Borkum Riff - Black Cavendish pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 39 of 39 reviews of this tobacco
Tantric	07/07/2009	Mild	Strong	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I have made reference to this tobacco before. I have not yet tried the new Danish version. I did smoke it a number of times when blended and manufactured in Germany. Since this is a Black Cavendish mainly prepared from Burley leaf (including the fire-cured Kentucky), and perhaps some Virginia, I think it is fair enough to compare it to other similar blends. This is a heavily cased aromatic, with a rounded and deep bitter-sweet flavor, the aroma of which, in my experience, engulfs the senses and will permeate any briar. As such, it is of a better quality and smoking characteristics than Danske Club's Black Luxury (less sweet and chemical in nature), and similar to Sail's Noir. Both are heavy tasting (somewhere in between truffles, nuts, berries, vanilla and dark chocolate), goopy, moist, and, again, in my experience, need continuous re-lighting. But both are much better than Black Luxury. Now, to my palate BF's Black Cavendish (or Sail Noir) are not half as a good as Mac Baren's Black Ambrosia (i.e., a black cavendish blend). The difference, of course, is that Mac Baren's is made form Virginias rather than Burley, and so the flavor in Mac Barne's is more "tobaccoey", the sweetness less pungent and artificial, and the aroma far more refined and tempered. On the other hand, if you want to try a better dark fired Kentucky, without the chemical sauces and flavorings, I strongly suggest you go for Orlik's Dark Strong Kentucky. Dark it is, strong it isn't. Yet it delivers a better punch and tobacco flavor--without losing that smokey bitterness from the Kentucky--than Borkum Riff's Black Cavendish. All in all, BR's Black Cavendish is not a bad heavy-tasting and sweet black cavendish. If you like strong aromatic smokes, even if the smoke strength in itsefl is rather mild, this may be a good choice. Better than some, yes, but not as good as Mac Baren's or Orlik.
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Pipe4ever	03/05/2009	Medium	Medium	Medium	Pleasant
This tobacco was extremely dry in the pouch and this is a good thing for me because this is how I prefer aromatics, the flavor is indeed masculine and elegant, not sweet or syrupy, the tobacco tastes mainly burley, also the tobacco leaf was not black similar to some American black Cavendish, but there is some golden and yellow Virginia in the mix, the burning is a little harsh in the beginning of the bowl but this can easily be adjusted with slow puffing, the fruity aroma is something like red fruits with dark caramel but it is not too sweet like other heavy aromatics, it is just well balanced, the nicotine delivery is fair and satisfying. Overall, this tobacco did not disappointed me at all as I was expecting it to do, but I was rather pleased with the good quality of tobacco and the low sugar casing, I did not try all blends from this manufacturer but I found this one was good enough to make me finish my pouch and I would buy another pouch in the future without any reserve. If you ever buy a pouch of this tobacco try to enjoy it for what it is before reading the negative reviews below, or at least try to forget what you have read and make your own judgment.
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Mick	03/04/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Pleasant
For those out there that don't have an aversity to this brand (and it seems many do), this would be one of the best blends in the BR line up, that I have tried to date. I only have a couple of their blends left to try, and I don't imagine they will improve much on this one. I still have a preference for the Cherry Cavendish, but that is just pig headedness on my part. Give this one an honest try, if you like aromatics, you should like this one.
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Harpua0077	02/24/2009	Medium to Strong	Mild to Medium	Full	Tolerable to Strong
I have some fond memories of this tobacco. When I was 18 I tried a pipe and my first tobacco ever was Borkum Riff Black Cavendish. Now at the time I must say I didn't know how to smoke a pipe at all. It obviously wasn't good enough to keep me smoking a pipe. I think half the pouch went out with the garbage. Now advance 13 years later, I bought a pouch to see what I think now. Well It burned well albeit hot, even when smoked slow. It was chock full of pipe juice, and left an acrid taste in my mouth. However maybe in some sadistic way I like the blend. I just can't smoke more than half a bowl at a time. My Personal notes give a 4.2 in future years based on availability it may again be in my pipe, but for the memories not its quality.
