Who Loves Dan Aromatics?
- Thread starter milk
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It does help to have something to go on since there are so many blends on the market. I would say that a lot of reviews are pointless because of the way they’re written but many of them aren’t.
Too much subjectivity and nuance in taste. My something to go on are just the blend components. Had I depended on reviews, I wouldn't have found the blends that I've enjoyed for years now, even decades. My top five aren't even listed on TR.
It’s nice if you can sample stuff. I’m in Japan where I have so many limitations. If you have pipe clubs or access to bulk, etc., you can try lots of stuff. A nice pipesmagazine person tried to send me some tobaccos and they charged so much duty and taxes to receive…I kind of have to go on something so I guess it’s just my situation. You make me curious about your top 5!!!
I’m tempted to buy a Dan blend with only 1 review and not available in the U.S. There’s also the Turkish company/blend available here. These are expensive crap shoots!
One of the problem I see is that Dan Tobacco makes a lot of blends for other brands or people. The Caro Mio that was mentioned earlier is one of them as it was blended by Michael Apitz and sold under his name.
That I get, especially the “unnecessary and/or silly”.
There’s too many wanna be poets (“if this tobacco were a car, it would be a Mercedes”).
As a newbie finding my groove, I do appreciate when a reviewer a) tries to be primarily objective, ala @JimInks, b) tosses in there what kinds of blends/leafs they prefer, so I can interpolate biases, and c) when they can express similarities and/or contrasts to other more familiar blends of the same ilk.
I’ve only had Devil’s Holiday. I keep a tobacco jar filled with it, along with mason jars for longer storage.
It wasn't until this thread that I remembered I smoked a tin of Da Vinci last year... that may also be a factor as to why you don't see a lot of Dan aro reviews. I thought it was good, but not spectacular, I moved on and forgot about it as others may also have done.
Every time I see the name Dan though, or even meet a person named Dan, I think about Old Ironsides... it's that good. I bet it has quite a few more reviews, but I don't visit in that site anymore as a personal rule.
Every time I see the name Dan though, or even meet a person named Dan, I think about Old Ironsides... it's that good. I bet it has quite a few more reviews, but I don't visit in that site anymore as a personal rule.
Of the Dan aros I’ve tried, they’re aros for non-aro folks (like many euro blends).
I have tried some of the Dan blends, what I've been able to find here in N America.
Hamborger Veermaster is one of my favorite Va's
I tried a couple of their English blends which I thought were decent, but I'm sort of off English blends right now.
I also tried Blue Note and SVH which are very good taste wise but found them to be really strongly aromatic, a bit too strong for me. I have them jarred up, I'll probably cut them with some mild burley when I feel the itch.
Hamborger Veermaster is one of my favorite Va's
I tried a couple of their English blends which I thought were decent, but I'm sort of off English blends right now.
I also tried Blue Note and SVH which are very good taste wise but found them to be really strongly aromatic, a bit too strong for me. I have them jarred up, I'll probably cut them with some mild burley when I feel the itch.
Gladora's Pesse Canoe Latakia and Oriental Flakes, I assume? Tried both recently. I'd better stick with Dan aromatics, if that's the only other choise available.
Yeah. I was curious about these. Can you give me a rundown because I seem to be one of the only ones around here with access to them yet I’ve hesitated to buy them. Something tells me they’re going to be disappointing. I have to lay off Latakia for the moment, even though I love those blends. I was thinking of the oriental but hesitating. There are other choices in Japan: Samuel Gawaith, Rattray, GL Pease, Macbaren, etc. I do like some of the blends out of these companies. But Sam seems to have, perhaps, the most number of products. I’m thinking Dan they’re not lacking in quality but they also have a unique marketing scheme, with all the funny names and tin art.
I’d love your impression of those Turkish tobaccos. I guess they’re a bit hard to deal with in terms of the presentation?
Well, if you like Dan aromatics, then you must have a pretty "European" taste (me, in my turn, I have an "English" one, so no much rave from me about Dan tobaccos). Those two Turkish blends are as far from anything European / English / American as it can be. Actually, those blends are rebranded legacy Turkish pipe mixtures, well known in Turkey since the 1930s. So they're rather very peculiar "local specialties", than the Latakias and Orientals we know from English mixtures. Latakia is smoked with some different kind of wood so it has much more of a "smoked fish" note than the "creosote", more familiar to us in English and Balkan blends. Oriental mixture has some very interesting and unique leaf in it - like unsmoked Yayladag, which is essentially the same variety they used to produce Syrian Latakia from, but overall the blend is fairly acrid and one-dimensional, anything richly Oriental from Samuel Gawith (Squadron Leader or Sam's Flake) or Dunhill (Durbar, London Mixture) is far superior to it.
I think the "rustic" designation would be spot on to characterise those two Turkish blends. They aren't bad in any way but they aren't as refined as English/European-produced blends of the same types.
No wonder the Turks distribute their new Pesse Canoe brand exclusively on Asian markets, no sight of those blends in Europe or America yet.
Worth to try out of their educational value, but definitely not worth to pay any premium price. I got my samples brought directly from Turkey and to be honest, I'm glad I ordered just a pouch of each sort, and didn't order a stash of several pounds.
I think the "rustic" designation would be spot on to characterise those two Turkish blends. They aren't bad in any way but they aren't as refined as English/European-produced blends of the same types.
No wonder the Turks distribute their new Pesse Canoe brand exclusively on Asian markets, no sight of those blends in Europe or America yet.
Worth to try out of their educational value, but definitely not worth to pay any premium price. I got my samples brought directly from Turkey and to be honest, I'm glad I ordered just a pouch of each sort, and didn't order a stash of several pounds.
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