Samuel Gawith Scottish Autumn Flake

This is probably one of the easiest reviews I have ever written.

Virginia, mostly gold and light brown, pressed into coarse flake: check.

Nose is sweet and mildly honeyed: check.

Composition is perfect, easily rubbed out and lit: check.

And then just a beautiful wave of ripe, smooth, sweet Virginia flavour of the highest order. Simple and yet magnificent; simply magnificent?

Samuel Gawith have done it again, a must-try for all true Virginia lovers.

Highly recommended.

Typical lemon to bronze colored flakes with a tin note of basic fine Virginia. Easy to fold or rub out, with no excessive drying time needed. I did transfer the contents to a ziplock after I noticed the tobacco drying rather quickly in the opened tin.

This is almost a BBF-meets-Dunhill Light Flake for me. The slight honey fruitiness of Light Flake and the robust tang and maturity of BBF, with its mellow darkness and rich flavor. Sam Gawith is the McClellands of the UK, with Virginias unparalleled by their competitors. They taste different but they are uniformly excellent. This one is no exception. It starts off sweet and mildly tangy with that slight honey and light fruit combo and then ascend to more robust territory, with that SG "zing" that BBF and FVF contain. This more leans more toward the mature and mellow of BBF rather than the boisterous earthy character of FVF. Not as complex as BBF but a bit more so than the Dunhill, the combination of the two brings the Dunhill closer to my wheelhouse. But not nearly as closely as BBF, which is one of my mainstays. This will be an occasional smoke but should be tried by all straight Virginia aficionados. It might just be the perfect one for someone.

There's an ever present light honey topping throughout the smoke, but it doesn't detract from the fairly grassy, lightly earthy Virginias. It's tart and tangy, slightly acidicly citrusy with a hint of tangy, fermented darker fruit, and has a little wood, bread, and slight floral note. There are several light Virginias mixed with a darker one, which takes a back seat to the lighter leaves. The flake is easily manageable, and needs very little dry time. Burns at a slow to moderate rate and requires several relights, but it smokes cool and clean with just a minute amount of moisture at the finish. The flavor is mostly consistent from start to finish. The strength is in the center of mild to medium, while the taste is a step past that mark. Has a slightly more that a mild nic-hit. Barely has any rough edges. No bite, no harsh spots, and has a lightly lingering, pleasant after taste and room note. An all day smoke. Three and a half stars.

-JimInks

Samuel Gawith - Autumn Flake.

A similar construction to Winter Time Flake, and the moisture's anomalous for Sam G', it isn't soaking!

Lighting's easy and all the way it burns slow and steady. The taste of Autumn is sweet, fruity, rich, and ripe. The smoke's quite thick for a Virginia, nice and cool, without a bite to be had.

Nicotine: mild to medium. Room-note: pleasant.

Autumn Flake? Four stars:

Highly recommended.

It's hard to write a review about one of your favorite tobaccos. You want to do it justice by conveying the utmost pleasure it brings you with a smoke. Ultimately, I doubt myability to convey my enthusiasm for this blend.

Popping the tin you get a standard non-uniform SG flake. Thin strips of rusty red and sunset orange. Moisture is comparatively lower than most flakes from the company and breaks up easily (despite being a roll and stuffer).

Hard for me to describe the smell but it has essences of sangria, blood oranges, hay, grass, honey and so much more. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a slight casing but it doesn't matter to me. I love this stuff.

What a lovely VA flake. Smooth and tangy with citrus high notes and deep fruit medium and low notes. Truly a versatile Virginia covering octaves of flavor. This profusion of tangy smooth sweetness builds throughout the bowl and ends in a delightful whirlpool of VA goodness.

Yeah, I may be praising it a bit too much 🙂 Interesting thing is that I have a tin of Dunhill Light Flake from 10+ years ago and it tastes very similar to the Scottish Autumn Flake. Keeping that in mind, I can only imagine what this stuff will taste like 10 years in the tin despite being this fresh. I hope they decide to make this in 250g.