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Pipepundit	02/18/2009	Mild	Medium	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I mixed this with a somewhat bland but strong tobacco, and the resultant half-and-half mixture was not too bad. On its own, few would like it.
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Stumper	02/14/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Pleasant
I picked this one up by mistake-I was after the BR Bourbon Whiskey which has gotten good reviews. Having tried a few bowls I find myself wishing for a five star system to stick this one in the middle of the range. I think that it is a bit better than some of the one and two star reviews indicate. There are sweet and nutty flavors and moments of seemingly toppingless burley....but I understand the negative comments. You nee dto find the right pace with this tobacco. Not surprisingly for a black cavendish based blend it can take a few relights to get going. Stop puffing and it goes out. Puff too fast and it will bite. Push it wrong and the flavor gets sort of sour and ashey....but when the cadence is right there are lots of pleasant flavors combined with a cool, pleasant smelling smoke. I'm giving it a weak 3 stars.
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Dr.sadik	12/19/2008	Mild	Medium	Very Mild	Pleasant
black cavendish and thats the end of the story,,would be a lie if i said more,,burn well with few dottles left overs, constant lighting is required,,cheep tobacco yet there are better black cavendish offerings for a lower price!
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bearzerker	09/10/2008	Medium to Strong	Mild to Medium	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant
A new tobacco shop opened up in my town recently and I stopped in there today to see if they had any decent pipe tobaccos. We have 2 smoke shops in the area now and they only carry drugstore brands so I usually buy my tobacco online. The new store had the basic drugstore brands. I'm a fan of Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey, they had that and this brand as well. None of the other stores here carry the Black Cavendish so I thought I'd give it a shot. The pouch I purchased was fresh and the stuff inside was still a little damp so I took some out to dry. The aroma in the pouch was pleasant not overwhelming. I had about an hour till I had to go to work so I only loaded half a pipe load. When I lit it up and took the first puff I made the mistake of inhaling a little bit and coughed a bit. I wasn't dizzy or feeling ill which is a good thing I guess. I didn't notice any hints of chocolate, nuts or nougat and but I noticed tongue bite and I drank a liter of water cause it dried my mouth out. I also noticed as I puffed away the smoke was a brownish color and it burned hot. I got to tell you I got a good nicotine rush from this stuff. I probably won't rush out and buy another pouch of this anytime soon. I'll stick to the Bourbon blend.
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pop-pop's pipe	01/16/2008	Mild	Mild	Very Mild	Pleasant
Kind of bland tasting! For a burley and Kentucky blend where's the kick? No nicotine punch whatsoever!
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Xeneize	04/21/2007	Medium	Medium	Medium	Tolerable
I can't define the flavor of this tobacco, it doesn't taste like anything I know, but I don't like it. Too much tongue bite, moist, and chemicals.
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The Unknown Piper	02/12/2007	Medium	Medium	Medium	Tolerable

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Pipestud	11/18/2006	Very Mild	Very Strong	Very Mild	Very Pleasant
I went to the grocery store to pick up some flints for my Old Boy. I probably have six or seven flint packages lying around the house but I couldn't find a single stinkin' one of them. I got to the store and asked one of the employees to please unlock the glass case where all the tobacco products are kept. I looked around to make sure no one was looking and grabbed a pouch of this Borkum Riff Black Cavendish as well as some flints. I got home and decided to try this stuff. Half a bowl later I decided that I should have loaded my pipe with the flints.
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Philo Beddoe	11/17/2006	Mild	Very Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
Rather plain and boring, not awful but it turned bitter halfway through the bowl, as some cheap aromatics sometimes do. There are so many good and decent aromatics out there do not limit yourself to this.
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scotty815	10/19/2006	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant
I have smoked this on a few occasions, but not recently. Next time I see it i will give a better or worse rating based on my next expierience, going by my last one This rating should come out to 2 or 3 stars. I once heard that colonial troops ran out of tobacco and smoked dried horse poo.
