Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Blue Ridge

(2.30)
This premium quality smoking tobacco brings you the finest blend of Virginia leaves, cured and matured, moist to the touch and produced to a thicker cut to give you a truly satisfying, fuller flavoured smoke.

Details

Brand Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG)
Blended By  
Manufactured By St-Group Assens
Blend Type Straight Virginia
Contents Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Coarse Cut
Packaging 25 grams pouch
Country Denmark
Production Currently available

Profile

Strength
Mild to Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
None Detected
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Tolerable
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

2.30 / 4
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1

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Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 14, 2017 Medium Mild Full Pleasant
50g Pouch

I have been going through my cellared jar collection lately revisiting some old friends and enemies with my Falcon, Alco, Brentford pipes which are my established favourite tasting pipes out of the 200 or so pipes I possess - I have tried more pipes than tobaccos if I am honest, but that's another story for the private science of my own pipe review explorations and not here.

Some tobaccos have a shelf life where they get worse with age, some keep well and preserved where they taste as good as first smoked;,others improve in ways where they taste greater than their initial purchase price and equal a genuine investment.

Blue Ridge was a budget tobacco I purchased and was impressed with its reasonable price point for what it was at the time.. It was to limes what Gold Block was to lemons,a light citrusy Virginia ready rubbed of cheap and cheerful ribbons. It could bite if pushed and was a little bit dry harsh like a cigarette on the throat, just a bit rough around the edges but nothing too intrusive-sort of like a dry wine-but I enjoyed it for what it was and that cigarettey quality also, because I also enjoyed cigarettes and was glad to have an example of a care free easy smoke pipe tobacco along the lines of a decent Marlboro Red.

I am one of the some who enjoys Gold Block because I have managed to tame it where I enjoy it as much as other things considered more 'vanden plas' ooh la la. :Blue Ridge was along the same lines as Gold Block and wasn't particularly special then I will admit, but on the basis that it didn't pretend to promise much either you could forgive it more than others that bullshit their prestige.

This Blue Ridge I have is a 5 year old example from a kilner jar that has certainly improved with time. Its appearance has visibly darkened .Its original citrusy quality has gained a mature ripe fermented plummy quality, its richer and smoother. Doesn't attempt to bite, burns cool and polite down to a fine ash. There was in the beginning an intitial light chemical taste or throat tickler like cigarettes which quickly self dissipated and didn't return though: This it always had, and this hasn't changed with time, but it isn't a spoiler and I can think of many expensive tobaccos that carry the same properties.

Really this review is to say that while I cannot imagine this being anybodies idea of an ageing tobacco,it definitely does age very well and improve where its taste value is worth more than its original asking price and puts it in the league of more expensive tobaccos.. Blue Ridge now has a natural kind of blackcurrent taste like a perique taste and has transformed into a kind of va/per almost. It tastes very different to Gold Block which when aged stays the same years later,Blue Ridge strikes out on a completely different ageing path and really gains a different identity all together.

This stuff has sat still and densely squashed into the kilner jar from the pouch where it hasn't been rotated or shaken for 5 years, it has definitely matured and fermented in there! There is even some plume white spots on some of it at the botton. I have had two bowls of it in succession this afternoon to confirm I wasn't deluded in my first opinion of it. To further varify I have tipped it all into a larger jar to shake it up and air it and to mix it up lest what I was taking off the top wasn't representative of the lower part of the jar where the moisture had sank.

I had an optimism that this was going to taste well as soon as I sniffed the jar,it had an absolute sour plum matured & sweet fermented Virginia air about it. Kind of like Barneys Parsons Pleasure.

Tasting a third bowl from the shaken stirred and aired mix I can vouch this is an excellent ager! Blue Ridge to me represents an 'age it yourself' Virginia tobacco kit.

Two stars for what it was, Four stars for what it has become.
Pipe Used: THE PIPE(venturi bent),Falcon Bantam,XL Spool Bowl
PurchasedFrom: Sainsbury's Supermarket
Age When Smoked: Fresh, Months, Year, 5 years.
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Nov 06, 2014 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
Blue Ridge.

To be perfectly honest it was the price that drew me to this, another tobacco for me to review and if it tastes horrible I haven't wasted much cash!

When I open the pouch I am imminently impressed by the mixture, medium sized pieces, all a golden brown in colour with a good hydration amount. The aroma is straight up Virginia, not bad, not great just no nonsense and simple.

