I had almost given up on trying this tobacco blend, due to its unavailability. I also REFUSE to pay the high price of eBay scalpers. So, it was with much surprise and pleasure, when I found four ounces of bulk at my local tobacconist. Did I buy it all? You betcha.

First impressions? Wow! An interesting, jet black, cut flake. Taste? Sweetness. Latakia. Mellowness. The Perique and Orientals harmonizing perfectly. A super pleasant lingering aftertaste. Wonderful nose exhale. Good even burn. This stuff is nice! I can see why it is so highly regarded. Frankly, the mild but complex taste, of all the perfectly blended tobacco varietals, just blew me away.

During my next visit to the local tobacco shop, I expressed my pleasure at my initial bowl. None in stock - anywhere. I asked the owner to put me down on the waiting list for an eight oz. bag or two - not to sell, but to smoke and enjoy. Two days later, on a Sunday, I get a phone call. My tobacconist had located two, eight ounce bags, and wanted to know if I was still interested. I found it hard not to break the speed limit getting to the shop. Price? $32 for each eight oz. bag. My recommendation - it pays to buy locally.

This tobacco has set the bar for me - I absolutely love it. I may stumble across a Virginia or English blend that I like as well or better, but for now, this is my favorite. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

Makin' my wife rich one bowl at a time.

Penzance appearance/aroma/preparation

Penzance is a very unique flake tobacco. It has a quite dark appearance, most likely due to the high latakia content. This renowned ingredient also imbues this tobacco with a deep smoky aroma, not so much campfire as other english blends but something much deeper and darker. One thing that makes this tobacco incredibly unique is its consistency, not as defined by conformity with previous attitudes, behaviour, practice, etc., but as defined as the state or quality of holding or sticking together and retaining shape. This tobacco flake nearly falls apart upon handling. It has a soft delicateness that is pleasant to handle. It also makes the preparation quite simple. I select my Charatan Special 211, my english dedicated pipe for this smoke. I grab a few pinches from the jar and allow light pressure from my fingers to break the tobacco apart as it drops directly into my bowl, and give it a light tamp along the way.

Smoking Penzance

It took a few re-lights to get this bowl going, mostly due to my packing method. Penzance does not seem to expand much upon lighting. The smokiness of the latakia hits you promptly in this lat-forward blend. During the smoke you will notice the uncanny cool-smoking quality of this tobacco. I do find a slower smoke produces more flavor so mind your puffs, although it will never bite you. I find the flavor profile throughout the smoke to be very consistent, although it changes depending on how you smoke it. I found very light puffs to taste leathery and musky, similar to the smell of a tack shop with a wood fire burning inside. Puff a bit harder and the taste actually reminds me of dirt, not in a bad way. You may appreciate that if you are a gardener, it is like the smell of fresh loamy garden soil, perhaps with a bit of mulch. When you exhale through the nose, the taste again changes, although I am lacking an analogous description. It seems to have a bit more flowery character, perhaps the orientals coming through moreso during the nasal exhale.

Overall

I find the taste profile of Penzance to be quite distinctive. It is a pleasure to pack and it stays lit very well. It smokes cool and dry with no bite. It does have a decent nicotine kick, which I started to feel about 1/2 to 2/3 through the bowl. It is something I would smoke on occasion I wish to have something entirely different. I would say it is worth acquiring some, I enjoyed the search for this as much as smoking it. Certainly not a every day tobacco for this pipe smoker.

TwoXseveN nailed it with the poem.

Godfrey, can you provide me with some contact information so that we might talk about getting ahold of some of your tins?

"It like Waking up in the morning in a soft meadow after falling Asleep unprotected and outdoors With a gentle dew resting forever on the back of your teeth And on the tip of your tongue While the salient wisps of last night's whisky Dance through the threads of your mist covered clothes"

I see you have trouble to become Esoterica Penzance but i have always 10 tins in stock and can send them to the USA but notice the shipping costs .

Regards Godfrey

TwoXseven beautiful discription , bravo .

May Jesus touch your heart. Peace to all my brothers and sisters of the leaf.

To start with, this baccy crumbles with a grimacing look, no force needed. It crumbles perfectly though, I mean that, perfect every time.

It burns thoroughly, burns with little effort, is forgiving to relights and generates smooth buttery smoke, easy on the nose with retro-haling.

The lats and orientals stand out over any Virginias, and the taste profile has some flavoring I cannot-with the 10+ bowls I have consumed, attach a description except to say its slightly medicinal....? It's tasty, can become somewhat sweet for a puff or two, then return to profile just as quickly.

My only beef-minor though it may be, is that the taste coats the tongue and stays there for quite some time-to the point where it limits what other tobaccos can be properly enjoyed for hours after sampling Penzance.

It is fantastic, it's in a class by itself. I will be on the lookout for more this year, I bet it ages gracefully :)

To me, Penzance is the perfect blend. It smokes well, tastes incredible, and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. It truly is the holy grail of pipe tobaccos.

