Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Grasmere Flake

Generous sample from SouthBound below - several flakes, and almost enough to give me a good sense of this blend! 🙂 Whenever I can't put my finger on a blend's essence, I find myself reduced to making comparisons. So here goes.

This is a fairly heavily scented blend, but less so than Ennerdale. The scent is different, and more akin to Kendal Flake with the rose and geranium. But where KF was softer, this one is bolder in overall flavor and nicotine. Shares more of a burley presence with Brown Flake but is better behaved and not as robust or youthful in taste. Much more flavor and body (and mouthfeel) than Glengarry or Bright CR but also with more scenting. Nicotine level is fairly high, as with most G&H flakes.

The most telling thing I can say is that while there are remarkable similarities across many of G&H flakes, they are all different. I have most of them in my rotation and I smoke them at different times for different reasons and with different outcomes in mind. If you like Kendal Flake and Ennerdale, meet their middle brother. If you like Brown Flake and Best Brown #2, ditto, but it's their more flamboyant middle brother with the scenting. This blend has hit my rotation. As with most of these types of blends, it is excellent... even if I can't really pinpoint what makes it so. Thanks, SouthBound, for the opportunity.

A beautiful smoke. This tobacco is really, really good. I highly doubt that there is any other flake out there that tastes and smells as unique as Grasmere Flake.

Grasmere is also very much an acquired taste and if you are the slightest bit put off by the Kendal floral ambrosia (the subtle soapiness that comes through in Bob's Chocolate Flake, or Rum Flake), you may want to steer clear. And while Grasmere is not as pungently scented as products like Ennerdale Flake, it still delivers a distinct verdant/herbacious flavor on the finish.

Grasmere is very well behaved, slightly honey-sweet & floral. All of this is accomplished by Gawith & Hoggarth in the most organic, natural tasting way possible. In other words what you are tasting is not some curious chemical additive.

Like the natural oil of clove flavor in Bosun Cut Plug, Grasmere's flavoring is that of actual rose geranium. The tobacco flavor & added essence taste seamless. The rose geranium scent is soft yet precise, rounding out the edges and providing balance to some relatively strong tasting tobacco.

The flakes are nicely cut and they do smell somewhat like Turkish Delight. I like to smoke this on warm afternoons in a Country Gentleman cob pipe that I have reserved for scented Kendal products.

If you admire scented Kendal blends (and obviously I do), this is one to pursue.

The very toasty, nutty, earthy Burley has a lead over the earthy, dark fruit sweet Virginia. The very mild spice note comes from the Virginia. The fragrant perfumy floral, soapy medium sweet rose geranium toppings greatly sublimate the tobaccos. They have a bit of smoothness and light creaminess, and tone down whatever rough edges the tobaccos have. The taste level is a step over medium. The nic-hit is a little more than medium. Burns at a reasonable pace for a flake, cool and clean with a very well melded flavor from start to finish, although you will notice the tobaccos just a little more in last quarter of the proceedings. Requires a few relights, and leaves just a dab of moisture in the bowl. The strong after taste and room note linger. Not an all day smoke, but it is repeatable. Will ghost a briar and smoked enough times, will do the same to a meer.

-JimInks

I once bought a beautiful small full bent egg pipe from the estate case at the local tobacconist shop. It was manhattan branded, and after some research i learned it was made no later than 1904. This exquisite little flake pipe smoked beautifully, the very old briar delivering one of the coolest and most flavorful smokes of carter hall that ive ever experienced. Interestingly though there was the faintest note of something haunting to the flavor. An exotic, nearly-not-there something that i couldn't put my finger on, but that spoke of lifetimes ago. It beckoned to victorian drawing rooms and earl grey tea. At the time i could only liken it to a distant memory of essence of bergamot. It was beguiling, and then as i smoked more bowls it became a mere memory, and then, as things often are, it was forgotten. Grasmere flake jarred me back into that memory and sensation. It is potently scented and this translates into the flavor, but though the strength of this scent is heavy, the scent itself is dainty and oh so refined. Gentlemanly. It is almost opiumlike in its rose geranium glory. The tobacco base is well ordered and the essence is well married to it. A first rate flake of the medium to heavily scented variety. A credit to its class, and a fine example of the genre. Highly recommended if you are into that sort of tobacco. I can't say enough of how delightful the recognition of this scent was from that old briar. To the long dead owner of my Manhattan, i can say only, "Kudos, sir. Ive filled this pipe once again with something that can do justice to your discerning tastes".

Something of an iron fist in a velvet glove this one, as despite all the dainty flowers it still delivers an ample slug of vitamin N, which is just what one would expect from this estimable blending house.

In the packet I encountered a very strong rose scent, despite several days in transit to me in non-airtight conditions. This rose essence was not so strong in the smoking but would probably still be considered powerful by folks who are coming to this style of weed for the first time. I found it to be both sweet and soapy, and it allowed me to identify the rose constituent of more complexly flavoured lakelands. A quarter of the way down the geranium becomes more prominent, and gradually that too recedes to create a gently floral miasma of flavours that mixes nicely with the tobaco.

