Two Friends Redwood

(3.06)
A mixture for Virginia lovers! We start with naturally sweet red and stoved red Virginia tobaccos, add enough perique to provide some body and spice things up a bit, and finish the blend with a pinch of unflavored black toasted cavendish. The color is reminiscent of the hues of a redwood forest; the flavor is rich and soothing, and the room aroma is as pleasing as a walk in the woods after a gentle spring rain.

Details

Brand Two Friends
Blended By Craig Tarler & Gregory Pease
Manufactured By Cornell & Diehl
Blend Type Virginia/Perique
Contents Black Cavendish, Perique, Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Ribbon
Packaging 2 ounce tin, 8 ounce tin
Country United States
Production Currently available

Profile

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

Average Rating

3.06 / 4
13

11

9

1

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 34 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 31, 2014 Mild to Medium Extremely Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
The earthy, woody, lightly bready red Virginias are tangy, dried fruit sweet with a little sugar, floralness, light tart and tangy citrus, and a pinch of spice. Though they don't drive the flavor profile, they are the lead component. The sugary stoved Virginias are a little less sweeter as they provide stewed dark fruit, earth, wood, and bread in a support role. The earthy, woody perique is a minor, yet ever noticeable component, and is figgy, raisiny, with a mild spice note. The unsweetened black cavendish adds a touch of sugar in the background. Sounds more complex and sweeter than it really is, there's a certain dryness to the taste that somewhat offsets the sweetness. The strength is in the center of mild to medium. The taste is a step past the mark. The nic-hit is a slot behind the strength level. Won't bite or get harsh, but it does sport a few small rough edges. Burns clean and cool at a reasonable pace with a consistent flavor. Leaves little moisture in the bowl, and requires an average number of relights. Has a decent, if kind of plain, short lived after taste. The room note is a tad stronger. Produces lots of smoke in each puff. A pretty decent starter blend or an all day smoke if you please, but it may leave experienced VaPer smokers wanting more than this offers, despite the high quality of the tobaccos. Two and a half stars.

-JimInks
15 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 23, 2020 Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant
Two Friends - Redwood.

My blend didn't appear to contain hardly any black Cavendish, it comprises mostly browns; light, medium and darker shades. The aroma's slightly fruity, but not too suggestive of loads of Perique. Although the ribbons are quite uniform it includes one or two coarser pieces. The moisture from it suited me for imminent smoking; slightly damp but not wet.

The smoke? Brilliant, IMO!! Don't expect a spice bomb, a la Penny Farthing, St. James, etc., the smoke has an odiferous touch from the Perique, but not much more. The leading flavour, to me, comes from the fruity-sweet red Virginia. I wouldn't say I can differentiate between the stoved and un-stoved, to me it seems like a simple 'tangy' Va flavour! The black Cavendish, as I anticipated from the lack of black in the tin, is redundant from the smoke; again, IMO. The burn from Redwood couldn't be better, I hardly relight or tamp much. And the temperature's low.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: not bad.

Redwood? A great summer smoke, for me. Plenty of vibrant Virginias with a delicate touch of spice from the Perique. Four stars:

Highly recommended.
Pipe Used: Frederick Tranter Poker
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: New
10 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 04, 2008 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium Very Pleasant
This is a Va/Per that earns high marks for being different. Redwood has a sweet flavor, an incredible room note and is easier on the tongue than other blends of its type(although I suggest you smoke it slowly). The nicotine can take you by surprise, but as I'm a recovering cigarette smoker I don't consider that to be much of a drawback. Although it seems as though the quality of the VA and perique is top-notch, the cavendish might be the key ingredient here: it seems to provide an extra measure of sweetness while curbing the tendency of a VA/PER to bite or even grow harsh.

Like other Two Friends products, this is a distinctly odd blend: it's almost an aromatic VA/PER, similar in concept to Haddo's Delight. I don't detect any topping, per se, but the cavendish definitely adds a bit of sweetness and my wife likes the room note more than any aromatic I've ever smoked around her (she even likes it more than Autumn Evening).

This might be a 4-star tobacco for some, but I don't smoke it often enough for me to call it a favorite. Va/Per purists might be turned off by the components, but that's their loss. YMMV.
9 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 25, 2004 Medium None Detected Medium to Full Very Pleasant
Redwood is beautiful to look at, a pleasure to pack into a pipe, and easy to light. The bag aroma is Virginia and yes, something sweet - almost like chocolate, But forget all that - light up!

The smoke starts off with a burst of Va flavor that will make you want to order more, right now. Just as you start to settle in with the sweet Va flavor, the Cavendish kicks in with a backdrop of dry, spicy flavor. About halfway down the bowl, the Perique subtly joins in, but even between the two of them, they still don't outshine the Va at all.

