Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia

This tin came with a little over a year on it from TP. A mildly sweet blend with notes of light citrus, hay, and honey for the first quarter of the bowl. It develops a buttery ginger spice quality with hints of caramel/toffee as it progresses. Fleeting hints of an odd chalky flavor which appear randomly and not in every bowl. However, unfortunately, there are a *lot* of rough edges and harshness in this blend which cover up an otherwise good profile. It gets acrid very easily. The finish gets hot and ashy at the heel, each bowl. For being just over a year old, this should be much better than it is.When the harsh edges recede, which is rare, and the profile fully presents it’s rather good. Unfortunately that just doesn’t happen anywhere near enough to mitigate the unpleasant aspects.

The tin presentation is top shelf; it comes in typical MacB fashion of extremely uniform stacked flakes wrapped in a thick shiny gold paper. The leaf quality, while not poor, leaves something to be desired. The burn qualities are generally good, but can get hot if pushed even slightly. Each bowl was a one light affair. Aside from the moments of really good profile notes, it is consistently “meh” from bowl to bowl. Even with its failures, it is extremely repeatable as far as impact on the palate and can easily be an all day smoke for those so inclined.

However. All that being said, I did get a distinct chemical fertilizer taste in my final bowl out of 5 smoked. That was alarming and really not good. Anything that can give that taste I won't smoke.