Blue Ridge lights up with relatively little work, a few touches of the flame sets it up with a good burn. The temperature of the smoke is cool to medium and the enjoyment is enhanced by zero tongue bite. The flavour is, as I expected, a pure Virginia one! For me it actually resembles a good quality cigarette, a similarity that is increased by the ease it has when it's inhaled. For someone who likes nicotine I would suggest larger inhalations, it isn't that weak but it could be 'not enough' for some. The length of the smoke isn't the longest, it's not over in a flash but don't expect a really long smoke from it, it is good for half an hour or so.

Considering all the qualities of Blue Ridge I think this would make a great regular smoke for someone who doesn't have hours and hours of available smoking time throughout the day. Good value!
Pipe Used: Peterson Racing Green 221
PurchasedFrom: My Smoking Shop
Age When Smoked: New
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 28, 2017 Extremely Mild None Detected Extremely Mild (Flat) Overwhelming
Hmm this one has quite a dubious honour in my book. I am the type of smoker where i can get along with pretty much 99% of tobaccos i try. I enjoy a broard range of styles from aromatics, to vapers to latakia mixtures to good old otc tobaccos, even if i have no desire to make a repeat purchase i can at least enjoy most of them on a level where i can finish the pouch/tin.

Blue ridge was not one of them, at the time i tried this, my usual shop, before i went online had no condor, the shop keep told me he had sold a good deal of this so it must be ok....

Fair enough it is cheap, well what you can call cheap to english standards, got it home, the whole 50g of it. Opened it up, the aroma was unremarkable, a weak hay like aroma, moisture was pretty decent, when i had a poke around the package, the amount of twigs and god knows what was astounding, by the time i picked them all out had enough to build a funeral prye for a small mammal!.

But then i said to myself for its price its not going to be all that refined. Anywho i loaded up a falcon, lit it and....nothing, no taste whatsoever, a few puffs in and a whole new beast emerged.

I got this god awful overpowering taste of somewhere between nail varnish remover and floor polish. And a burning at the back of my throat that made me gag and experience what it would be like to drink napalm. So i decided to lay it down let it go out, cool down and see what that did.....absolutely everything possible to make it even worse.

The chemical taste and burning intensified, i know this cheap but good god, route 66 tobacco was cheap but a million miles better, also blue ridge has the dubious accolade of the only smoking tobacco I know that when smoked it's smoke had a slight hue of green to it, and the room note smelled like my house was on fire. (I have listed the room note on here as overwhelming as "vile isn't an option, tobaccoreviews.com take note!)

Basically this is the type of tobacco that has all the health hazards of smoking but none of the pleasures.

The next day, boy was I reminded that I had smoked this, my tonsils and throat turned a lovely shade of bright red and felt like they had been sandpapered to within an inch of their lives, so much so that smoking anything was out of the question for several days.

So I did my health a huge favour and tossed the remainder of this travesty on the bonfire.

That was 3 years ago and every now and then i go back to that shop to pick up a pouch of condor, and blue ridge is there sat next to it, and i wince at the memories that come back to haunt me.

The packaging has since changed but I don't have enough masochistic intent to see if the blend has improved, if it has great but if it hasn't god help the unlucky sod, who like me, picks it up on a whim thinking it's going to be a good stop gap.

Pipe Used: Falcon (so sorry my dear pipe)
Age When Smoked: New
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 03, 2014 Mild None Detected Mild Pleasant to Tolerable
I bought a 25g packet of this just out of curiosity as much as anything. It was dirt cheap so what could go wrong?

The aroma packet is nothing special, possibly reminiscent of Gold Block. The cut is quite coarse shag, much as described elsewhere. Packing and lighting are no issue. Initial puffs taste much like those of a RYO tobacco, probably confirming what other reviewers have said about this. In then sinks into a mild smoke with hints of citrus, the virginia has flavour. It occasionally has little wafts of Royal Yacht, though, to be fair, that's probably like a third division player who bends it like Beckham every couple of matches so it's probably not a good comparison. There is a little bite towards the end of the smoke that even slow puffing can't dispel but it's no real biggy, maybe a smaller bowled pipe is in order.