A bit more burley than I usually like but not so much that I don't want to smoke it. In fact, it works very well with the particular floral flavours of this tobacco. Mostly, this is a very honest blend, in that it delivers pretty much exactly what you would expect given its description and the well known character of GH&Co flakes. However, there is also the occassional pleasant diversion into greater complexity, where for a few moments the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Reading the Turkish Delight comparisons I wasn't sure I was going to like this one (I can't stand Turkish Delight), but I have enjoyed working through my sample. For me, it doesn't quite match the appeal of Kendal Flake or Coniston Cut Plug but I am sure there is more than one lakeland lover out there for whom this will be 'the one'. Recommended.

This is one of the easiest flakes I've ever smoked. The bulk package I received was the perfect moisture straight from the box. In fact, I rubbed a flake out, loaded it, and smoked it as I was putting the rest away. I'll preface with the caveat that I my rotation is dominated by Gawith Hoggarth blends, but I did not find this to have an overpowering soapiness. It was there, but it played a supporting role. I did get a strong sense of the rose and geranium. I like what they add. They impart a sort of sharpness or slightly sour taste and feel. The constituent tobaccos were the main players, and they were toasty and sweet and very high quality. My enthusiasm has settled somewhat since I first smoked it, but it has a prominent place in my weekly smoking rotation. I've spent several Saturdays smoking little else all day. If you're a Lakehead, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try. Highly recommended!

Got a nice sample of this from a good friend. Thanks D.

This is a bit of a strange one for me. For the first third of the bowl the Rose and Geranium topping dominate the tobacco and I have to say that I don't much care for it at that point. Then, for the last two thirds, the Virginias and Burley catch up and I have to say that, all combined, it taste very, very good. I love this part of it. The Burley is especially good seeming to have a fair amount of sweetness to it. I guess I'll just have to suffer through the first third to get to the good stuff. It's worth it.

Medium all the way around. Burns very well when dry. Same in briar or cob.

Gawith Hoggarth - Grasmere Flake.

The flakes are quite dark, of a decent hydration and fairly robust. The scent from the pouch is mildly floral. If you favour a fully rubbed as opposed to folded flake it needs a forceful hand. And that results in extremely thick ribbons, you won't rub it into a shag.

It's a bugger to get a burn going. It takes either a jet flame or about a million matches. Although the florals/rose additions go without question they don't form a heavy, Lakeland style, flavour: it isn't sticky, it's perfumed and vivacious. I don't get much from the tobaccos, the toppings account for the majority of the smoke. It burns well, in the end: consistently, to a white ash.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: I don't like.

Grasmere Flake? It's a good smoke, I guess, but I won't re-order any. Two stars:

Somewhat recommended.

The long flakes are of a mixed light and darker brown color interspersed with some brighter spots – (you can see how the flakes look like in the pictures above). I received them in just the right moisture for packing straight away without any drying. Their scent unsmoked is not very intense, they actually smell of tobacco with a hint of rose water (Turkish Delight candy) and exotic spices, cardamom maybe, and others.

It rubs and takes to light easily. My first impression is that it not only belongs to the same genre as Ennerdale Flake but it is actually quite similar, especially as regards the tobacco used, yet not as intensely scented. The natural taste of the underlying tobaccos is really great and you can taste it from the beginning. Sweet, mature hay-like Virginias and earthy Burley. I also get hints of dried rose petals, a little something coniferous which gives the blend freshness and cinnamon maybe as well. The scenting is complex but subtle and it tastes natural. This is not an average aromatic, Grasmere Flake tastes of tobacco, scented tobacco, but tobacco nevertheless. There is some sweetness which I guess comes both from the casing and the tobacco but it is mild – very far from being cloying.

Strength is medium and flavor is full but not overwhelming. Nicotine-wise while not strong it is quite satiating. Room note is much more tolerable for non smokers than most. Grasmere Flake is a very high quality tobacco and I recommend it not only to Lakeland aficionados but also to lovers of Virginia flakes.

Having sampled Glengarry and Ennerdale Flakes and rediscovered the quality Bosun Plug Cut, I ordered this one with high hopes. Not sure I quite got what I ordered.

On receiving the packet, the smell of bergamot and rosewater leaked out providing fond memories of Turkish Delight and Earl Grey tea, even when sealed. Upon opening though, this whiff became a little unsettlingly strong, if still nice. Packing and lighting were no particular problem, even for a flake. The initial smoke however, was spoiled by those flavours mentioned above, just way too strong and not really interacting with the tobacco underneath. Once these faded away, all flavour pretty much disappeared with nothing coming through from the tobacco itself. Sadly, this continued through the packet, it's not bad, it's just not that good. Me thinks dull is the word.

The kinsmen of this stuff and the initial whiff provide a bit of promise that is sadly unfulfilled, the pungeant aroma starts off too strong and then fades into the power-sappingly mundane. It's like going on a blind date to find your companion plastered in make up, you can't tell what she looks like under all that slap and she might be a perfectly charming lass, but you lose interest in her because there's absolutely no need for it. Sadly, this is a tobacco that should never have been turned up to eleven.