Those wonderful times are over. The owner had to close the old store on one of Cape Towns most visited public places, because of the Covid tobacco ban in 2020. And maybe almost nobody smokes pipe in SA any more.
The daughter of the owner moved to a small corner in a shopping centre. They still sell tobaccos as home blends. I tried three non aromatics, the Balkan, the three nuns substitute called Three Bells and Black Velvet as i visited Sturks in the new shop last year.
And I am sorry, none of the tobaccos fulfilled the slightest expectations. There was no Perique - as said it was -
![Worried face :worried: 😟](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.6/png/unicode/64/1f61f.png)
in the Three Nuns blend,, I couldn’t find any Orientals, not even Latakia, in the Balkan either. The best was the Black Velvet pure black, mild South African tobacco.
All blends smelled and tasted a lot like Van Erkoms blends like Fox or Jock with a slightly different sauce.
And on top of it from Ostkaap to Cape Town the trip may take at least a day.