Post by Stearmandriver on Aug 5, 2019 3:40:10 GMT -5
Wow.
That's the one word version of the review, but the long one follows.
I'm an orientals hound, so finding out that this blend is all Orientals / Turkish had me intrigued. I was so impressed right off the bat I started taking notes, which no tobacco has ever inspired me to do before. The notes quickly became full sentences, because my writing has always sucked at short and sweet. This is based on a single bowl so you could call it a first impression... but everything was so pronounced I can't imagine it'll change much.
SPICE. Peppery tingle, no real bite. Starts out floral, incensey, aromatic wood (not cedar, not piney to me... sandalwood?)
Mid bowl, melting into an aromatic leather. Still plenty of pepper, but unlike perique (for me anyway) it's more on the tongue than in the nose. Can't stop snorking, though the tastes are so obvious that it's one of the few I don't really need to retrohale; I get plenty of the flavors / aromas in my sinuses anyway. No real sweetness here, but some floral notes that can "seem" sweet now and then.
In fact, by mid-bowl I realized that even when taking a break from smoking it, a "retrohale" (with just air from my mouth) still brings me some leather and woody flavors/aromas, just from the aftertaste in my mouth.
At end of bowl, strong rich spicy leather, but still individual zings of incensey oriental goodness. The only tobacco I've smoked in a long time that actually DID burn down to clean ash with no dottle (probably because it was at correct moisture content). Never an ashy flavor; puffing on the spent ash, after the ember was totally burnt out, actually provided a soft floral taste with still some woody notes, like a clean fresh-split chunk of wood. I'm one who usually dumps the last bit of tobacco even if it's still smokeable, because I often find it gets a bit muddy-tasting.. but not Tashkent. This is good to the last puff... and beyond.
I only started to feel the nic at the very end, and it was pretty average. I don't love nic and that's sure not why I smoke (in fact if they engineered some nic-free tobacco that tasted as good, I'd smoke that), so I was a little curious how this one would hit me, given how full-flavored it is. But I've had a worse nic-hit from 965, so that was a nice surprise.
Final aftertaste: very leathery with some lingering pepper. I love latakia and balkan blends but often find my tongue and mouth feel a bit "muddy" too, after a rich blend... but not here. I sat and savored the aftertaste for a bit, and that's really unusual for me. The aftertaste almost reminded me of some of the leathery, fermented flavors you get from a cigar - but that's not to say this blend is in any way cigar-ish, because I don't think it is. Just a couple similar flavors.
This smoke left me totally satisfied in a way few pipes do; and again, I don't mean from the nic. I mean it was just delicious; the perfect rich, aromatic accompaniment to a perfect summer night, sitting outside watching meteors and listening to the owls call.
That's the one word version of the review, but the long one follows.
I'm an orientals hound, so finding out that this blend is all Orientals / Turkish had me intrigued. I was so impressed right off the bat I started taking notes, which no tobacco has ever inspired me to do before. The notes quickly became full sentences, because my writing has always sucked at short and sweet. This is based on a single bowl so you could call it a first impression... but everything was so pronounced I can't imagine it'll change much.
SPICE. Peppery tingle, no real bite. Starts out floral, incensey, aromatic wood (not cedar, not piney to me... sandalwood?)
Mid bowl, melting into an aromatic leather. Still plenty of pepper, but unlike perique (for me anyway) it's more on the tongue than in the nose. Can't stop snorking, though the tastes are so obvious that it's one of the few I don't really need to retrohale; I get plenty of the flavors / aromas in my sinuses anyway. No real sweetness here, but some floral notes that can "seem" sweet now and then.
In fact, by mid-bowl I realized that even when taking a break from smoking it, a "retrohale" (with just air from my mouth) still brings me some leather and woody flavors/aromas, just from the aftertaste in my mouth.
At end of bowl, strong rich spicy leather, but still individual zings of incensey oriental goodness. The only tobacco I've smoked in a long time that actually DID burn down to clean ash with no dottle (probably because it was at correct moisture content). Never an ashy flavor; puffing on the spent ash, after the ember was totally burnt out, actually provided a soft floral taste with still some woody notes, like a clean fresh-split chunk of wood. I'm one who usually dumps the last bit of tobacco even if it's still smokeable, because I often find it gets a bit muddy-tasting.. but not Tashkent. This is good to the last puff... and beyond.
I only started to feel the nic at the very end, and it was pretty average. I don't love nic and that's sure not why I smoke (in fact if they engineered some nic-free tobacco that tasted as good, I'd smoke that), so I was a little curious how this one would hit me, given how full-flavored it is. But I've had a worse nic-hit from 965, so that was a nice surprise.
Final aftertaste: very leathery with some lingering pepper. I love latakia and balkan blends but often find my tongue and mouth feel a bit "muddy" too, after a rich blend... but not here. I sat and savored the aftertaste for a bit, and that's really unusual for me. The aftertaste almost reminded me of some of the leathery, fermented flavors you get from a cigar - but that's not to say this blend is in any way cigar-ish, because I don't think it is. Just a couple similar flavors.
This smoke left me totally satisfied in a way few pipes do; and again, I don't mean from the nic. I mean it was just delicious; the perfect rich, aromatic accompaniment to a perfect summer night, sitting outside watching meteors and listening to the owls call.