Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Troost Black Cavendish

This is more than a black cavendish blend as there are other varietals in the mix, and the cavendish style tobacco itself is black and gold. The base of the blend is the very brown sugary black cavendish. The woody, dry, earthy, herbal, floral Java leaf also sports a light clove and mild spice, and trades the lead at times with the nutty, earthy, woody, lightly sweet burley. The grassy, citrusy Virginia cavendish is mostly a condiment. The toppings are cocoa, a little vanilla and plum. They tone down the tobaccos just a little. The strength is a couple steps past mild, while the taste is a hair past the center of mild to medium. The nic-hit barely passes the mild threshold. Won’t bite, but fast puffing may offer a light tongue tingle. Burns a little warm and fairly clean at a moderate pace with a little inconsistency in the sweet, spicy, lightly savory flavor. Leaves a little moisture in the bowl, and requires just above an average number of relights. Has a pleasant, short lived after taste, and very pleasant room note. Can be an all day smoke. Two and a half stars. I’d give it three if not for the warmth it imposes on the tongue.

-JimInks

Long before I was born my father used to smoke this tobacco. I found a few of these tins unopened years ago together with his old Big Ben pipe. This tobacco actiually got me hooked on the pipe smoking. I recently bought a new tin of the same 100 gram size and decided to review it.

Upon opening the tin a rather plain tobacco smell greets you, indicating no excessive topping was used. A cacao smell is all there really is to it. The broken flakes can easily be rubbed out into one of those fine and springy heaps i'd like to pack my pipe with. No additional drying was needed and you might want to add some potato peels or orange skin to the tin if you aren't planning on finishing it within three or so weeks.

-- It might as well be the harshly cold and dry winds from russia that made lips and tobacco alike dry and crumble unusually fast. --

The tobacco smokes downright good. Few or no relights were needed.The typical cacao taste a good burley has might well be artificially enhanced but not in any offensive way. The taste is sweetish but nothing more than one would expect from a quality plain tobacco. Since I'm an ex cigarette smoker I truely value some nicotine every once in a while. I would not call this a strong or even a medium blend, but it does satisfy my cravings for some time. It's a nice and neutral smoke for me, when I don't have to be that fancy smelling vanilla gabacho, but don't want to offend my surroundings with smells of burning christians or freshly tarred roofs. Since it needs little attention whilst smoking I usually grab this one for those manual-labour moments like streetpaving or woodcrafting. If you can get your hands on this, do try. If you have to go through ardurous international mail-order procedures to get this, might as well have something else.

This is the only blend from the Troost range that I find to have enough body and flavour to be enjoyable for my palate (I have not yet tried Slices, though). It is highly aromatic mixture, contrasting in colour, closer to wild cut than to ribbon, but could be defined as a mixture of both. Compared to other Dutch black Cavendish ---namely Amphora?s and Sail Noir--- it is not as heavy tasting and monotonous as the former, nor as dense, sweet and syrupy as the latter. It has a rather flowery, bitter-sweet taste, not at all cloying.

In the pouch the tobacco comes relatively dry, easy to break up and pack. It does take some time to light properly, but once it does, it burns fairly cool producing a dull grey ash. When smoking the flowery aroma and bitter sweetness are still present, but they are enhanced by a slight walnut-almond like undertone, very palatable and elusive. It is smooth, and easy smoking. However, IMO the flavour variations tend to be so limited that after the first half of the bowl it becomes a bit dull, predictable. If you like tamed aromatics, with no surprises, this can be a good option.

I agree with Tantric on his comparison with others BC, this Troost is smoother, cooler and not so sticky-syrupy. I read on a pamphlet that flavouring is composed of plums and vanilla but I guess there's also something else and in any case it works well, the problem of this tobacco is its weakness of strength and body: after a few puffs it becomes dull, not unpleasant and surely very tolerable just... dull.

This tobacco is an enormous disappointment. First of all it is not only black cavendish but black and golden cavendish. The pouch description isn’t actually correct: the contents are all cavendish tobaccos and not only black cavendish, but also golden cavendish. Regrettably this tobacco is a sweet, a bad candy, disgusting, gross, full of chemical additives and sugar. The latter end is stinky. Terrible! It seems like an essence and not a tobacco. A black cavendish of low quality, unsmokable. Tobacco‘s taste doesn’t exist. Perhaps this stuff is ok for aromatic tobacco lovers but it is really unacceptable for natural tobacco lovers. I am bitterly disappointed and my score (from 1 to 10) is 1 and only a star.

I haven't tried the other Troost blends, but I'm quite happy with this one.

I got the 50g pouch from the tobbaco store, and to my surprise it wasn't a 100% black Cavendish (i assumed it would be given the name of the blend). The topping it's nice though, with a cacao (sort of) scent.

It's an ok blend, but sometimes i found it rather bland and also had some hot smoking related troubles.

In June 2008 Nickdegriek brought me this smoke as a gift from Holland. I wanted to smoke it and give him my opinion. This tobacco was imported to Greece quite a while ago.

Black Cavendish, sweet enough, not very humid (this could be because I had it roughly 1 year in the bag). Very beautiful and intense perfume of almond and flowers, when you open the bag, that however disappeares when you light your pipe. It brings out intense perfume in the room, as expected. It is difficult to light and burns late. However, it causes a lot tonque bite unfortunately.

My friend Nick I will disappoint you 2 stars is the most I can give.

The tobacco is rather dry. Smells lke raisins in the pouch. No complexity here... Tastes very bland. Aroma is ok. Burns a bit hot. Not recommended.

Similar to Captain Black Regular, at an extra buck and with extra tongue bite.

This industrial tobacco does it's job. It gives you a fresh and pleasing hour of piping. Still there are better tobacco out there, but for the price it's really convenient.