If you love Virginias with a dash of Perique, you owe it to yourself to try this one. If you aren't a fan of Va/P, you just might change your mind.

A cool, smooth, and very flavorful smoke that I highly recommend.
8 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 30, 2006 Medium to Strong None Detected Full Pleasant to Tolerable
Alert!!! Desert Island Smoke!!!! the Red Virginias are impecable. The perique is at such a balance that it keeps the figgy stewed fruit flavor, with a slight spice. The spice is off set by the cav- Its a perfect balance for a VaPer. It's funny, I dedicated a bent bulldog to Kajun Kake, and this seems to smoke best for me in my other one. I have some stocked and will continue to keep this in rotation. I'd have to throw Mr. Echo a beating if he was after my Redwood. Try it and you won't regret it.....
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 10, 2012 Mild to Medium Extremely Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant
I agree with the previous reviewer - this looks a bit like redwood tree bark in the tin. The mildest of tin aromas of a light vanilla (?) and perhaps white wine.

The smoke was decent but mostly uneventful. There was a very light natural VA sweetness with a touch of perique. But it didn't stop at being a light vaper. The addition of cavendish added some additional sweetness in the taste and a bit of pleasantness in the room note. That makes it sound like there's a fair bit of complexity and a lot going on but I just didn't find that to be so. I find the lack of recent reviews of this blend to be indicative of its lack of any real depth. I'd call this an interesting blend but little more than that. Three stars because it is recommended for folks that want to try a fairly mild and lightly sweet Vaper but there are much better Vapers out there, some of which were blended by these Two Friends separately. But for what I perceive is its intended audience, this one is worth trying.
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 10, 2018 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Tolerable
A dry tasting and clean smoking blend that seems almost entirely comprised of thin ribbon cut red Virginia. The tin note is promising with its sweet and somewhat tangy aroma. When lit, the Virginias come through as mild and earthy and have a light grassy quality but lack depth in flavor. I say this because there’s very little sweetness to balance here, or at least much less than I prefer. So what could potentially be a fuller more rounded out smoke, winds up tasting thinner than it should. The Cavendish definitely isn’t there for sweetness, so I would assume that its sole purpose is to help to tone down the rugged quality of the Virginias, which in my humble opinion are not very refined or well-aged and smoke a bit harsh as a result. The perique saves the day and helps to lift Redwood out of the doldrums by adding a delicate pepperiness to the finish. Unfortunately this is the only complexity I could find in a bowl of this average tasting mixture.
Age When Smoked: Fresh
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 06, 2016 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable
This blend did not do it for me as much as I had hoped it would. It is a well done vaper, but I find that it is not as sweet as I would have preferred in this type of blend. I find the Virginia combination to be more earthy than sugary. This actually surprised me as I expected big sweetness in the combination of red Virginia and stoved Virginia. Don't get me wrong, there was sweetness, it was just wasn't to my particular liking.

I found the perique content to be heavier than average, but well below heavy. The blend does have a good amount of spice and is pretty biteless. It is also a pretty moist blend and despite a good amount of time in the tin (greater than a year), it retained this moisture til the last scraps were burned up. Overall, it performs well and is a quality leaf. The two stars represent my own desire for more sweetness and an abundance of vapers on the market that deliver said sweetness.

If you like an earthier, spicy vaper however, you may really like this and rate it much higher than I have. I won't be purchasing more of this one.
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 03, 2013 Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I've got mixed feelings on this blend. For the record, the blend is fine in terms of moisture content. I had no problems with it being too dry as some of the other blends produced by C&D. The first few puffs were very sweet, but not overly so. The flavor became more complex as I went into the second third of the bowl; sweet, but not as sweet as when I started. As I smoked it sown, it became mort bitter and had a rather sour taste to it. If I was to judge this on the first 2/3 of the bowl, this would be a highly recommended blend, but I'm one who likes to smoke it down the bottom, so hence the 2 star review.
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 31, 2018 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium Tolerable
This tobacco came wet in the tin and required some drying time. The tin note is of earth and chocolate, with a hint of dark fruit. The tobaccos used seem to be of high quality and mechanics are no problem. The flavor is dark, earthy and not as sweet as advertised or expected given the virginia content, and the flavor remained vigilant no matter my cadence. A great smoke, but not my prefered flavor spectrum, as i like more of a bakery, cinnamon roll sweetness like telegraph hill or escudo. The perique is on the heavy side, somewhere between telegraph hill and bayou morning. Nicotine content feels medium/high.
Pipe Used: Stanwell authentic shape 11
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: Fresh with some dryng time
3 people found this review helpful.
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