Oh,
another thing I forgot.
Upon rereading this comment I made:
The blunt answer is, the American manufacturers simply cannot do it.
The task is beyond their dominion.
it sounded a bit pompous on my part and could be easily misinterpreted as me dissing the American blenders, and I didn't quite mean it that way.
Obviously they have the skill, but in many cases are lacking the needed industrial machinery, as well as certain leaf (exotic Orientals of yore, African stuff etc), so that's what I was getting at.
The American blenders do an excellent job of making some great British-styled English blends, but I'm just not a hardcore English smoker and find it difficult to navigate the field because there are just so many different options.
I don't even really like the term English for a lat blend, I think they should be called Russian, or Egyptian, or even Crimean, LOL, I think that back in the day, in Great Britain, lat blends were more expensive and perhaps associated with the officers club or gentlemans parlour, a baccy seen as more sophisticated and exotic --- the everyman in the street was more likely to be smoking a stout cased flake, usually with a peculiar flavouring unique to the British, and that's what I favor, St. Bruno, Condor, Highland Sliced, et al, and the American blenders hardly offer anything of that sort.
The Danish have proven to be very adept at "recreating" the old Brit stuff, but of course, they also had access to the processing method and recipes directly from the original manufacturers.
German baccy companies make some blends along those lines too, with some mighty fine stuff, but not usually equal to the Danes at matching that classic British profile.
:
:
Two more pence in the pond.
