GQ Tobaccos Cypriot Sunset

The red Virginia is richly tangy, earthy fruity sweet. The other Virginias are earthy without a hint of grass or hay, and a mild dry fruit sweetness. The Oriental/Turkish is a woody, moderately tangy spicy ingredient that you’ll notice in every puff which gathers more strength after the half way point. The Cyprian latakia is a team player with sweet, smokey, and woodsy notes. The whisky topping is lightly present, and doesn’t detract from the tobaccos.The judicious blending of the various components create a medium to full strength, full flavored sweet and savory Oriental that burns clean at a moderate pace. It’s a smooth cool burning ribbon cut that’s a little creamy with no dull spots, and leaves little dampness in the bowl. Needs an average number of relights. The nic-hit is medium. Has a pleasantly lingering after taste, and is a repeatable, but not an all day smoke.

-JimInks

Well, I finely found a rare blend that I’m not overjoyed with from outstanding blender Glynn Quelch. First, the positives; in the pouch, Cypriot Sunset smells wonderful! It is smoky, earthy and citrusy. In the pipe, there are times when I can taste moments of excellence when it all comes together with a smoky, earthy, sweet citrus with a bit of pepper flavor. There is ample strength which is also something I appreciate. But the joyous moments unfortunately drift and out lacking consistency. In between there is a flavor of something being burned on the stove. I found myself smoking bowl after bowl over two days searching for those great moments. On its own, I like Sliced Black Twist, but the mélange of flavors just don’t work well together here for me. The juxtaposition of the black twist and the topping just seem to clash. I never care about room note, especially since my wife and I are both pipe smokers, but the room note to this blend is really undesirable. I think that CS is a niche blend that will appeal to some and I can see what the blender is shooting for here, but for me it misses the mark.

I could not explain to you what type of blend this is trying to be, but I could certainly tell you everything it's not. A wild and hectic melange of leaf. Not an unpleasant experience, to be fair, but no quality in the smoke or nuances of the tobaccos working in unison.

A nasty sourness from the perique, with very little to mellow it down with. I wish this blender would not insist of such large quantities and abuse of the Louisiana leaf. I get it, you like your tobacco strong, but it has to taste decent as well, y'know? I think this needs to go back to the drawing board or be scrapped altogether. It definitely seems like a cigarette smoker's idea of a pipe tobacco, and falls flat all round. Burn rate is OK. Not recommended.

EDIT: I have noticed this has as slight fruit flavouring. Well, that's certainly lost in the perique and other blending errors, for me. Not detectable.

GQ Tobaccos - Cypriot Sunset.

If it were down to me I'd change the name from Sunset to Sunrise. It tastes far to bright to be reminiscent of a Sunset! The flavour of the smoke is vivacious, there's so much going on! The tobaccos are balanced in a way as to really make this an interesting blend. Of them all I find the Perique slightly heavier. It lends a certain zesty attribute along with a decent N kick. Looking on the GQ website it says the added flavouring is fruit. I can't pinpoint what sort exactly but I would imagine Citrus of some kind is included. I don't get any tongue bite but if I really draw hard on my pipe it develops a sort of acridness so I tend to sip it slower. As I said earlier, it has a decent amount of N. It's not ludicrously strong but still a good blend for N lovers. The room note is quite good. It's not that full and doesn't fill up the room with too much smoke!

Cypriot Sunset is a good blend but I can only score three stars due to a few faults. Recommended.