Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Clan Aromatic (Original)

The horrors of Clan are well-documented on this site. To repeat what is often said: it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It is a tobacco dreamed up by a cigarette smoker who is making a bad guess at the pipe-smoking experience. If you're reading, it's not even close, my friend.

It is often said that over-the-counter brands rely heavily on casings for effect and flavour. In Clan the casing is napalm, and the flavour is fire. It will burn your pipe, your fingers, your tongue; and it will probably toast the roof of your mouth if you're foolish enough to persist in smoking it.

Smoked in a pipe it is not really possible to differentiate between the different types of tobacco blended to make Clan; mainly because the pipe quickly becomes a fire tunnel. By rolling Clan in a cigarette it becomes possible to taste a variety of flavours. However, they do not mix well together - there's no subtlety or art in the blending; and the tobacco does not have a defining moment. Another major problem is that Clan appears to have no discernible nicotine hit, so as both pipe and cigarette tobacco it fails... it fails in every way.

It is mild enough because it tastes of nothing; its room note appears non-existent. I smoked it in three pipes - a 1980s Dunhill Bruyere, a 19th century Mahogany Meerschaum, and a no-name pipe. The Meerschaum gave me the best experience because I was able to sip. It didn't improve much, but at least I was aware I was smoking something other than the napalm casing.

Clan is still sold in supermarkets in the UK - it is almost always dried out because it has been sitting on the shelf for so long. I felt I wasn't giving the tobacco a fair chance without attempting to re-hydrate it; unfortunately any attempt to re-hydrate it results in it tasting even worse. I'm sure there is a way of reviving this tobacco by adding something innocuous - a slice of orange peel, or a potato peeling. Unfortunately I don't have the money to throw away on experimenting.

I've seen this tobacco referred to as cheap. In the UK, because of taxes, there is no such thing as a cheap tobacco - a bad pouch of Clan will cost you as much as a beautiful pouch of St Bruno. In such a situation you would think Clan would have been withdrawn a long time ago; yet it persists; staring sullenly at me across the tobacco counter, and every so often I answer its gaze by buying it, thinking I might be rewarded for my audacity. But every time it disappoints.

Not at all recommended. Not at all. Still, I feel reluctant to be so honest - if only because I fear Clan will be withdrawn from supermarkets and we'll find out afterwards, too late, that if only we'd crumbled some essence of cobweb into the pouch it would have become a world-class smoke. But I doubt it.

I doubt Clan very much.

Seeing tantric's listing of this blend in the New Reviews section reminded me that I have never reviewed this blend although I smoked a pouch about a year ago. I scrambled for my diary to get out my notes (I have been keeping a personal tobacco review diary for about 25 years). Anyway, tantric's review pretty much sums up my feelings about this blend, except that I see no comparison at all between Clan and St. Bruno Flake.

Clan is indeed a finely shag cut tobacco. And boy, is it dry in the pouch -- indeed very similar to Flying Dutchman. It packs and burns well, and is a spicy son of a gun! I may be wrong, but I even detected a smidgen of latakia flavor in the smoke.

It can get steamy, so, have an ample supply of pipe cleaners. It can also be puffed up into the hot zone if not handled with care. All in all, an okay smoke, but I shall not ever smoke the stuff again.

The pouch note is delicious. Absolutely delicious. Packs really well. Can be found anywhere. This is the conclusion of anything positive I'm afraid . The tongue bite from this is literally incredible.your entire mouth needs to be made from asbestos to even contemplate smoking this. The pipe needs to be held with oven gloves. It's ridiculous.

I began pipe smoking around 1992, when I entered college. It was a time when tobacco wasn't considered a weapon of mass destruction, smoking was still considered to be a somewhat glamourous activity, and "Big-Cigarette-Tobacco" multinational companies hadn't started to buy and debase smaller blenders of pipe mixtures.

My parents then offered me a small pipe smoker's kit, which included an affordable "Amphora Milos" dutch filter pipe, and a huge 250 gr tin of Clan tobacco, which was by that time produced by Theodorus Niemeyer (nowadays the Clan brand belongs to British-American Tobacco Company and is blended by Orlik in Denmark).

