Which Are the Most Incenselike Blends? ⚗️⛪🪔🥢💭

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rakovsky

Can't Leave
Nov 28, 2024
442
476
I don't think I can help, it could well all be subjective. Latakia never gave me any barnyard or hay smell or taste, while leather has always been there too (for me).

Gaslight and Squadron Leader are very different though, to the point that for me there's no point in putting them in the same sentence. Gaslight I didn't like at all, it was creosote and tar, while Squadron Leader was nice but quite light for my tastes. In general I have never been impressed with Gawith's use of Latakia.

To distinguish the smoky/woody characters between eg Latakia and Dark Fired Kentucky I'd say the first smells/tastes like a campfire that's died down, while the second like wood chopped and/or burning.

Sweet hay/grass/tea even are tastes I'd experience from light VAs. Manure and cattle piss I'd say is what I get from C&D's Perique bombs.
Karam,

Thanks for fleshing out more your sensations.

I got the barnstall flavor from about 1/3 of Latakia blends, especially Sutliff's Latakia, Star of the East, Wellauer's English blend, and two English house blends from a local B and M. Those two house blends were the first English blends I ever had, and the barnstall hay smell made me wonder if it was rotten and why people would like Englishes considering the smell.

When tobacco and hay break down in fermentation, they both produce a substance called "silage," and this may be part of the reason that those Latakia blends have a barnstall flavor for me. That barnstall variety of Latakia feels more fermented to me than plain VA tobacco, although I don't know if that's really the case.

When Latakia is very light in a blend like Walnut MATCH, it contributes a faint taste like a campfire that died down. Or perhaps it also has that campfire ember flavor as an aspect in stronger Lat. blends.

Another possible factor is that my palatte may be more sensitive and different than other people's. For instance, Northwoods' smoke smells bitter and soapy in part to me, but other people who smoked it in front of me only got rich flowery, chocolate notes from it, which is what I get from Northwoods' tin note. However, I know that the barnstall variety of Latakia smells stinky to some other smokers, so I'm not alone in it.
 
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rakovsky

Can't Leave
Nov 28, 2024
442
476
I want to follow up:
After making the OP I tried Moroccan Bazaar, and it was good and reminded me of figs and some kind of sweet hard candy gum drop taste, but I couldn't tell if it was specifically an incense smell.

SG Cannon Plug had a major fruit taste that I couldn't identify exactly, like orange or plum, and a comparably strong smell that reminded me a lot of East Asian or hippie-style incense sticks or incense cones like I got 25+ years ago in a mall shop.

C & D Byzantium was a little sweet and nutty, with a little dark Latakia horse hay side, but was not quite like incense.

RB Plug had a light prune smell, Black House had a molasses-like side, GH Balkan reminded me of BBQ a little bit, and GT Pesse Canoe Oriental Flake had a fruit syrup flavor that I couldn't identify exactly - maybe grape or fig. But none of these last 4 blends smelled quite like incense to me.
 

Steddy

Lifer
Sep 18, 2021
1,700
29,080
Western North Carolina
I want to follow up:
After making the OP I tried Moroccan Bazaar, and it was good and reminded me of figs and some kind of sweet hard candy gum drop taste, but I couldn't tell if it was specifically an incense smell.

SG Cannon Plug had a major fruit taste that I couldn't identify exactly, like orange or plum, and a comparably strong smell that reminded me a lot of East Asian or hippie-style incense sticks or incense cones like I got 25+ years ago in a mall shop.

C & D Byzantium was a little sweet and nutty, with a little dark Latakia horse hay side, but was not quite like incense.

RB Plug had a light prune smell, Black House had a molasses-like side, GH Balkan reminded me of BBQ a little bit, and GT Pesse Canoe Oriental Flake had a fruit syrup flavor that I couldn't identify exactly - maybe grape or fig. But none of these last 4 blends smelled quite like incense to me.
You smoke Presbyterian yet?
 
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Pypkė

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 3, 2024
707
1,933
East of Cleveland, Ohio. USA
Experienced a lot of Church incense this past weekend. I was reminded that the fragrance is nothing at all like pipe tobacco. Since this thread was created, I've casually noted what pipe tobaccos may remind me of Church incense. I'd say Latakia heavy blends are evocative of incense, but then not at all like incense.
 
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SBC

Lifer
Oct 6, 2021
1,833
8,246
Yoopsconsin
FWIW, there are a number of different incense recipes used in Christian churches, so "church incense" isn't just one scent any more than "tobacco" is just one scent. They have differing components and proportions, just like our pipe mixtures do. I have several priest friends (both Eastern Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic), and they can geek out on comparing incenses from church suppliers like we geek out on comparing tobaccos.

Still, I know what you mean. I have (rarely) had moments pipe smoking when a certain warm, sweet, exotic spiciness struck me as generically incense-like. I think usually with sweeter latakia mixtures. But never consistently from any one blend.
 
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