Cornell & Diehl Bright Virginia Ribbon

Since I'm the first to review this, I'll be a little more thorough.

In short, a nice straight Virginia for smoking as-is or blending. All your favorite characteristics for a light Virginia are present: naturally sweet, slightly grassy, slightly hay-like, easy light flavor. Like any straight Virginia, the flavor is straight-ahead and mono-dimensional. Also like any other straight Virginia, it requires proper cadence to prevent burning hot / biting. Like most un-aged Virginias, it has the slightly rough edges of youth. I'd imagine aging this would do very nice things. Not that it's harsh when fresh, but not the exceptional smoothness / complexity of well aged Virginia either.

In the bulk bag, it's just a little damp which can make relights more frequent if you're trying to not over-puff. Dry it a little, and this problem goes away. The ribbons are rather fine cut, and golden in color. Aroma is very mild, typical of Virginia's.

All in all, it serves my intent rather well: a straight ahead blending tobacco to lighten / sweeten any blend without adding tons of character of it's own. I can even smoke it on it's own like I would a VaPer or Virginia flake, although it's just a touch thin for a frequent stand-alone smoke.

I bought a pound to use as a blending tobacco but decided to try it on its own and I'm glad I did.

From the bag, it is a little drier than I'd like. The tin note almost reminded me of cut grass/hay and was very pleasant. The thin ribbons are easy to pack in any pipe. Easy to light and keep lit.

As you'd expect from the mixture, it is very consistent tasting through the bowl. A little sweetness, a little citrus, but a solid smoke from light down to the gray ash at the bottom of the bowl.

The nicotine strength seems very light. my wife thought the room note was a little towards cigarette (she's a cig smoker). No tongue bite unless you really push it when it will burn hot.

I've also combined this with 10% perique get a great easy VaPer. Going to run that combo through the noodle press to see how it marries as a crumble cake.

I bought this specifically for blending purposes and it fit this role better than I expected. My expectations for any C&D Virginia is that it will be less sweet than I prefer, but this one was very sweet and delivered exactly the hay and citrus notes that I was looking for as a blending ingredient. It also comes dry (perfect for me) and the cut was ideal for blending IMO.

This is kind of tough to rate this if you try to be objective or subjective as there are two ways of looking at this tobacco: one, as a blending tobacco, and two, as a straight Virginia.

As a straight Virginia, this is actually better than more than a few tinned Virginia products from other blenders, but still does not rise to the level of a four star Virginia IMO; However, I would not hesitate to give it three stars as I did enjoy smoking this straight.

As a blender, this may rise to the level of four stars for most as mentioned above it has what you want for blending. I recently finished the last jar off adding it to some heavier lat blends to make them more palatable for the hot months of summer. In fact, every time I added this to any blend it seemed to make said blend taste better to me.

So does it rate four stars because of its blending capabilities? I don't know, but I don't think it should as someone may find much better blending results using four star straight Virginias for the purpose of blending. Fortunately I have more of this and I think I may just have to pop one of my favorite Virginias just for blending purposes and see for myself. For now, I will leave this at three stars and perhaps, pick up another 8 ounces for the cellar.

Unlike my experience with C&D's Red Virginia Ribbon, Bright Virginia carries more nuance when smoked alone. The hay notes drive the bus but hints and notes of caramel, vanilla, and table sugar are always in play. A slight creaminess would develop as the bowl continued as well. Leaves minimal moisture and a nice room note. A great blend on its own right and as a blender.3/5 stars

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