On the whole, not a bad wee tobacco. Far from classic and there are a hell of a lot of better tobaccos on the market, it certainly can't hold a candle. If it were more expensive I probably wouldn't buy it, but being on a tight budget, I would quite happily smoke it till I could afford better stuff. Okay, if I were more flushed with cash I probably wouldn't smoke this, so taking price out of the equation it's probably worth two stars. But plugging the cost back in, it's a slightly rough but none the less reasonable tobacco at a decent price. It just sneaks in at three stars. Buy it, but only if you're skint.
PurchasedFrom: mysmokingshop.co.uk
Age When Smoked: Fresh
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 25, 2013 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild Tolerable
You get what you pay for. This is very cheap, even in the UK, and there's no point complaining that it's junk. Of course it is! It's mostly sheet tobacco I suspect, really intended to be a rolling tobacco but cut a little coarser to avoid the UK excise on cigarette tobacco. It certainly isn't "premium quality", but if you want something to smoke for the sake of a smoke, Blue Ridge is all right. It tastes quite pleasant (no artificial flavours that I can detect) and it doesn't bite your tongue off. That's about all you can say. Not for the connoisseur, certainly, but somewhat recommended for the all-day smoker who doesn't want to sit and enjoy the nuances of a fine tobacco. Its great virtue is the price. If you're a little hard up, you could do a lot worse than this.

Smoke it slowly and don't let it dry out.
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 21, 2010 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Tolerable
This is a heads-up for any misguided British puffer who, like me, reads the encomia for the other two incarnations of ‘Blue Ridge' here on this site, and rushes out to buy the cheapo pouch on offer in their local co-op, sitting snug between the Clan and the St Bruno, thinking it's the same. I'm here to tell you that, by all the saints, it isn't.

The packet of Blue Ridge I just bought is “made in Denmark for Swedish Match” and proclaims itself a ‘Virginia Blend'.

Pros: it is made of some sort of combustible vegetable matter, and produces smoke when lit.

Cons: see ‘Pros' above.

The write-up stays non-committal about its intended use, so I remain unclear as to whether it's meant for pipe or paper. Either destination would be equally unlucky to receive it, and so, both wise and modest, it calls itself only a ‘smoking tobacco' - an appellation which did at least remove my vestigial doubt that it was in fact intended as a fertilizer tobacco, or perhaps a roofing tobacco. I am too poor and too mean to do the decent ecological thing and put this on the compost heap, so I will use it as a bulking agent in very small doses, hoping that my real tobaccos do not notice.
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Apr 30, 2017 Medium None Detected Medium Tolerable
I had the misfortune to purchase Blue Ridge from my local supermarket when I ran out of tobacco, I opened the pouch to find tobacco dust basically it was totally dried out ,guess where I'm going in morning !!!
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 25, 2010 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild Tolerable
Well, in Italy this new Blue Ridge is sold as RYO, in spite of the fact that 1) it's cut is very much broader than any other, and 2) it's sold in 50grms pouch instead of the usual 40's.

During the past summer I have smoked three or four pouches, and frankly it's nothing to shout miracle, but nothing to throw away as well.

Blue Ridge is a (very) cheap mild virginia blend having no great ambitions nor great flaws. Of course I would never spend my lifetime smoking this alone, nor compare it with the astounding complexity of a FVF (... at three times the price of BR). But I'm of those who also appreciate the plain and uncomplicate smoke of say a Gold Block, and I think BR belongs to that philosophy of smoke.

To cut it short, BR works good as change of pace for a day of absent-minded mild smoke, and much more as a diluting agent for other strong tobaccos. Try it 50/50 with a Semois, if you feel it too strong for the morning...

BTW: I gave a sample to a friend smoker of RYO, he didn't report any enthusiastic opinion, "too full & aromatic" he said.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 02, 2023 Extremely Mild None Detected Extremely Mild (Flat) Overwhelming
This is being passed of as a pipe tobacco why I wonder would anyone want to inflict this garbage on a pipe!!!! Or for that matter themselves.only fit for lighting the bonfire on guy Fawkes night!!!
Pipe Used: Budget
PurchasedFrom: Supermarkets
Age When Smoked: Fresh
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 18, 2020 Mild to Medium Extremely Mild Mild Pleasant to Tolerable
This is my first review of a tobacco so here goes:

I was looking for a cheap tobacco as I was desperate and I came across this one. Reading the reviews on here I wasn’t expecting too much but thought it would be ok.

On opening the packet the tobacco was fairly dry so I packed the pipe full and I smelled the open packet to find a grassy and hay like smell.

On lighting the tobacco which was a touch from the lighter it began a smoke that was just blissful. I could taste the sweetness of the Virginia and that’s about it. It gave a tingle in the tongue so I made sure I took it steady with my puffing.

There was only one disappointment, the bowl was finished. I can’t wait to smoke this again. Can not recommend enough. If you are after a complex smoke I would look elsewhere.
Pipe Used: Mr Brog no. 56 Motor
PurchasedFrom: C.Gars shop
Age When Smoked: New
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