Samuel Gawith Perfection

Interesting to taste. Interesting to observe. Interesting to smell. Latakia touch is more than a touch and virginia make the difference. But that's all. sry guys.

This was one of my first ventures into an english blend as I'm fairly new to pipes and am still in my aromatic honeymoon phase. I thought that having a mild vanilla flavouring may prove a nice transition, but I didn't get any hint of vanilla at all. I am not a fan right now, but It didn't offend me. I used to hate mushrooms as a kid but now I love them, you never know what the future holds with this tobacco for me. I plan on going back to this occasionally for more input. As far as a smoker of a few years and in the early stages of trying more savoury tobaccos, this tasted like ground wood chips to me. Other than that it lit well, it's smoked cool, had to pace myself a little more to avoid tongue bite.

"Perfection" or hubris? "Perfection" probably has more marketing appeal than "meh".

Given that I can't detect any vanilla, I'd describe it as like smoking Squadron Leader when you've a head cold.

The verdict of this smoker : 's okay I suppose, but I'd rather have some squadron leader.

I decided to buy this tobacco, as my curiosity was aroused by the description of an English Mixture that contains a light vanilla scent. This aroma is not very detectable, except, maybe, from the first 2-3 puffs, while showing good faith and being totally convinced that YES, it does contain vanilla. The tobacco is very, but very, moist.

It is exhausting to dry it out, to fill the bowl, to light it up and try to keep it burning.

Ouf, I'm tired. I said I wanted to smoke, not take a stress and patience test. In the end, an uninteresting mixture by Samuel Gawith.

The only interesting thing for me in this tobacco was to find out the breed of the dog on the label.

Perfection is mild, the operative word in the description is "steamed". So do not expect a strength or taste powerhouse. If you have gone a few days without a smoke this may be a nice treat.

If you smoke everyday, you will find this a bit bland and try to smoke harder to get some flavor from the thin wispy smoke, only to burn your tongue off. This puppy will nip hard with its sharp little teeth.

My tin was from 2005 on eBay. The tin aroma was hard to find to say the least. The tin had kept its seal.

The latakia is very slight, the vanilla is faint ( I can get the same vanilla taste by soaking a Grabow filter in vanilla flavoring ). Although the combination of vanilla and latakia is pleasant.

This is not a blend I will buy again, and so will not recommend it.

Read SirLoirn below for more details.

Acceptable, even pleasant, but not outstanding.

The problem may be that this one hasn't yet decided what it is. Is it an English? Is it an aromatic? Hard to tell. If somebody was looking for a vanilla, I wouldn't suggest this, as I found the vanilla hard to detect. Good tobacco taste and Latakia is present, though, so if an aromatic smoker was looking to explore English tobaccos, I might suggest this as a nice introduction.

Overall, a pleasant, but somewhat puzzling, blend.

Disappointing mixture...

Despite appearing as an English mixture being completed with a vanilla topping, which triggered my interest, it turned out as being bland.

Maybe I should have let it age first?

I am not a huge fan of heavy nicotine tobaccos so I approached this one with a measure of anticipation, hoping to find a regular all day smoke. While it is not a poor tobacco it is not for me. I am going to let the tin dry out a bit and see if the flavour improves. At times I felt like I was sucking on air, especially during the first part of the bowl. I liked how the vanilla came in and out of the smoke but there was not much else going on for me. I didn't really notice the Latakia. On the plus side it took ages to burn and was a long smoke, regrettably it was a long boring smoke.

It's quite a funny blend because sometimes it smokes just ok and sometimes bad enough not to smoke it again. But there is another issue with this one , i don't quite understand it .It's sure not a complex blend but a UFO blend type.The kind you don't know what to say or think of it while smoking.

2 stars just because it sometimes smoke ok.