If you like Old Gowrie I think you'll like this. If you prefer a more robust VA flake, pass this one by. It is very good with coffee first thing in the day. I find it just a little too mild for a later in the day smoke.

I waffle with a rating. It's good and solid, but not blow your socks off great. So 3.75 out of 5

The problem with this is, like other tobaccos, if you don't get the smoke temperature JUST right, you lose ALL the casing and subtlety of flavor and just get some airy burley taste. You'll never know the pleasure of it unless you really take it slow.

This tobacco is a good all-day smoke because it's so light and innocuous. For a devotee of aromatics, it's kind of light, but if you treat it well, it can reward you with some nice flavor and a pleasant smoke. Just be sure you're giving it your complete attention of you will be burned.

The glorious, the transcendent, the life-altering qualities of good Virginia leaf are well attested. Some might think that taking something like good Virginia leaf and screwing around with it by stoving it of adding honey or molasses would be just heresy. Well, those people are wrong. Some of the greatest blends ever known consist of high quality Virginia leaf that simply hasn't been left alone and Mild Brown is among these. It only took a moderate amount of stoving to burn off those harsh edges that even the best Virginias have. The tobacco merely takes on as deeper brown colour and produces an aroma like maple wood in the tin and like bread baking in the pipe. It is a consistently smooth, cool, just gosh-darn pleasant smoke.

What makes it classifiable as a 'honeydew' is the addition of molasses. The molasses (god, I love saying 'molasses') in question makes the already deep, dark flavour just a bit moreso, redolent of caramel or old-fashioned ginger snaps, but only suggestively so, never outright.

It burns well, burns cool, and one is simultaneously elated and heartbroken to empty the bowl of fine, white ash.

Anyway, if light and sweet floats your boat, you'll hit a high water mark with this one.

I tried it in a brand-new Radice; a Peterson flame-grain bent; a meerschaum: in all cases it behaved itself and, once fully going, proved gently, sweetly zesty, and rather elegant. Then in the evening, with some Tokay, it became decidedly lovely.

I could never smoke anything the whole day long, least of all a Virginia flake, and have never understood the "all-day-smoke" thing. But I was delighted to make the acquaintance of this excellent tobacco.

Physical Characteristics: A darkly colored broken flake. There is nary a stem to be found in a tin of Mild Brown, which is a nice change, if I do say so. Packs with little trouble, though I do like to chop it up a little to facilitate the trickle method of packing a bowl. Burns nice and slowly to a whitish/light grey ash.

Notes: This is actually exactly what the tin promises, a mild brown virginia. I find it very pleasant as an all-day smoke, something to keep around to dip into when I just don't know what to smoke. At first, I wasn't sure that I would care much for this blend, but I was determined to smoke my review tin to the bottom in the interest of 'science'. After smoking the third or fourth bowl, on the first day I opened the tin, I realized that maybe there is something to this blend. Further communing with this blend has left me of the opinion that it is best in morning, perhaps with a mug of hot coffee to get me going. It is not subtle and nuanced, nor is it blod and overpowering. It is a simple and direct blend, suited to all-day puffing or to keep on hand when nothing seems to be the right smoke.

Verdict: Nice and mellow, the way a stoved Virginia should be.