Borkum Riff Cherry Cavendish (Ruby)

This blend has improved significantly since production was moved to Denmark- the Orlik factory I believe. I have tried the old version & it was wet, bitter, & consistently bit my tongue. I bought this recently to see if there was any difference after I noticed the new packaging. And there is! From the pouch the moisture is on the dry side. It packs easily & has a wonderful room note. The flavour of the tobacco is much better. It is complex & has depth. I can taste the nuttiness of the burley, the sweetness of the Virginia, & the tang I presume is from the cherry casing. The flavours come in & out over the duration of the smoke. Since I have become more of an English & Va smoker, I find this blend surprisingly pleasant & interesting. It's quiet good for a change of pace. I'm glad I tried it again.

Don't confuse this blend with BR Cherry Liqueur blend. The names are similar but they do taste different. I suspect the bad reviews here are a result of the confusion. This blend smokes clean, dry and tasty - the other stuff is a goopy mess. If you like cherry blends, BR Cherry and Middleton's Cherry are your best bet although BR isn't cased quite as heavily.

Another dreadful offering from Borkum Riff: hot, wet and horrible. I suspect that new, young pipe smokers looking for novelty are the customers who will be chiefly drawn to this; but I can't imagine even people who like heavily-cased aromatics enjoying the artificial, cheap and nasty “Cherry” flavour of Cherry Cavendish for long. Blecch!

I remember being given cough mixture as a child that tasted a little like this, only cooler. I don't know what chemical is used to create this effect, but it's nothing like any cherry I've come across. The tobacco itself is nondescript and, I suspect, not of good quality. The casing is vile and, I imagine, only there to try to cheer up a third-rate leaf.

If you want to try Cherry Cavendish, just to be broad-minded, be warned: the flavour will linger in your pipe for ages. If you're looking for an aromatic, there are plenty to choose from out there that are far superior to this: Gawith & Hoggarth Cherry & Vanilla, for example. I wouldn't wish Cherry Cavendish on my worst enemy.

I love my aromatics but this tobacco was not at all what I had expected. First off, just smelling the tobacco before lighting it, the aroma was absolutely unnatural. It smelled alot like a cherry cough drop. So I proceed to smoke it and the cherry and vanilla flavour that the description boasts is non existent! It tasted like some dry, stale, virginia without any flavour or aroma at all. What a waste of $7.00! If you are at the local drug store and you are stuck between choosing this stuff or Captain Black, make it Captain Black. I literally threw this stuff in the garbage after trying it. I didn't even finish the bowl!

This tobacco is absolutely awesome, that is, if you've somehow managed to lose 97% of your taste buds in some horrible accident.

It's a pain to get it to light, and when you finally do, you wish you hadn't. The smell in the pouch is pretty decent, though you can tell it's been laced with all sorts of chemicals. However, despite the somewhat pleasant smell in the pouch, none of it whatsoever translates to the actual smoke.

It burns hot, it bites, and most of the time it tastes like you're smoking ash.

You'd be better off crumpling a 5 dollar bill in your pipe and smoking it. I'm sure it wouldn't be as bad as this.

I could smell this tobacco before I even opened the packet. Mmmmmmm. Or so I thought.

The flavour drifts in and out as you progress throught the bowl and it can get a little strong and bitey if smoked too hard.

It's a bugger to keep alight and the more you fight with it the hotter and harsher it gets.

Much as I love the smell of this tobacco, I still have some left that I return to from time to time to remind myself what could have been.

Not recommended for new pipers.

In my experience, no other tobacco elicits a greater positive response from non-smokers than this one. "Heavenly", "delicious", "divine" are some of the descriptions you'll hear from non-smokers. Why then, do some smokers dislike the room note? Simply because it doesn't smell like conventional, "stinky"tobacco smoke which is the very reason non-smokers love it so much.

The pouch aroma is a mix between cherry flavoured Kool-Aid and Life-Savers. Once lit, it changes into a warm, sweet cherry pie baking in the oven. A warm dough smell enfolds the sweet cherry note to produce a comforting confectionary aroma.

The room note is strong. After lighting your pipe, it won't be long before people from 50 feet away turn their heads. Don't smoke this if you are shy or dislike attention!

I was pleasantly surprised by the taste. This tobacco does not have the same flat, hot air qualities of many other aromatics. The tobacco is of medium strength and the taste is full, not only as a result of the cherry flavouring but also due to the tobacco strength. The tobacco used is mainly burley and the leaf is of average quality. Once properly lit, it burns well although not quite as easily as say a Pipeworks & Wilke aromatic. It will heat up if you puff like a train, but that is hardly necessary as a result of the full flavour and above average (for an aromatic) tobacco strength. I have not experienced any bite from this tobacco, but I smoke slowly - I prefer to purposefully let my pipe go out a few times. Sometimes a medium sized bowl lasts me two hours.

I smoke this tobacco only about once every three months. If you approach this tobacco correctly and appreciate it for what it tries to be, you can have great fun with it.

like the other borkum riff line (an over the counter european version) cased burly cavendish that burns okay with moderat attention and if smoked moderatly it might spare you tounge! the room note is friendly and the price is right plus it packs allright but defiantly weak on the taste department..i found the cherry casing fades away the more you go through the bowl (as it is the case with most commercial otc blends). might be a a chouce for that pace of change but certainly not a daily cup of tea for me.

I picked up a pouch of this as well as a pouch of Captain Black Royal mostly out of pity. I wandered into a cigar shop hoping to find some tins of something interesting and instead I found a forlorn and lonely looking guy presiding over a dismal cigar inventory and a few pouches of pipe weed. Sign of the times, I suppose. I figured, 'What the heck?' I'd never tried either brand. For that matter, I'd never even tried a pouch tobacco. I'm a Canuck living in the US and so even the highest priced tins look cheap to me.

It's entirely possible that I'm just a spoiled brat, but I'm pretty sure that this is one of the worst tobaccos on earth. It's cherry-very-cherry in the pouch but curiously mouth-drying when smoked. The leaf--a mix of yellow and black Cavendish ribbons--looks and feels second-tier. I managed to get through half a bowl at standard Virginia-smoking pace (which is pretty slow) before I had to head to the freezer for a bowl of ice cream. For me, that's reason enough to avoid it: Borkum Riff will make me fat.

If you smoke exclusively for those around you (and if you do, you are a fool) then go ahead and have at it. If price is an issue, I recommend that you smoke half as much and buy better tobacco.

I would buy it again in the same situation. That guy really looked down and downer. But I sure wouldn't smoke it.