***Update***(after smoking half of the tin) this tobacco made it on my Hall-of-Fame-List!!! Three Nuns set the Benchmark high, indeed...very high! This tobacco has character, personality...you name it, Three Nuns has it all! Enjoy it with a cup of coffee...I'm melting away in pure pleasure...Three nuns just heavenly...

..make sure u keep this tobacco moist! i smoked a bowl with very dry leftovers of my latest tin...and the coolness and richness of this wonderful blend just vanished. It will burn too hot and becomes very harsh. This is a sipper-blend!

Smooth, elegant and refined are three words that come to mind when smoking this wonderful creation. I don't know what the newer version tastes like as I can't find any in the U.S, and I don't recall how this stuff smoked back in the early 1990's, but this aged version exhibits no imperfections or aberrations of any kind. The perique marries perfectly with the virginias and the very slight topping melds harmoniously with the leaf. I found it somewhat less sweet than the current crop of Escudo - more along the lines of Dunhill Elizabethan, as another reviewer noted. A darker flavor but with wonderful high notes, just not a sweet virginia. On the basis of one tin, I have to say that I prefer this to Escudo.

Smooth, elegant and refined! If you can find an old tin, sit back and enjoy! If you have a batch of newer tins, age a few of them. Hopefully they age now as well as they did 15 years ago.

Yes I do like strong blends with nice proportions of perique, but I also look after for a gentle, somehow bitter-sweet, nonacrid taste. Three Nuns left me with a dry and sour mouth.

I will buy some tobacco tasty products at cheaper prices.

The flavor is primarily a subdued and woody bright VA with a pleasant perique presence. Another leaf, perhaps burley, adds a nutty breadth. There seems to be a slight topping which subtly adds to the enjoyment. There is an overall autumnal impression to this blend: moderately sweet, richly woody, and slightly fermented. Due to the cut, the flavor is homogenous throughout the bowl.

Ignoring the fruitless debate of "new vs. old", Three Nuns is rich, smooth, and unique. Though not so iconic as to justify ignoring other VA/Pers whilst on the road to Nuns, this is well worth the trip. For the stacking method, the coins seem ideally matched to narrow, 18 or 19 mm chamber gauges.

TN (both Original/tinned, which was maybe the more expensive tobacco sold in Italy, and the Mixture/pouched, half the price of the Original) disappeared from the Italian tobacconist before the advent of the EURO, i.e. in 2001. I guess nobody cried loud? VaPer?s have never been considered on the top list of preferences of the Italian smokers, who rather prefer English Mixtures.

My review is for TN Original (tinned version).

I?ve got a couple of tins coming from Haejenius in Amsterdam, alongwith a small number of other tobaccos which I have commissioned to a friend in his yearly visit to the grandmother in the Netherlands.

The tin is quite the same of old, just the colours have bit changed, and obviously half of the lid?s surface consists of the usual compulsory warning label. At the opening I smelled blind and rack hard my brain to do the comparison: no, the current TN is not the same of old. As Hagen observed: Kentucky has replaced Perique. The tones are much darker and woody. I smell a liqueurish note (liquorice?) suggesting a topping. Also, seems to me that TN places itself in some way between McB?s Burley London Blend and Peterson?s Irish Flake, stronger than the former and milder than the latter. Since I appreciate both, this is a good point of depart. After unfolding the inner packing, I can notice that the size of the coins is quite the same of old, but the colour is darker. TN is soft and moist, not wet; needs some airing.

I?ve worked through a small number of pipes, and found the best ?smoking tool? for TN is a straight Mastro de Paja bought in 1990, medium bowl, apple, which I got back from restoring. Always filled the pipes like this: a couple of coins rubbed for the bottom, four or so unrubbed at the middle, then a rubbed couple for the top. Let the pipe sitting half an hour or more, then light/tamp/relight/retamp. It goes its way for one hour or even more.

The smoke reflects the tin aroma: moderately sweet, woody, non-spicy, liqueurish. Starts medium and goes to the strong side. Needs the usual careful sipping just to avoid it turns bitter, but no risk of bite at all, the smoke is always cool. Pleasant but nothing to go really crazy. Not for the morning and not an all-day smoke. Think like as You would enjoy a brandy. Again, I think it may be placed between the BLL and IF, but it also brings to my mind TOI?s Limerick, completely lacking the vinegarish note this latter has but keeping the same woody tone. Since Limerick is declared to contain 5% Perique, should I think TN is still a VaPer ? Bah, who knows ? Oh, yes Hagen, from mid bowl onward it gurgles, I also think it?s due to the topping (Perique syrup?)

At the end: three stars because it?s a hystorical tobacco, of the same league of Escudo and basically a good an honest tobacco. But anymore the TN of old? I will review the TN Mixture soon or late.

The flavor is somewhat sweet, and malty, for lack of a better term.

The strength isn't overpowering, but it's there.

The perique is obvious, but it doesn't beat you over the head, either.

I really enjoyed smoking this blend, but it doesn't strike me as the kind of tobacco I'd like to smoke every day, so I'm giving it three stars. I could see where for some folks it would really hit the spot, though.

Definitely quality in the manufacture, no stems, no twigs, very cute little mini coins.

Yet another supermarket blend with nothing to offer. I thought there might've been something subtle I've been missing after reading some of the reviews so I bought another pouch to no avail. There's just nothing there! It's not like McBaren's Old Navy, which is laid back but complex and tasty, despite being mild. Three Nuns just tastes of nothing.

Not a regular in my rotation (this is second to Escudo, Anniversary Kake and a few other masterpieces in my list) but a pretty good smoke nevertheless.

