Lane Limited - Crown Achievement pipe tobacco reviews

Review

Please log in to add or edit a review. If you do not have an account yet, you can sign up for one here.

Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 29 of 29 reviews of this tobacco
RCUSElder	04/06/2004	Medium	None detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable
I actually liked this blend,so here goes: This comes in bulk only these days, so there is no tin to open. I didn't smell any flavoring, but there is definitely a humectant in this. Appearance: Medium ribbon cut, black, brown, mohagany, and yellow leaf abounds. Moisture: Actually, not too moist, considering the humectant that is present. Lighting: Easily, with two lights typical. Flavor: To me, this is a refinement of 965. Just the right amount of cavendish, not cloyingly sweet like 965. A nice interplay of leaf with the Dubec giving a nice counterpoint to the cavendish. The latakia is there mainly as a condiment. The VA is there only for support. Mid-bowl flavor is smooth, round, and enjoyable. Bottom third gets a little more intense with a little Perique making its prescence known. Ash is mottled and dry, the only moisture was in the shank and a pipecleaner took care of that. When you smell the pipe-cleaner, then you really can smell the humectant. Overall: this is a good replacement for 965 IMO. It has less nicotine, a smoother flavor and is cheaper. Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Points. Enjoy.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
chaplikc	02/26/2004	Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable
I wonder who recognizes this as the worlds most outstanding smoking mixture as indicated in lanes description? I certainly would disagree with that statement! A friend of mine gave me a tin of this and I was eagerly waiting to try this because of the description. I also figured that if it was somehow corolated with Charatan Crown achievement pipes made in the lane era than this must be special. This just did not stand out with me in its genre. The only thing that stood out to me was the description and the name. Give it to lane for good marketing! While it is not bad it is definately not great. There are many other blends in this genre that I would rather smoke. I will not give this the lowest rating because if it was given to me I may smoke it while working in the garage or something. This is way to average for me to pay for when there are many other blends in this genre that are better.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Pounder 5000	04/09/2003	Very Mild	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable
Yuck!!! This is not my kind of tobacco at all. This stuff is some of the wettest smoking crud I have ever put into my pipe. My wife bought an ounce of this stuff at the local tobacco shop to go with a new pipe and a tin of Royal Yacht that she knew I wanted to try. The owner recommended this and IQ when she asked for some good samples. I know this guy but he didn't know she was my wife. I'm at a loss as to why he would recommend it. Perhaps he is trying to cut down on his customer base. Why do tobacconists even carry this crap is beyond me, but I have to assume that someone buys it. I'm going to have to have a talk with him! In his defense all she told him was that I liked English Tobaccos. The tobacco started out a little like 965 in that it was definitely English with some sort of cased cavendish added to it. I wasn't to bad through the first third of the bowl if a little boring. Through the second third however, it got extremely sour and bitter. This is the first tobacco that I couldn't even finish. When I went to empty out my bowl I found the problem. The remaining dreck in my pipe was nothing but a slimy ball of ash and wet tobacco. This might be alright if dried out, but I'm not sure I want to wait for ten years for the glycol to wear off. I personally don't think this tobacco is worth the effort. FWIW this stuff was sold under the generic name of English Oriental. Be on the look out and beware!!!!!
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Tantric	04/07/2003	Strong	None detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong
I had heard much about this blend, and the manufacturer?s description, as well as the name, seemed rather enticing. I ordered 4 Oz. On opening the zip-lock plastic bag I was taken in by quite a strong aroma, rich, darkly sweet and pungent, as of a sediment of unsweetened dark chocolate, and dried plums and figs, in musky earth. Slightly moist, visually it re-minded me of the Balkan Sobranie, with a sweeter note to it. I though I was in for a Brahams or Bruckner kind of experience. When I lit the pipe my first reaction was one of surprise. This really is not a full strength blend, and it is not entirely an English, at least not in the way I am used to. Not bad, but oddly stuffy. I couldn?t help per-ceiving a faint resemblance both to Dunhill?s 965 (a tobacco I am smoking much of again) and Astley?s 99. But where these two offer an intense and deep diversity of flavors, Crown Achievement seemed stifled. I don?t know if the many elements that go into CA are unable to truly mix, or if the mixture is designed in such a way that one is meant not to perceive them in delicate interplay but as one big blast of a dark, bitter concoction. To put it mildly: seldom have I been so quickly bored by an allegedly diverse mixture. You get the first big notes, thinking this is going to be a hell of a symphony, only to find that the ensuing music (or taste) is frankly cacophonous. It just keeps on discordantly repeating itself and, IMO, does not take you anywhere. A tobacco of circular taste, this maybe some-thing a less adventurous palate might enjoy. One can think of that statue next to Michelan-gelo?s David at the Piazza della Signoria, in Florence: big, but with no grace or subtlety.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Blackhorse	12/29/2002	Medium	None detected	Full	Unnoticeable
Well, this from a novice pipe stoker (20 pipes with a stash of 30 or so blends in the larder) I seem to have stumbled onto either an old tin or a new tin (if Lane doesn't make this in the tin anymore, as noted above) I found recently as a single in a local small shop. Whatever the "vintage" I find the tin version very enjoyable. Pungent. Very English. Very Oriental. Tickles my nose in the pouch. Packs and lights very well and burns nicely in a new Tomas Spanu 200C Rusticated 1/4 bent medium size. Some time ago I picked up a few ounces of the bulk version on the recommendation of a good blender in a high end shop locally and was disappointed (looks to be coarser in cut and not as "fresh")...this however is a delight, though does not take to being relit after sitting.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
CJ	12/18/2002	Mild	Extremely Mild	Very Mild	Tolerable
In appearance, this looks like a well balanced English blend. There are a full range of colors to the mixture. The pouch aroma, however, is different from my usual English Latakia-Oriental blends. There might be some aromatic addition. The first few puffs lead me to believe that this is going to be a good inexpensive blend that I could fit into my rotation. After the first few puffs, the blend falls apart on me. It turns into a strange mixture that switches from a good English to a ?. I don't know what. It just keeps fading in an out for me. I have tried this a good dozen times, yet I have never finished a bowl. It does not satisfy me. On the plus side, it does not bite. There are plenty of superior blends to smoke, for both the experienced smoker and/or a new pipester.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
pmonroeb	07/29/2002	Medium to Strong	None detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong
What a disappointment. I smoked Balkan Sobranie 759 and the tinned version of Crown Achievement almost exclusively for 15 years. I always found CA to be a good change of pace because of its spiciness from orientals. There was nothing else quite like it. Lane no longer makes CA in tins and the bulk version is just another English mixture that is no different from any number of other blends. Not that there is anything wrong with it, there is just nothing to distinquish it. Worth a try, but not the CA of old.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
howie	05/14/2002	Medium	Medium	Medium to Full	Tolerable
This is a mottled blend of latakia, bright virginia, and turkish. The initial taste is sweet, which turns to a sour, citrus-like flavor before settling down after the first ¼-1/3 of a bowl to a spicy just-there-it-ness. There is a background (sometimes front note) that reminds me of Vanilla that I don?t quite care for. This, overall, needs some more complexity to be enjoyable on a regular basis. (5/2002)
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
dgifford	01/13/2002	Medium to Strong	Very Mild	Medium	Strong
A decent English-type blend. There seems to be a glycerin casing as well as a slight vanilla casing to the cavendish. There is a great variation to the cut as well. The tobacco burns rather wet and can impart a musty after odor to a briar. I enjoyed it in the beginning, however after a few sessions, I would not make this a regular.
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 29 of 29 reviews of this tobacco