two thirds down the bowl, I couldn't have kept it lit if I used a torch. Good smoke but not as good a BF IMHO
Samuel Gawith St. James Flake
- Thread starter musicman
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I like Deception Pass a lot, but fresh it just burns the hell out of my mouth, like no other blend. If I open the tin and let it sit for a couple of weeks it balances out nicely.
I like St James, but prefer Cabbies. Cabbies Mixture has less bright virginias and seems more mellow.
I have a few tins of St James stacked away, and I'll make a note to my descendants to smoke them in 10.000 years.
I have a few tins of St James stacked away, and I'll make a note to my descendants to smoke them in 10.000 years.
Yes it was indeed fun! Here is the link to the group tasting that @ashdigger put together, it might answer your question.
Group Tasting - Laurel Flake and St. James Flake :: Pipe Tobacco Discussion
Okay folks I'm going to conduct another group tasting experience. I'm going to have a total of 10 spaces, and 2 already are spoken for. So I need 8 more victims tasters. The Laurel Flake is dated 1-12-05 and the St. James Flake is from 2014. Rumor has it they are both the same tobacco (go to...
pipesmagazine.com
This is very sage advice embedded in here--all newish pipe smokers (like myself) should take note. I really appreciate, @musicman , the way you say that you haven't figured out how to smoke this tobacco yet, rather than just passing judgement on the blend, perhaps prematurely. I haven't tried DP, but I've gone through similar travails with Virginias. Trying it, putting it away, changing technique/cadence, and recognizing that you haven't figured it out (and may never) is in my mind, what makes this pipe smoking journey so complex and fascinating!
I concur. This happens too often! Someone tries a new tobacco, gets half way though the bowl and wants to tell the world that the blend that everyone loves totally sucks cause they don’t like it. I can’t even count the number of times where I fell in love with a blend that seemed bland and boring at first. It really takes time to get to know the subtleties and nuances of an unfamiliar blend.
Of course, if @jiminks gives it a bad review, then I take back everything I said!
Thanks for sharing. A great read. I decided to crack one of my Laurel Flake tins from ‘06. Will try some tonight. Quite moist but looks beautiful.
Oh man, you are in for a treat! I'm excited for you! Look at those beautiful flakes! I'm glad they kept their moisture! Surely beats going dry!
It's always great when you can smoked a blend that is aged until the proper time.
I like the precision of 6.347 years though unless derived by what you aged and smoked, no clue how you arrived at it.
I remember how wet it came. I remember drying it down the first timed I bought bulk, on cookie sheets, but then I read an opinion that said it smoked better that way. I went with the fire retardant but I dunno.
I just received my first box of SJF. It was moist but not over the top. It is jarred now until I get through some other open blends. I'm looking forward to trying it but it probably won't be until next spring or even summer.
C'mon Harris, you're just pissed because those coupons for a free party doll if you bought 10 boxes of it , turned out to be a gag your pool boy played on you.
All of mine is at the perfect smoking moisture, which came about by accident. I bought 250 gram boxes of it which I put away to jar, then forgot that I had. 2 years later I found the boxes. Naturally, because the tobacco was in a baggie inside the box, it hadn't retained it's moisture. It hadn't dried out either, but had dried down to about what I find to be the optimal moisture for smoking and getting all those flavors. I jarred them and now I don't need to dry any of it and it's continued to improve with age.
One opinion says buy in force what you like, and put it away to age. When you come back, you find you have 5? lbs. to smoke. Multiply that by the number of blends and you come up with quite a bit of tobacco.
Another says you aren't pipe living well unless you try a good number of the new blends on the market. If they are better than what you've already cellared, cellar them, too, in the same large quantity.
Of course, you'll never smoke all that tobacco. You will have earned a seat in the Hell of Incessant Hoarders. (You should have bought only what you will smoke.)
You see how this works to the advantage of the blenders. Cellar/hoard; buy the new stuff and cellar and hoard it.
We wink wink at the megatons of tobacco in our cellars in the same way as we nod in complacently to our growing gut from too any large dinners.
I was of the cellar large quantities of all tobaccos persuasion, as well as cellaring the same amount of new blends.
But at this date it seems to me that running lean would have been the better practice. We tell ourselves that we need to cellar deep because of the FDA. Makes sense; and we need to buy now all the tobacco we will ever need until we drop dead. OK.
But how long until then? And will your health withstand more of those years of tobacco incursion?
What about changing tastes. Are you still going to love a blend the way you do now so the 20 lbs. you bought of it going to get your attention?
Could be that less is more.
Another says you aren't pipe living well unless you try a good number of the new blends on the market. If they are better than what you've already cellared, cellar them, too, in the same large quantity.
Of course, you'll never smoke all that tobacco. You will have earned a seat in the Hell of Incessant Hoarders. (You should have bought only what you will smoke.)
You see how this works to the advantage of the blenders. Cellar/hoard; buy the new stuff and cellar and hoard it.
We wink wink at the megatons of tobacco in our cellars in the same way as we nod in complacently to our growing gut from too any large dinners.
I was of the cellar large quantities of all tobaccos persuasion, as well as cellaring the same amount of new blends.
But at this date it seems to me that running lean would have been the better practice. We tell ourselves that we need to cellar deep because of the FDA. Makes sense; and we need to buy now all the tobacco we will ever need until we drop dead. OK.
But how long until then? And will your health withstand more of those years of tobacco incursion?
What about changing tastes. Are you still going to love a blend the way you do now so the 20 lbs. you bought of it going to get your attention?
Could be that less is more.
I always try to buy the boxes, they rarely come as wet as you’ll find in the tin but honestly, I’ve never had sopping wet tobacco from them, be it tin or otherwise. Now Esoterica’s, their blends come wet! I’ve had it take about 8 hours to dry out Dunbar in the past. Guess I’ve just been lucky with SG. I mean I’ve had flakes arrive moist but that’s a good thing in my opinion. Age em moist, smoke em dry.
I sort of had the same behavioral issues with SJF that I did with Fvf. Even after extensive drying.
Interestingly, I have thus far found this to be far better behaved than FVF. Perhaps it has something to do with my FVF being from a tin and this SJF being from a box, but it seems drier, on the whole, and it seems to dry out more consistently than FVF. FVF has the distinction of being able to feel perfectly crispy dry and still somehow retain a bunch of moisture.