Ater 40 years of pipe smoking, I have finally found Nirvana...the ultimate pipe tobacco. This is what I have been looking for all my life. This stuff is so good it could make me give up my search for a meaningful relationship. I am in love.....

I bought this on a lark because it was the last tin of good tobacco on the shelf at the local beer/liquor/tobacco shop (mostly the first 2...). Their tobacco stock is limited to mostly cheap drugstore blends, and lots of cigarettes, but he always keeps a few random tins of higher end tobacco around for the occasional connoisseur. I felt sorry for the tin, and took it home.

When I opened the tin, like a happy puppy dog licking my face, the aroma of top quality Virginia was all over me. It was an alluring aroma of hay, dark sweetness, a bit of citrus, and just good tobacco. I was thinking, "There is no way this stuff could taste as good as it smells." I looked it up online and it is touted as being 100% Virginia tobaccos, with no flavorings or anything else added. It was hard to believe all of these complex aromas were coming just from Virginia. It looked like nice course-shredded flake. The moisture was perfect...not dry, or wet. It felt nice and springy, and loaded easily. It also lit well, and from the very first puff, I was transported to Tobacco Heaven. First impressions: marvelous sweetness, not a condimental or sugary sweetness, but more like a natural sweetness, a little tangy citrus in the background ( no doubt from Yellow Virginia), a nice mellow musky, bready taste (probably from the Red Virginia), and a smooth, silky mouthfeel, like Corinthian leather. The tastes played off each other to create complex nuances that defy description. Incredibly satisfying. The taste never changed, all the way to the bottom of the bowl, and it burned to nothing but grey ash. No dottle at all, and only one relight, when I tried to squeeze the last bit of smoke from it. I was sad when it ended. I was wishing I had used a bigger pipe.

The really strange thing is that there was absolutely no catsupy aroma at all, as in all other Virginias I have smoked. I have smoked a lot of tobacco in my 5+ decades of living, but this is by far the very best I have ever experienced. This will have a permanent place in my tobacco rotation. I can't wait to try the 3 other blends in the Four Seasons Series.

This has some nice flavors, but also has a couple of characteristics that I don't much care for. Very tangy citrus notes and a touch of grass, a modest sweetness with darker fruit flavor. Some of the sweetness is an addition. The tang can be a bit sharp at times on the retrohale and the burn is a little inconsistent offering wispy smoke at times and fairly thick smoke at others. A decent smoke, but not entirely to my liking.

Mild to medium in body. Medium in taste. Added sweetness is very mild. Burn is fair.

This is a superb straight virginia. No bite or harshness. It tastes very similar to Cabbies Mixture but without perique, in fact it may actually be exactly that. Either way, a fantastic smoke with depth and complexity. Highly recommended.

This is my third out of the four season collection blends.I waited for the Autumn to come so i could try it as recommended by the blender!when the tin cracks a nice smell comes out.citruses,dark fruits accompanied from some sweet notes.the flakes are brown with some bright notes,proper in moisture and very manageable either to rub or fold.i tried both and i noticed the folding method was better.lights with some effort(less if you rub it)and needs several relights.while smoking the pleasure is fitted in the Autumn mood.dark fruits woods and tangy notesare dominant.citruses and grass notes come after but not tonned down a lot.some sweet notes also are present without subtlimating the tobacco flavours.perhaps some sugar or honey topping is added.the flavours taste very natural and combine very well each other.burns cool and a bit faster than other SG flakes with some moisture being created.no tongue bite present.the room note is ok and the nicotine level almost medium.the aftertaste is pleasant.an all day blend that pleases every virginia lover!totally recommended.

Smooth, creamy VA domination with a touch of a floral note. Spicy tingle on the retrohale. Flavor and strength build as you work through the bowl. No harshness. Burns clean; moisture is perfect out of the tin.