McClelland - Blending Oriental pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Showing reviews 1 through 10 of 10 reviews of this tobacco
DK	10/15/2011	Mild	None detected	Mild	Pleasant
Mostly walnut-brown in color and a ribbon cut. Musty smell of old gym lockers in the tin. Good blending tobacco, for sure, but in order to know what it brings to a blend, it needs to be smoked straight. Not a ton of flavor, which is to be expected. I doubt even the Turks or Greeks smoke oriental tobacco straight, but what do I know. Definitely a spicy earthiness to this, but I detected almost no sweetness. The Grand Oriental series has predominately Virginia, which makes up for the sweetness this stuff lacks. Room aroma is very pleasant - sort of a soft incense, just the thing to take the smell of a cigar out of a room without a heavy masking. As a blender, this shines. I use this mostly for Virginias with perique, where it lends a light spice and tones down the perique. But it's also fun to mix it with a straight burley, such as C&D's Burley Straight, where it adds some nice complexity and spice to the monodimensional but great tasting burley. No blending table should be without this stuff, even though I agree with a previous reviewer in that it would be nice if we knew which orientals we were blending!
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Nikolaos	07/31/2011	Mild to Medium	Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
Good for blending, sandalwood+cinamon tones. A must for oriental lovers (Nikolas/Greece)
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tmoney	08/30/2010	Mild to Medium	None detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
Great blending tobacco! Adds a little bit of smokey sweetness to whatever you add it to. Wouldnt recommend smoking it straight though.
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UncleGar	03/03/2009	Very Mild	None detected	Very Mild	Very Pleasant
Update: I've been so taken with the Grand Orientals from this company, I forgot how much I enjoyed just the pure stuff. What surprised me is how much it resembled the Yenice Agonya blend, the main difference being higher sweetness in the latter. From the description on my 2003 tin, it seems this product is subject to variability in content: no specific types of leaf nor percentages are defined, just generic 'oriental'. I do wish McClelland would be more specific. Better yet, make each component available in bulk. I still enjoy it for what it is and how I use it. If cigarettes had been made of this, I wonder if smoking would have ever been banned from public places. Non-smokers seem to like the smell as much as me. (From 2005) Yeah, I blend it too. I adore the aroma of this mixture of Greek and Turkish leaves so much, it doesn't always make it to a blend. Woody and sweet-spicy, though thin on flavor, it is my favorite incense. Nicotine seems non-existent. I bought this to make english blends free of latakia and perique. Sweet virginias like MacBarens No. 1 and Marlin Flake go well with this. With burleys, I get an improved Amphora. My tins don't have the stink others report. Mine have only a mild dried fruit smell.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
thedstnguishdgntlmn	11/08/2006	Mild	None detected	Mild	Unnoticeable
This makes everything better when added to Straight Virginia or Burley blends. A one dimensional richness is added to every blend it touches! Rather bland by itself, but excellent as a condiment! 4 f 4 stars!
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Taste Buds	10/23/2006	Mild	None detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I bought a tin of this with my last order from Iwan Ries, without knowing what I would do with it. After some consideration, I decided to add about 10 or 12% to McCranies Red Ribbon, which includes 1/8th Red Flake(rubbed out). It was a magnificent creation(in my opinion). I'll never smoke Red Ribbon without McClelland's Blending Oriental again. I suggest that any of you who like virginia/oriental blends may want to try this.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
DUPE.1512	06/01/2005	Mild to Medium	None detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
As far as a blending oriental goes, this one is outstanding. The greek and turkish varitiels used are high quality.
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Pipestud	02/15/2005	Extremely Mild	Extremely Mild	Very Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
This is indeed a nice blending tobacco and I had a lot of fun (but, little success) in trying to improve other blends with the addition of this stuff. Betty Crocker I am not. Upon popping the tin, I was in heaven. This is really what Oriental leaf of top quality should smell like. Deep, exotic, musty and rich, I could not wait to try it by itself just for fun. It smelled better than it smoked. Not much flavor and no nicotine hit. Oh well... I then tried it as a filler in some old McClelland's #27. I think I mixed in too much of the Oriental because all I managed to do was dummy down the flavor and strength instead of add to it. I now have added respect for the blenders of the world. And finally, I did a web search on Oriental leaf and discovered there is a vast variety of types including flue and fire cured, and it grows in many places, not just the Orient. I reckon that means that perhaps Virginia leaf doesn't grow just in Virginia? (-;
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Darth 69	01/08/2005	Mild	None detected	Mild to Medium	Tolerable to Strong
THIS IS GREAT STUFF!! Staight oriental tobaccos for bending. Pure ambrosia for anyone who loves orientals. Large elongated rough cut peices with an incredible semi-sweet fragrance, light sweet taste, with a touch of earthiness in the tin aroma and smoke. "...And what is oriental tobacco's fragrance like, one may ask?" Well, like stinky socks and/or mildew. Why would one endeavor to suffer though such a noxious trial? Some people are connoisseurs of ripe stinky cheeses that smell like a septic wound so I think it has to do with context. An excellent blender or try smoking it by itself for a naturally aromatic rich aroma and mild strength smoke. You could even blend this in a lightly cased and dry burley base tobacco. Prince Albert smokers should give that a try. Thanks McClelland for offering this to the over the shelf market. -Highly Recommended! P.S. Orientals are in the sun cured class of tobaccos and not flue.
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bigjonburley	12/11/2004	Mild	None detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I thought that I should write a critique on the properties of this blending tobacco. As those of you know, who smoke a lot of english blends, orientals are often the backbone of their construction. Orientals lend heaps of texture and complexity to heavily dosed latakia blends. This tobacco has an uncanny ability to power through, yet complament, the smokey essence of latakia and perique. I love the texture of orientals and prefer them to Virginas in most of the "English" blends that I smoke. With this particular tobacco, McClelland has produced an easily blendable tobacco that is great for tweeking and existing blend, or constructing one from scratch. The beefy, twangy overtones of this oriental ooze from the tin apon opening. I think that it is very important for smokers to know and understand the properties of all the tobacco's that make up their favorite blends. The first time that I tried 965 and nightcap, I was aching to know what each tobacco's role was in the blend that I was smoking. Although not mind blowing while smoke solo, this tobacco can be used to doctor up a favorite blend, or construct one from ther ground up. McClelland has provided yet another quality product for experimentation.
Showing reviews 1 through 10 of 10 reviews of this tobacco