Anyone actually like Cornell and Diehl?

For many years, I only smoked English/Balkan blends, such as Penzance, Margate, Skiff and Commonwealth. In late 2016, I was introduced to Cornell and Diehl via several GLP English/Balkan blends. For a while, I smoked Westminster, Quiet Nights and Chelsea Morning daily. Between those bowls, I smoked several other English blends, one of them being C&D’s Star of the East Flake. Without any knowledge of what a Virginia is, I gladly smoked any blend fresh.

In early 2017, I joined a now defunct forum, and then ended up here. By that spring (2017), thanks to our fellow patchers, I began exploring Virginias and then VaPers. Soon my daily lineup included Union Square, Opening Night, Telegraph Hill, Dunbar and other similar blends. This past summer, I became a Burley smoker. I’m probably boring everone now so I’ll cut to the chase. . .
I smoke many C&D and GLP blends such as :

Bayou Night
Billy Budd Blonde
Bluegrass
blue Ridge
Opening Night
Oriental Silk
Pegasus
Star of the East FlAke
Sunday Picnic
Yorktown
Cairo
Union Square
Telegraph Hill
Stratford

I find the fresh VA blends need more time to ripen/mature. I usually wait a year before opening . Some of the blends are phenomenal with five years of age. . . Cairo, US and Sunday Picnic just as Cramptholomew said are just a few.

That’s my two cents for today. Enjoy.

Wolfman

   Charlie, I too find OJK unsmokable fresh, for me extremely harsh, actually burns my throat. With a couple of years of age this blend becomes much more mellow. Here again I believe it’s the “ young Virginia’s “ that need proper aging. I’ve yet to meet a Virginia tobacco I can enjoy fresh.


Good morning Paddy and Sam, have a great weekend.

     I just received another pound a couple of days ago, was on the dry side.......definitely not bone dry. When I jarred there was no powder floating in the air. Smoked a bowl fresh and it was delightful, will get even better with some age. My one pound C&D sealed bag had a date from 9/7/2018.  Sounds like yours was over kiln dried. I would have called Smokingpipes and sent it back. Your not the only pipe smoker I know that had super dry BBB sold to them.

My favorite from C&D is Night Train.I didn't like it when I first tried it,so I put it back in the drawer for a few months.I wasn't trying to age it or anything,I just sort of forgot about it.I pulled it out a few weeks ago and damn if it isn't one of my top 5 now.I really like it and I ordered some more...I'm pretty new to the pipe thing so I am always trying new blends to see what I like.My experience has been on many occasions I don't like something the first time,but for me its all about trying it in different pipes and figuring out how it tastes best.To me a tobacco in a cob can taste completely different in a briar or other type of pipe with different chamber shape or bowl size.In General I'm not a big fan of latakia heavy blends and C&D has many of those....I do like the C&D Bayou Night though. I also enjoy the WE Three Kings holiday blend.

C&D is my favorite brand. Their Burley is sublime: OJK, Haunted Bookshop, Three Friars to name but a few.

I find their selection as overwhelming as a Chinese Menu. Too many choices make my head hurt. I do enjoy the Sansepolcro and I have a pound of Opening Night that is going to sit for a long time before it's popped.

  Other than C&D mold issues, my only problem is they definitely ship their tobacco’s to fresh. Easy to resolve.....just age for one full year before popping a tin....it’s worth the wait👍

Not a one do I like. Maybe I need to let them age as mentioned earlier as the tobaccos are young. Seems to me that should be done before I buy it but no biggie, shrug. Lots of stuff out there I like. I rate them equal to leaves and grass in the wilderness. It will do in an emergency but I would rather just use toilet paper.

Some of their blends I like.
Some I don't.
Some I love.
Some I would rather never smoke again.

But if they make 300 blends like the OP posts, I haven't even tried half of their offerings.

I've only tried maybe 50 of their blends...at most.
50 out of 300?
That's too early for me to have already come to conclusions on C&D as a whole.
That'd be like judging a blend after only one bowl.

So I'll just keep plugging away...or should I say "puffing away"? 😀

I love C&D. Too many to list, but a few are Night Train, Briar Fox, Pegasus, Orion’s Arrow, Five O’clock Shadow, Carolina Red Flake and Bijou.

They're not my favourite blender.
I didn't care much for the following that I've tried:

Five O'clock Shadow
Blockade Runner
OJK
Bayou Morning
Triple Play
Navigator

but I do like Embarcadero and Temple Bar.

I still have Sansepolcro, Kensington, Chelsea Morning, Virginia Cream, Barbary Coast, Samarra, Captain Earle's Mystic Blend, and Union Square sitting in my cellar, untried.

So let's say the jury is still out.

I think that's part of the trick.  Just "trying" them is probably a source of revenue for them.
Also selling tins to people and telling them "they'll be good in a year" doesn't make much sense.  Sit on the tins a year before you sell them, if that's what you're trying to convince people.  I don't know any vintners that sell bad wine and tell people to wait for it to improve to drinkability.

Finally, my favorite seems to be Star of the East Flake, and the limited edition Red Carolina is a decent sipper, but very much a morning blend.  Bijou is alright.  I consider my attempts with C&D pretty much over after this last purchase, as the OP and several others and I concur that, as one reviewer on tobaccoreviews so aptly put it, many of C&Ds offerings appear to be a case of "the emperor's new clothes."

cheers and happy holidays!

To get back to the fundamentals of pipe smoking 101...and a lot of other areas in life, taste is subjective.


I would rather drink panther piss than touch any lite beer...or red wine for that matter.

Shaken...not stirred.