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Sousa	04/12/2006	Strong	Medium to Strong	Medium	Extra Strong
Well, the first time I saw this tobacco I wanted to try it, but at the time I saw it on store, I had a previous recomendation, so I didn't buy this blend for 4 months (totaly forgot) a few days ago however, to my surprize, I found this blend, and so, my expectations were high indeed. From reading the Title description I was expecting to feel a real tobacco and the aroma, it was self intitled as black, so a serious tobacco. The nougat, truffle and the nuts made me think of a Nordic tobacco, heavy and full of flavour, I was mistaken, this tobacco is packing away with nicotine, making it almost poison (3 bowls and you pass out), about the flavour, the doping on the tobacco produced a very unpleasent flavour, (some may enjoy it), and about the smoke it was a tongue torture, if you light it well , you'll have your tongue itching and soaring in no time. Still have the tobacco, smoked about 40 g of it, an experience I don't advise anyone to.
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Dougster	09/30/2005	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Pleasant
I snagged a pouch of this mostly out of curiosity and because it looked better than anything else there on the shelf at the store I was in. Suprisingly, its not too bad. My pouch seemed pretty dry upon opening, which to me indicates that it wasn't soaked in PG. Visually, its nice looking, a nice mixture of light and dark ribbons. The pouch has a nice sweet natural tobacco aroma. Upon firing it up, I noticed somewhat of a chocolate type flavor, but this dissipated rapidly. The smoke got a bit bitey initially, but this too subsided. The smoke settled down into a sort of neutral roasty type flavor which reminds me vaguely of Royal Yacht, which I like. So overall, its better than I expected it to be. The description at the top claims that its heavily cased, but if so I'm not tasting it much, maybe my pouch is really old or something. Whatever, I find the flavor pretty good and I won't have any problems finishing the pouch. Its a good blend, and certainly better than most drugstore blends. I think it rates three stars, albeit a low three stars. Its fairly expensive for a drugstore blend, though, and you could do a lot better than this in a real tobacco store.
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Pipey	05/16/2005	Medium to Strong	Medium to Strong	Medium to Full	Tolerable
This was the first pipe tobacco that I tried, and it was OK... I guess that it did everything it was supposed to do, but was quite bitey. There are also a few erratics in the leaf that could cause bad burning, so its definately worth de-stalking (as I call it) the pouch first. As far as drugstore aromatics go, this isnt too bad, it has a nice enough flavour, but I feel it benefits by mixing it with Borkum Ultra Light, as this makes it stop biting just long enough for you to actually taste it!
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Skilling	11/05/2002	Medium	Medium	Medium	Tolerable
Several Months ago: I bought this blend several months ago due to being without!! I normally grab Skandinavik Regular(Brown) when this occurs but the supermarket didn't have any!! Pouch aroma was "that Borkum Riff smell". That's the best I can do. Not as soury smelling as their Whiskey blend though. Texture of tobacco: A little on the moist side, but not bad. I did have to relight a couple times. Of the couple bowls that I smoked, I could definitly taste the burleys. Heavy nutty taste. It got me thru the evening. This Week: Found the pouch laying about and decided to give it another go. The package aroma was still the same but it had maybe gained the "that BR smell" a little. Texture now dry after a couple months. Tasted strong burley when not being bombarded by the nuts, nougats and truffle. The N,N and T kept coming in and out regularly. In fact, at times, I sensed cloves! Final: The Borkum Riff Black Cav got me thru the night and out of a jam. It could be a tobacco for one who is working around the house and not wanting to give his smoke full attention. The nuts, nougats and truffle "do" come out to play.
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Mitrich	10/10/2002	Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
The taste of tobacco is rather mild and sweet, but it is a lot of nicotine in this tobacco. The flavor is weak but pleasant, does not require focusing. The tobacco burns evenly, does not overheat a pipe. Unless the huge amount of nicotine prevents to smoke this tobacco and to be engaged in habitual matters.
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