Benson & Hedges Special (Mellow) Virginia

Mild Virginia is an excellent choice when looking for a cheap, uncomplicated smoke. In spite of its name, it has nothing to do with the bygone excellent Benson & Hedges pipe tobaccos, such as Cut Plug, Sullivan?s Mixture or the wonderful Original Virginia Flake (IMO one of the best tobaccos there ever was).

This is a more commercial product, blended by Rothmans or Odgen?s of Liverpool, and together with St. Bruno, Clan, and Erinmore, it can easily be found in any news stand or Deli, anywhere in England. Ready rubbed, the tobacco is mainly light brown, with some darker strands thrown in, very soft and silky (not syrupy). It is easy to pack, it tends to burn cool, and it has a nice, nutty flavour. The room aroma is quite agreeable (to the point that non smokers would actually praise it) and subtle, dissipating quickly. For more experienced smokers, this tobacco would be a trifle bland, and not at all a memorable smoke. Then again, it is an excellent choice for beginners.

Think of it as an upgraded Gold Block, or the English version of American drug store blends.

I bought this as I wanted to try a few of the easily found brands and the tesco just a mile away has it. First off I can't rate room notes as I'm an outdoor smoker and have no sense of smell. Moving on inhaling over the tobacco gives a faint creamy vanilla 'taste' and that is the highlight. It smokes like there is very little there and I ended up throwing it into rolling tobacco every now and then which once it's dry and crumbled a bit it works fairly well. In pipes though no it's not great it's bland insipid stuff. Buy if it's all they have but don't go looking for it

Not for me - tasted of cheap cigarettes, I have watered this down with a cherry cavendish to get through it. Would not buy this again.

I agree with others who have noted the peculiar Jekyll & Hyde way in which this one starts out as a rather nice mild smoke but then becomes quite nasty. It is the only pipe tobacco sold by my local newsagent; and it is a pity that a blend that is quite widely available is not better quality. Good enough for an emergency, I suppose, but I would recommend only ever smoking half-way through the bowl.

This tobacco reminds me of chewing gum. It starts off with a pleasant flavour then soon becomes bland and insipid. This is a blend and not as the name indicates a Virginia tobacco. There is Virginia in it but there is also other stuff too.

Once the lovely sticky toffee flavour has worn off you are left with a very mediocre tobacco. There is none of the blending skill you find in quality blended tobacco. I think part of the reason for this is that they have used very average tobaccos to go in the blend. This is not the worst tobacco I've tried but is sure is not the best by a long way. The good thing about Mellow Virginia is that it's cheap and readily available. If I was to buy a supermarket tobacco I'd buy something else. If the topping lasted the whole bowl I'd give it more points but it doesn't so I wont. All in all a disapointing smoke, not recommended, there are far better tobaccos out there.

Not on my Desert Island list, sickly overwhelmingly sweet aroma from the pouch. Tastes very mild, but tolerable for perhaps the first ten minutes. However, tends to make pipes go wet, and after the first ten minuted the tobacco itself turns sour.

Not good....

An easily available leaf but thats about its only strength. Its room note is very sweet and almost sickly especially to others in the room. It needs to be re-lit often and with 1/2 to 1/3 of a bowl left it taste dreadfully ashy. My recommendation is hold out and buy a better quality tabacco.

i was very disappointed with this pipe tobacco but to be fair i did buy a few packets of it, but there was no kick to it,no room note to shout about,i was glad when i finished the packs and moved on.never again will i buy this tobacco. update....the fool that i am i bought a pouch of this stuff again after a very long layoff,i said i would never buy this tobacco again..well i let my guard down and i bought some...let me say that mellow virgina has changed.....i will repeat that..mellow virgina has changed....but not for the better..in fact is worse..a lot worse than it ever was,its more bland than i care to remember it as it was years ago..please dear reader...leave this alone..i hate the stuff.and i mean it this time...never will i buy it again.

Perhaps its because I'm a novice and I've only just started smoking a pipe and this is my first tobacco..but I find this tobacco pretty disappointing. The pouch aroma is pleasant although I am sure it smells vaguely chemical to me, the sort of smell a cheap cigarette gives off. Upon lightning a bowl it is very mild and uncomplicated and can be quite pleasant to smoke requiring little attention to keeping it lit etc. But then in the last half of the bowl this all seems to change..no matter how I smoke this it just seems to give me horrible tongue bite, burn the roof of my mouth and leave my throat feeling jagged. A disappointment because like I said, the first half is very nice to smoke. I have smoked about half the pouch and on 2 occasions dumped the bowl and wasted product because the mouth burn was just THAT bad. I wouldn't recommend.