I rarely get to enjoy this as an all day smoke due to the lack of quantity available. I typically smoke Squadron Leader as an all- day smoke and keep my Penzance for special occasions and moments when I feel that I deserve a special treat.

I have found two bits of information helpful when it comes to Penzance that will aid you in your smoking bliss. 1. It seems that tinned Penzance smokes and tastes better than the larger bags. 2. It is too moist when first opened. Allow it to dry to your liking prior to your planned time for smoking.

There is a reason that people buy it out as soon as a shop gets any on its shelves. There is a reason that it has been talked about so much for so long. Simply put, it is the best smoke on the market.

Quickly discovering that there was none to be purchased, I began my search for a sample or partial tin that an owner might be willing to trade and was lucky enough to acquire a good amount by networking through many people.

After acquiring some Penzance, then came the wait...the anticipation...the wonderment of what I was about to experience. And finally it began to arrive.

Upon opening a tin I was greeted with the visual and aroma of a mysterious and exotic experience that surrounds this highly cherished and coveted prize. Delicatly thin slices neatly stacked on edge and tightly compact with an addition of fine crumbs piled on top before the closing of the lid. The tin aroma was undescribably pleasant. The tobacco, mostly dark, speckled and rich.

So delicate, it was impossible to remove a single flake without it breaking apart so I simply began removing crumbled sections of several flakes from one end of the tin and spread the the array of various pieces out on paper to dry overnight.

Next morning, I found my favorite bench in the park on a gorgeous Saturday fall morning. No wind at all made it perfect for my rendevous with Penzance.

That day, over the course of three hours in the park I had two bowls of Penzance spaced apart by an hour or so and in two different pipes and concluded the following:

First bowl was in a medium size GBD Billiard that has always been my dedicated English tobacco pipe. The second bowl was in my fairly large three quarter bent. I gravity fed larger chunks first and then topped these off with finer crumbs with one very light tamp. I found that drying the tobacco out overnight helped in the lighting and it only took two matches to start and keep the bowl going along with periodic and butterfly soft tamps which only required one additional relight to take it to the bottom of the bowl. I found this to be the case with both pipes.

I finally concluded at the end of my day with Penzance that there is truth to the saying that more is not necessarilly better. I believe that Penzance will one day be for me as it is with many of the conniseurs of the pipe. However, for me right now I found that my tolerance for Latakia is much lower than I had thought it to be. Even though I sipped slowly this tobacco experience, I found Penzance to still be too much on the strong side for my liking. So strong in fact that I had difficulty concentrating on discovering any of the other nuances or complexities of the blend. I felt the Latakia over powered these other qualities.

I do not plan on giving up on Penzance and perhaps it will one day be as exciting to me as it is to many others and I will in time and with experience understand why.

I still however very much recommend this blend.

With over 300 reviews I think almost every opinion has been covered regarding this blends taste, aroma, and quality. I would therefore like to address this review based on consistency.

My education with Penzance began with a few 2005 tins and as previously stated, I didn't get it at first. All the hoopla and admiration was a mystery to me. As time and more bowls passed I hopped onto the band wagon and welcomed this blend to my regular rotation.

When the 2005 tins were history I scored a few of the most recently available vintage. HORRORS! It was truly awful. A one dimensional, musty and rank catastrophe that was as much alike to the 2005 blend as Balkan Sobranie is to Amphora Red. Was this possible? Not even the age of my older stash could explain such inconsistency. Into the garbage it went and my search began for older issues of this blend.

The tobacco gods then smiled down and allowed me to locate a stash of tins which were made prior to the "Butera" label change which I understand began sometime around 1996.

This batch has provided me with some of the most heavenly smoking experiences I've ever encountered. Surely this was the Penzance which at first earned it's reputation. One of the finest tobaccos I've ever smoked.

As Penzance is very difficult to obtain, many of us will snatch up as many tins as they can find when located.

Accordingly, the purpose of my review is one of caveat emptor for this blend. Before buying a dozen tins you've miraculously found, make sure you've sampled one tin of the vintage involved as you could possibly be in for a big smoking and financial disappointment.

Newer vintages: one star. Older vintages: Hall of Fame nominee IMHO.

You've been warned.

Love the crumble cake flakes that make loading a snap.

The only thing I don't like about it is the lingering aftertaste it leaves in your mouth.

Opened the tin, took some out and let it dry for about 30 minutes before smoking it. Tin aroma is latakia, like any other, great but nothing special.

Packed the bowl and lit up... BAMMMM! The best latakia blend I have ever smoked in my pipe career, so far. And I have smoked all the highest reviewed lat blends. Not the heavenly experience I was expecting, but VERY VERY GOOD.

No too strong, not too weak, just right for me. Bowl aroma is that of a freshly baked cake. Room not is pleasant to me. Taste is just right, with no lat smoked ham aftertaste. Burns well, with few relights. The tobacco texture in the tin is unlike any I have encountered before. Black flakes, that are quite brittle.

If you can get some, DO IT. I love Penzance. Sadly can not be a daily smoke because of its hard to find status.

Update: I was able to find a pound recently. Happy camper! : )