The Most Overrated Tobaccos

[toobfreak]

Interestingly enough, I bought about 40 or 50 bags of penzance and stonehaven last year. I used to sit on them with my bare ass. Very comfortable seat cushion!
Sold them all for a nice profit through a buddy of mine a few month's back! I wonder where the hell all those bags ended up? :mrgreen:

 

[checotah]

Despite all the so called attempts at jocularity, wit, and dismissal, I think an honest question deserves an honest answer.
IMNSHO, all VAs, VA/Pers, and aromatics are over rated. That's simply because they do not suit my tastes. Codger blends and Latikia blends do it for me. Not for everyone, and you can dis them all you want. My tastes are my own, and should have no bearing on anyone else's, nor theirs on mine.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I only just stumbled upon this somewhat interesting thread.
I fail to see how a blend can be regarded as overrated by virtue of it being consistently positively reviewed on Tobaccoreviews.com. people write positive reviews due to positive experiences.
Surely that is the very raison d'être of the site? I don't see folks giving positive reviews just to jump onto some imaginary bandwagon.
Just my tuppence worth for today ::
Regards,
Jay.
PS: To the OP, try drying out your FVF a little more than you normally would, then I reckon your opinion of the blend will swing right over in the other direction.

 

[fitzy]

Holy crap this thread is still going?

dog sh$# taste like Royal Yacht!

I always knew RY tasted like dog sh$# :rofl:

 

[toobfreak]

I fail to see how a blend can be regarded as overrated by virtue of it being consistently positively reviewed

Even worse, Jay, I fail to see how anyone can judge the efficacy of a blend by merely whether /they/ like it or not. To say that your tastes are your own then to say all of xyz is overrated because you don't like it makes no sense at all. Especially as VaPers seem to be one of the most popular niches out there! The best you can do is judge a blend by its /popularity/ based on the number of favorable reviews vs. negative.
But then, all that really shows you is how much the blend fits within the bell curve of smokers. What if 90% of reviews are favorable? Does that make it a better blend or simply a better fit to the average smoker? The usefulness of that measure only comes then from how closely you feel you fit in with the tastes of the average smoker.
If your tastes tend to run akin of the average smoker (the broadest range of respondents) then the bet is good you will like it as well, but if your tastes fit outside that of most people's, then counting good reviews will not do you very much good.
So the humor of such questions is that the question is so subjective as to be almost meaningless in any true sense other than to satisfy curiosity of what others think or to provide a bit of humor. I've tried blends that were raved about by many to find they were garbage to me, and vise versa. The hard answer to all of this is to get a really meaningful answer, you need to control the study so that you only have one variable!

 

[ashdigger]

Careful Toob, the over sensitive OP might misinterpret your truths.
Everyone raves about Strang, hell, I like it too. But my body chemistry DOES NOT like it at all. Is the blend overrated? Not at all!! It just doesn't work for me.

 

[deathmetal]

The mark of a professional writer is being able to separate a quality assessment from whether he likes it or not.
There are lots of great blends out there, but not all of them are to my taste.
There are some blends out there which are not quite so great, but I like them anyway, for my own reasons.
As far as Royal Yacht, it is one of the greats and tastes nothing like a roasted human brain, although if you are Nicotine-sensitive, that may be the end result.

 

[kirkland]

The only blends I find overated are Esoterica. Yes, a few are good, the rest not so good. But none are great. And the scarcity tactics drive the price up to suck in the idiots. Now before anyone gets buttsore, butt-rashed or butt-poked, I am one of those idiots who is willing to pay more for the "rare" Penzance. But I dislike all the other blends they make. ET ? Highly overated.
I prefer GLP blends over all of them. GLP has a sheetload of great blends and I can purchase them easily. Plus I like Gregs collection of Prince pipes.
SG's FVF and St JF are kickass blends. I'm not a perique dude so IMO, Escudo sucks ass. Escudo is creamy-like yes, but bitter and acrid so bad that I've never be able t get past 1/3 of a bowl before my eyes roll back and my head.
Royal Yahhhck ? The only guy who I know that smokes that sinking ship of a blend is some old boxer guy from Texasville named Steve Fallon aka Pipestud. He has hair on the bottom of his feet from smoking it for 20+ years. A good guy though. I just get upset with Stevie because he sells the tobacco on his site the moment they are put up. I think it's one rich bastard of a guy who hoards everything up that has any value at all.

 

[pitchfork]

Everyone raves about Strang, hell, I like it too. But my body chemistry DOES NOT like it at all. Is the blend overrated? Not at all!! It just doesn't work for me.

