This evening I finally had the chance after dinner and getting my son to bed to sit on the porch and spend some time with this blend.
I took out some broken flakes and cube cut them before allowing them to dry for about an hour on a paper plate. After a gravity fill of my favorite Virginia cob, I gave it three charring lights, and I was in business.
I found the flavor to be very consistent throughout, with dark fruit in the fore and very mild citrus in the back. The only change I noticed was a building sweetness. It started with maybe a 4/10 on the sweet scale, but by the end, it was pushing 8/10 . Very enjoyable mellow, deep (but not complex) flavor.
As far as behavior, I would say this tobacco was more finicky than most, with some difficulty getting going and deft tamping required. Rarely was the entirety of the bowl smoldering at once. The ember moved from one chunk to the next providing flavorful whips of smoke on the draw rather than plumes.
It was a tad harsh on the relight as many Virginias are for me, but it mellowed back out and got back in to form fairly quickly. I found it to require a relight every ten minutes on average - not bad considering the very slow pace I was smoking, but certainly more than an easy going ribbon cut or fully rubbed out flake. It's manageable. Will approach biting if you get greedy, but a moderate tempo didn't give me much trouble at all.
All in all, Dark Star was a very enjoyable smoke, but one that requires a bit of attention. Not recommended for the beginning pipe smoker, not an all day smoke, but this is a masterfully done, tasty Virginia.
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