Imagine then my horror when I bought a pouch of the current product. This is a drab, insipid creation totally unworthy of the name under which it masquerades. My one star is for the current product: the original deserved the full four.

Sadly, I do not get the tastes and flavours that our other esteemed colleagues experienced, and in it's present form, poor offering it may be, compared with it's former self, it is a reasonable smoke. A pouch that will be finished and may be bought again, should I see a pouch on a shelf. Certainly not one that I would cellar or put into rotation, but by the same token, the best of the OTC's of which, unfortunately I have a low opinion.

When in the midst of our conversation, and after obtaining his permission, I loaded up my pipe with some Prince Albert (one of the few available tobaccos in Mexico at the time), he grimaced, stopped me in my tracks, and produced from his desk drawer a square tin, with a bright orange rim and a dark brown cover that read: Bell?s Three Nuns Tobacco, with the legend ?none nicer?.

Not that he had any objections to the Prince, but, he explained, as I was going off to the Holly Land of pipe tobaccos, I should get acquainted with what he dubbed ?the real stuff?, lest a Cambridge don be aggravated by my Americana-Tobacciana insolence (?and don?t you dare smoke anything the likes of Captain Black at a formal dinner!? he added, with genuine concern).

I had never seen tobacco spun into small coins, nor had I any knowledge of Perique, and was only slightly acquainted with the smell, texture and flavour of straight Virginias. It took me some time to fill in the pipe, and still a longer time to get it going. My professor was patient enough to guide me through the whole process, very much like letting me in on an ancient druid ritual. But once I felt the first nuances from the blend, I was at once elated and transfixed! What an extraordinary encounter! Who needs hermeneutics with this kind of experience!

The same professor would later introduce me to quite an ample range of English tobaccos, from the also bygone Bengal Slices to Dunhills?, Sobranies? Rattrays?, and Presbyterian Mixture.

Three Nuns had, in my view, a pastry-kind of flavour: rich, slightly sugary, toasty and peppery-sweet. Because it was my first attempt at smoking this type of cut, I over puffed and burnt my tongue. Again, the professor came to my rescue and explained the need to smoke slowly, keeping the mouthpiece away from my lips, and drawing in gently.

Perhaps I?m wrong, but I remember the Three Nuns as a gentle, almost mild smoke. It produced a very amicable room aroma, and a soothing sensation to the smoker. Though the Perique was very much in evidence, I now realise that the main feature of the blend were the Virginian varieties: matured, flue cured, probably Old Belt (I don?t think there was any Burley).

Because it was so difficult to ?prepare? I never really smoked it that much. But whenever I did, I always felt the same excitement and contentment. It was a smooth and elegant, yet feisty and gentle pure smoke that, accompanied with a pint of Murphy?s, very much alleviated the harshness of English winters.

This all happened a long time ago. I?m speaking of an almost mythological era, when the Berlin Wall divided Germany and the threat of the Soviet Union was still, for many, very real. But it was also a time when you could smoke almost anywhere?indoors included, especially in pubs?and when Dunhills?, Sobranies? and Benson and Hedges? blends not only existed but also tasted the way they should. A time when you could find proper tobacconists, willing to provide advice and guidance to a humble?and foreign?newbie to the world of pipe smoking (like the late Colin Lunn, just across King?s College).

Alas, all that is gone, and with it the suave gallantry of those Three Nuns, from Scotland.

NB: What today stands for Three Nuns does not deserve a single rating-star

04/20/2007. okay, so this is the danish version, tinned. i remember smoking TN 20 years ago, and finding it sharp, bitter, biting and very strong. this version is rather sharp, slightly bitter, fruity (casing as well as some perique), sweet, medium strength. it wasn't my favourite then, and it isn't now. not bad tobacco, though.

for va-pers, i very much prefer escudo/de luxe navy rolls or st. james flake, with their much more clear and clean taste.

UPDATE. We have a savoury spread here in the UK, called Marmite, and it's one of the great 'love it' or 'hate it' things of life (I love it). I've just re-read the Three Nuns reviews again, from top to bottom and am amazed at the utterly opposing views about this tobacco. These can't just be explained away by the various changes to the Blend in the last few years as some have tried to do. I've smoked just about all of them from the old Bells 2 ounce tins to the modern 25 gram packets and as you know I completely detest the stuff...yet I adore VAPERS. I seem to remember, more than 2 decades ago, I did enjoy one tin of it and I wonder now if that was because it had maybe sat in the tobacconists store that I used to frequent from say the 1940's. But apart from that, I've always thought it a crude cheap offering. There must be within each of us, triggers that react to different tobaccos in a different way. Very subtle triggers though, because there are reviewers who love Nuns and also other VAPERS that I do like. I used to think that one could 'educate' one's palate to enjoy well almost any pipe tobacco...but I'm not so sure now. Perhaps, tolerate, but not truly 'enjoy'. The triggers must only have a certain ability to be educated...I don't know what you guys think? Three Nuns is from this point of view a highly interesting example of pipe tobacco but I do honestly regret that I can't derive the pleasure from it that others obviously do.

Pouch aroma is of plain, mature, spicy tobacco. The cut discs have gone and it is a plain ready rubbed. Lights easily, lots of smoke and a good first impression of a balanced Virginia with a hint of perique. Some of the 'nuttiness' I remember coming though. But then it falls apart. I found it smoking very wet and gurgly, the bite getting strong and the flavour getting monochrome. Quite possibly me going at it too hard, but I have not had the experience with other blends.

Quite a disappointment for me, but for an easily available medium-strength tobacco it is not all bad. There are better blends out there though.