Star Rating = 4

Rating Scores - 10 is the Best and 0 is the Worst

Pouch Note = 10

Room Note = 10

Flavor = 10

Bite 10

Burn = 9

After Taste = 9

Raw Score = 58

Rated Percentage = 97%

Comment = Very Smooth, Very Mild, Mellow, No Bite, nice Flavor, good all day smoke

Pouch: Moist, smell of chocolate and vanilla. Contains mostly cavendish with some virginia and some burly.

Flame: Burns well, medium body, smooth, no harshness. No tongue bite. Taste of chocolate, vanilla when the cavendish lights. Nice initial tingle which goes away quickly.

Nose: Smooth, creamy steamy chocó vanilla. Smells like the bag. Nice easy to like flavor. Like 1Q but chocolate not vanilla, bit more body and flavor.

Down Bowl: Stays somewhat dry, no bitterness. Flavor uniform as bowl progresses, mild N, no bite, slight nose tingle, no mouth tingle at all.

Aftertaste: Smooth chocolate, little tobacco taste, no bitterness, slight tingle in mouth. Flavor in nose is chocolate.

Conclusion: Mild strength, mild moist smoke, tasty but not like tobacco, nose smell is chocolate and pleasant. Try PS Nougat if you want more tobacco taste. LL-7 is a tasty morning treat with ice coffee flavored with cream liquor. Nice in hot weather.

This is an aromatic, so I've judged it against other aromatics. I wouldn't recomend it at all to someone who abstains from anything but natural tobacco, but to anyone who likes aromatics or wants to try one, it comes highly recomended from me because it outperforms nearly all the other aromtics I've tried.

A mild, inexpensive, well-balanced natural aromatic blend.

I've noticed while reading reviews for most "controversial" blends, that the greatest concern from die hard fans seems to be their intolerance for dissent. "Don't review an English if you hate Latakia" it is said. Or "Tell people your taste preferences before you review." Those are noble thoughts, of course, voiced to shoot for some degree of fairness in the review. Then again, do I *have* to say what I like and dislike before every single review? Doesn't seem very practical, on second thought. For those who believe that only fans of a certain artifact are entitled to voice an opinion, I say the input you receive will be unbalanced and skewed toward your mindset. Yes, your precious rating may see-saw, but do not worry. Those who buy tobaccos only for the number of stars probably aren't worth lumping into your fan base.

With that said, I will say LL-7 excels in the Cavendish group because it burns cool, provides a generous allotment of that classic "Cavendish" flavor without being goopy, has a nice thin ribbon cut for an even burn, and a price point to please the masses. Why do I dislike this? It's not a knock on Lane, but the style of blend. Cavendish tobaccos' intrinsic flavor tastes artificial, and the kick never exceeds anything beyond slightly greater than mild. That's an opinion.

Which is why I must ask myself, why do I still seek these blends out? As many have said before, the room note is spectator-friendly. But smoking this just to smoke when around others has its drawbacks. If a person finds their eyes wandering in the direction of my pipe, I'd rather not bother with the ensuing conversation.

For my last consideration, LL-7 has replaced MacBaren's Vanilla Cream in the aforementioned rotation category. That's right. I'm a hypocrite.

The flavor of this one was surprisingly good for me. It started out with a toasted caramel type taste for the first 2/3 of the bowl, then faded slightly to a burley/Virginia sweet nuttiness. I found myself wanting another bowl after finishing one, something that is easy to do with this all-day smoke. It burned down to a dark ash with no dottle, except in my Boswell, which is bored a little high in the bowl. That's not the fault of the tobacco.

Price is the thing that makes this tobacco stand out in a rather crowded pack (vanilla aromatics). There are some great buys to be had on the internet. I found it at LilBrownShack (www.lilbrown.com) for $14.40 a lb. I don't buy my tobacco on price alone, but it is a consideration, especially for someone like a college student on a budget. The aroma will help attract the co-eds to him, too.

Now the ratings: flavor-14 out of 20. Lighting and burn-5 of 10. Price-10 of 10. Overall score-29 of 40. LL-7 gets three stars from me. Give it a try, it might surprise you.

The one thing that kept this review from being better is that the taste seems very common to me. It reminds me of some of the drug store blend tastes that take me back to the amateur days. Sure, this is a better tobacco, but I'm not exactly searching for a premium version of Captain Black. After all, a high end Hyundai is still a Hyundai - a good vehicle for the money but still a Hyundai, not a Lexus.

It lights easily and seldom requires relighting. Taste-wise, it has somewhat of a light caramel cavendish flavor. It is not bitey on the tongue at all. I find that the flavor tends to build up in my mouth as I progress through the bowl leaving a pleasant aftertaste. As you progress through the bowlfull more of a natural tobacco flavor begins overtaking the aromatic flavor. It burns pretty cool compared to most Virginias and doesn't require much in the way of smoking techinque. My wife likes the aroma and said it reminds here somewhat of vanilla but she really can't liken it to anything in particular.

This is a pretty pleasant tobacco to smoke. I like both the flavor and aroma. After smoking it for a few weeks, I decided that I like it enough to order more of it. Usually I smoke Virginias or English blends, but this one seems to accompany the others very well without being drastically different. In the morning, or when I'm in the mood for a lighter smoke than the typical latiaka bombs or don't have time to carefully puff on a Virginia then I usually go for a bowlfull of this.

For those who would like to smoke a really good aromatic with the pleasant room note of a Captain Black but want no cloying sweetness or overpowering topping, just quality tobacco taste with a hint of casing, you owe it to yourself to give this fine blend a try.

A winner here for Lane and for those wanting a reasonibly priced bulk baccy.

My local tobacconist couldn't come up with a clever name for this great tobacco. He & she (husband and wife) labeled it simply LL-7

LL-7 gets my seven stars. Try it, you'll like it!