Same here. Sad day for me. I still smoke it once in a while, though, because it's damn good.

 

[hawky454]

The only blends I find overated are Esoterica. Yes, a few are good, the rest not so good. But none are great. And the scarcity tactics drive the price up to suck in the idiots. Now before anyone gets buttsore, butt-rashed or butt-poked, I am one of those idiots who is willing to pay more for the "rare" Penzance. But I dislike all the other blends they make. ET ? Highly overated.

How many blends have you actually tried from their line up? Those guys have amazing skills with tobacco and we are very lucky to have them selling us their goods, they can cure a VA like nobody's business and if you can't pick up on that than that's on you. Esoterica doesn't just survive on hype there are plenty of repeat costumers including myself and if all you punks would just stop buying the god awful Esoterica blends than I could finally make Dunbar, Tilbury, Stonehaven and Margate my daily smokes but for now I have to ration my stash because they are damn hard to find in stock. There is nothing out there like em! If it makes ya feel better to bash them because your poor palate can't pick up on the amazing flavors that they provide then by all means, keep at it young buck.

 

[cally454]

Hawky no worries the op stated

My intent is to actually be helpful here and help people make decisions with limited money to spend on tobacco and limited bowls per day to load, so if I mention a tobacco you really like..

Of course it turned into an esoterica bashing thread.

It's only getting easier to find if they Keep it up it will be a everyday smoke soon then they'll go bash something else
Hey you're not a real pipe smoker till you've bashed esoterica

 

[lasttango]

When I smoke Royal Yacht, I feel like I am wielding Thor's hammer while surfing on a 900 foot wave of lava. I have Chuck Norris' head in one hand. In the other hand, I have the hammer and I'm clenching a Charatan skater filled to the brim with that magical nicotine grass. But hey, I'm a leg man. I drive a truck with 8 wheels, get in fights at church and went to the school of hard knocks. Plus, I like robusta coffee.
Royal Yacht is awesome.

 

[ashdigger]

^^^. :worship:

 

[sablebrush52]

Well, it's different strokes for different folks. Everyone likes something different. That's the sum total to which this whole thread amounts.
Shocking, ain't it?
Now, if you want to discuss what you think are the most hyped blends...
Naw, waste of time.
Carry on.
But before I go, consider this:
If you haven't smoked Balkan Sobranie that was made by Sobranie, Dunhill blends that were made by Dunhill, 759 made by Sobranie, and one or three other long gone blends that I'm not naming here, you haven't ever smoked good tobacco, you have been smoking pooh, you have no frame of reference, and everything all of you like is crap.
(listening to the sound of bunching panties...)
I think that covers it.
Now you can carry on.

 

[woodsroad]

When do we start talking about oral cancer?

 

[jpmcwjr]

Is that better or worse than prostate cancer??
~~ Knocking on wood.....

 

[ashdigger]

In my line of work bladder cancer runs rampant......I'd rather discuss anything tobacco related. Anything.

 

[kirkland]

No need to be so snotty Hawky my boy. In my 45 years of smoking pipes I've tried just about every blemd out there. And I always find it comical how friggin buttsore some people get discussing pipes and tobacco. For those offended do you cry and mess your diaper when someone states they don't like Joes Pizza or Aunt Emmas pecan pie? I mean c'mon ladies, pull your skirt up and grow some balls.
And best of luck to those who think ET will be easier to obtain because many of us do not care for your holy grail tobacco.

 

[pipeman7]

FVF was once a favorite, back when it was cut really thin and average cost was $6 per tin, before it became insanely popular circa 2008. I still purchase the occasional SG tin in hopes the flakes will be cut thin again. Picked up some Best Brown last weekend - no dice. It tastes good when I get a few puffs, but it's like trying to light Scott's garden mulch. I attribute it to flakes being cut way too thick, at least for me.

jeff, I got to say this is really cracking me up. You know the 250 boxes are sliced super thin right haha pretty funny to think all this time you've been looking for a tin of thin sliced FVF when all you had to do was buy a box haha

 

[deathmetal]

It is all a matter of individual degrees that you cannot put up one yardstick against to measure every person, they have to be taken individually, case by case.

This makes sense to me, but seems to be the opposite of saying, "Well, it's subjective." Instead: it varies with the individual, which is closer to the meaning of "objective."

You know the 250 boxes are sliced super thin

This is a good tip. I tend to like the boxes and bulk better anyway, but if this is what it takes to get thin sliced FVF, so be it.
As a Philistine, I mix it with C&D Dark Burley.