Cornell & Diehl Bright Virginia Ribbon

This thin cut bright Virginia ribbon burns cooler than many others of this cut, and offers some grass/hay, tart lemon and floral notes, and a very mild tart and tangy citrus. The sugar aspect is just a little more obvious than citrus. Here and there, I noticed a subtle drop or two of honey. The strength is very mild, while the taste is mild. Barely has any nicotine. Won’t bite or get harsh, and has a minute rough edge. Burns slightly fast, cool and clean with a very consistent flavor, though there's little depth to it. Virtually leaves no moisture in the bowl, and hardly requires a relight. Has a pleasant, very short lived after taste, and light room note. An easy going all day, monochromatic work and play smoke that also makes a decent mixer. Two and a half stars.

-JimInks

The cut is a long(ish) medium ribbon. The pouch note is hay and a slight sweet. Moisture level is on the dry side of what I consider perfect. I smoked it as delivered and packed it a little firmly.

Smoked, this is pleasant and does not challenge with nuance. It is your basic bright Virginia and has a sweet grassy flavor with a side of citrus. The flavor is consistent, and it burns a little quickly. I did not have issues with tongue bite or goop. The tobacco lends itself to reloading the same pipe for another round, and it could be a great all-day smoke for someone who likes Virginias.

This one is easy to recommend, but it will impress you with consistency and not with complexity. I have enjoyed it. I am confident it would make a great blending tobacco, but I have never tried using it that way. it is a solid three for me.

Since I'm the first to review this, I'll be a little more thorough.

In short, a nice straight Virginia for smoking as-is or blending. All your favorite characteristics for a light Virginia are present: naturally sweet, slightly grassy, slightly hay-like, easy light flavor. Like any straight Virginia, the flavor is straight-ahead and mono-dimensional. Also like any other straight Virginia, it requires proper cadence to prevent burning hot / biting. Like most un-aged Virginias, it has the slightly rough edges of youth. I'd imagine aging this would do very nice things. Not that it's harsh when fresh, but not the exceptional smoothness / complexity of well aged Virginia either.

In the bulk bag, it's just a little damp which can make relights more frequent if you're trying to not over-puff. Dry it a little, and this problem goes away. The ribbons are rather fine cut, and golden in color. Aroma is very mild, typical of Virginia's.

All in all, it serves my intent rather well: a straight ahead blending tobacco to lighten / sweeten any blend without adding tons of character of it's own. I can even smoke it on it's own like I would a VaPer or Virginia flake, although it's just a touch thin for a frequent stand-alone smoke.

Cornell & Diehl - Bright Virginia Ribbon.

The ribbon cut mixture includes one or two coarser pieces but the majority of the ribbons are mid-sized. On the lower side of things it has room to be a bit moister; it's not 'dry', but I'd prefer it to have more hydration.

The smoke has quite a mellow character. The Virginia citrus and grass, the sharper flavours, are a little constrained by the lighter hay, slightly bready, and sweet side of the smoke. To be negative, it burns warm; alas, this would be a paramount reason to use it for blending, not straight-smoking. As well as the heat it tends to burn quickly, too.

Nicotine: mild. Room-note: pleasant.

The flavour's top-notch, but the physical attributes let it down: heat and speed. So, I'll only somewhat recommend it:

Two stars.

I enjoy all sorts of fine Virginias including those from Gawith, Dunhill, Pease, Esoterica, and Mac Baren. I also like many C&D Virginias like Opening Night and Carolina Red Flake. This one is in another category. It's charmingly simple. The tin note is wonderful nothing but sweet tobacco and hay. It smokes well with a good sugar content, not too much. Lots of hay, a little grassy, and a hint of citrus. Some bready notes occasionly and I get some spice through the nose. The room note is very pleasant with a fresh baked bread aroma. No tongue bite or heat and easily burns to nothing but ash. This makes a great blender with Perique, Izmir, or Burley but I love smoking it on it's own. This is multiple pound worthy if you enjoy bright Virginia tobacco.

This ribbon cut gold Virginia leaf (bright Virginia) exhibits the same standard properties of any Virginia tobacco you could expect in this category, that is, sweetness with a citrusy background, earthy and hay undertones, grassy, nutty, etc. Exhibiting somewhat similar properties, I believe there is more depth and background flavour in its cousin counterpart (Red Virginia Ribbon), but this brighter version is no mean feat either. This tobacco wants to be sipped and will develop quite nicely as you progress with your smoke. I believe there is plenty of blending potential here and surely enough it will benefit from the addition of perique, but in its own right, I find it to be quite good never the less. Not as complex as other tobaccos that will require all of your attention, this bright leaf might as well be used as an everyday blend that will fit quite nicely in your rotation. This baccy is gonna get 4 stars.

I bought a pound to use as a blending tobacco but decided to try it on its own and I'm glad I did.

From the bag, it is a little drier than I'd like. The tin note almost reminded me of cut grass/hay and was very pleasant. The thin ribbons are easy to pack in any pipe. Easy to light and keep lit.

As you'd expect from the mixture, it is very consistent tasting through the bowl. A little sweetness, a little citrus, but a solid smoke from light down to the gray ash at the bottom of the bowl.

The nicotine strength seems very light. my wife thought the room note was a little towards cigarette (she's a cig smoker). No tongue bite unless you really push it when it will burn hot.

I've also combined this with 10% perique get a great easy VaPer. Going to run that combo through the noodle press to see how it marries as a crumble cake.

I bought this to have a dabble in blending, and obviously had to give it a try to appreciate what I've got.

The medium fine bright ribbon cut tobacco arrived very dry indeed - somewhat crispy. I've not tried hydrating it yet.

The aroma in the bag is of hay and dry grass in summer, and this is the leading flavour in the smoke, with a subtle shortbread sweetness in the background. I don't get much in the way of citrus, but I do find that it bites if puffed. Given the ribbon cut and dryness, it lights easily and burns evenly and completely.

My preferred preparation of pure Virginia for smoking is flake or plug, so I'll probably be using this exclusively in blends.

Pleasant Virginia flavor, nice sweetness and citrus flavor. No bite, has a nice lemon note. Bought for blending, but it's not bad on it's own. It arrived on the dry side, but not too dry. Perfect humidity to load and go. I haven't used it in a blend yet, but I think it would tend to lighten and open up a blend that had a bit of a heavier flavor. Outstanding tobacco for what it is... just a plain old Virginia.

I bought this specifically for blending purposes and it fit this role better than I expected. My expectations for any C&D Virginia is that it will be less sweet than I prefer, but this one was very sweet and delivered exactly the hay and citrus notes that I was looking for as a blending ingredient. It also comes dry (perfect for me) and the cut was ideal for blending IMO.

This is kind of tough to rate this if you try to be objective or subjective as there are two ways of looking at this tobacco: one, as a blending tobacco, and two, as a straight Virginia.

As a straight Virginia, this is actually better than more than a few tinned Virginia products from other blenders, but still does not rise to the level of a four star Virginia IMO; However, I would not hesitate to give it three stars as I did enjoy smoking this straight.

As a blender, this may rise to the level of four stars for most as mentioned above it has what you want for blending. I recently finished the last jar off adding it to some heavier lat blends to make them more palatable for the hot months of summer. In fact, every time I added this to any blend it seemed to make said blend taste better to me.

So does it rate four stars because of its blending capabilities? I don't know, but I don't think it should as someone may find much better blending results using four star straight Virginias for the purpose of blending. Fortunately I have more of this and I think I may just have to pop one of my favorite Virginias just for blending purposes and see for myself. For now, I will leave this at three stars and perhaps, pick up another 8 ounces for the cellar.