It is most certainly the sweepings off the floor at the Partagas factory and run over by a steamroller. Tastes and smells like a cigar (duh.) The only think I've smoked that's been harsher than this tobacco is full-leaf Iranian tobacco smoked in a gourd water pipe (Narghile.)

If you try this, smoke it in a pipe with a very easy draw. Puff *gently* and you will taste and smell what strong and spicy cuban tobacco is all about. Have a few matches handy, you will need them as you will discover your pipe has gone out after waking from a brief mini-coma. Don't smoke around people who hate cigars. If the tobacco doesn't put you on your rear, they most certainly will.

As others have suggested, I'm going to use this as a blender, (O Jeez, not another amateur!) and I am hopeful I won't completely ruin some nice, mild virginians, etc. with this dark snake bite. I will use it as one would a hot sauce. When I want a pipe, I don't want a cigar.

I approached the Partagas flake with an open mind, trying it in a tiny-bowled Peterson calabash, a Dunhill poker, and a few others, and -- in all cases it was a somewhat punishing experience on the palate, whether puffed very delicately or cooked up a bit more with stronger pulls. And, by the way, in my cigar days I liked the strong ones.

I also added a pinch of it to a 2/3rds tinful of very mild stoved VA flake, thinking that it might spice it up a little or enhance the flake ... well, I threw the whole remaining amount out after destroying it with just a few grams of this stuff! I doff my hat to the master blenders: it's a skill of real craftsmanship and experience.

My main favorites are un-sauced latakia blends and straight Virginias...so I'm not really a meek pipester. But this stuff takes the gloves off and doesn't let up! So if that's your cup of tea, try to find a brick. Per Sasha's review below, in the right hands this may indeed make a decent blending element, sparking a tabac that needs a little spice or intensity; but on its own, Picadura Granulata approaches the territory of straight Perique in the sense that, like perique, it would probably a hardy, steady-on-their-feet smoker to enjoy it on by itself. It must be just right for somebody out there -- perhaps a thousand Cuban pipe smokers will jeer and howl with laughter at this review as they blow hearty Partagas Picadura smoke rings at their computer screens ...