Those where the days of pipe smoking. Me and my colleagues would spend whole evenings discussing philosophy and reciting poetry ? enacting our own version of the "Dead Poets' Society". Clan, or better said that old version of it, will always be part of my nostalgic remembrance of such happy times. It seemed such an honest blend, so tasteful, so trustworthy ? even after I discovered a truly high-quality favorite, Dunhill's London Mixture.

After more than a decade without puffing any pipe at all, I stumbled upon the old Amphora pipe. Trying to exorcise the sadness of fleeting years, I polished the briar, bought a pouch of Clan, disappointed to know that London Mixture had been meanwhile discontinued. I filled the bowl full of enthusiasm and nostalgia?

And then I got a second disappointment. This is not the Clan I knew. This is not even a decent tobacco, however cheap it might be priced. Clan has become a meaningless name in a label placed upon pouches containing dry grass, chloride and god-knows-what. It scorches the tongue as if it had been cased with napalm, then paves it with second-grade asphalt. So many expectations of reviving a bliss, such an anti-climax.

Clan the go-to tobacco of many a fledgeling pipe smoker and a huge mistake by the novice is made from the off! I think it must be the name and the tartan tobacco pouch, it conjures up images of the highland games and a kind of strength, how sadly mistaken one could be!

I first tried this forty-nine years ago and counting and the resulting foulness of the smoke has never departed my cerebral cortex, nor has my tongue fully forgiven me the Clan experience, such was, is, the memorable and inherent tongue bite one gets courtesy of Clan tobacco.

However one smokes this horrible mixture, it burns quicker and hotter than an Australian bush fire, which leaves any room with an unpleasant miasma similar to the fabled London fogs of yore. How anyone can like smoking this is beyond my comprehension! One must have to be a masochist a lover of the cat of nine tails administered by some 18th Century ships Bosun! The tongue bite is akin to setting a small campfire on one's tongue. The taste is like one imagines a soiled infant's terry towel nappy soaked in urine and smoked in ones favourite briar tastes like, it is also as wet as the aforementioned and leaves your pipe gurgling like a cheerful baby in its crib.

How this tobacco has stayed in production beats me, but as stated elsewhere there must be masochists among our pipe smoking fraternity, or it's the new pipe smokers who get lured in by the name and packaging that keeps this ghastly blend going. When one thinks of the likes of all the great tobaccos such as Digger, Redbreast and the like that have bitten the dust and Clan just carries on biting tongues like a Rabid Pitbull terrier on steroids, leaves me amazed!

The smoke is unpleasant, hot, wet and has nothing going for it apart from the great name and Tartan packet. I'd personally wager that Clan is responsible for the decline in pipe smoking because when one smokes this starting out with a new pipe the taste and experience is enough to scar one for life!

My tip to anyone starting out on the pipe and who wants a cool smoking aromatic, start on any of the following three tobaccos, Condor, St Bruno, or Ennerdale Flake, that way you will not need to seek medical help for your severe tongue bite and your head will remain un-haunted from the foul taste of this ghastly mixture, also your pipe will not be permanently ghosted.

Due to Lockdown I was forced to purchase some OTC tobacco. With a degree of trepidation I bought a 50g pouch of Clan Original.

It’s burns extremely quickly, leaving nothing but ash in record time. My usual tobacco will last around an hour per bowl, this no longer than 20 minutes. There is no dottle with this blend. The room note is pleasant in that there is little discernible afterwards.

In addition to speed of burn, it burns hot and were I less experienced and less careful it would burn the mouth and create an overwhelming tongue bite.

The taste is rather innocuous. I did taste some flavour, cardamom and other Middle Eastern tastes, although none of the fuller flavours I love. An interesting taste, it is wholly inoffensive.

On balance, it burns too quickly, overheats the pipe, is too mild for my taste, and brings the risk of severe mouth injuries. I will not buy again although it has been useful in getting me through lockdown. That said, it is not as horrific as other reviews have stated but it deserves nothing more than 1-2 out of 5.

I recently started smoking a pipe to quit cigarettes, and this was recommended by the shop owner. I thought it was what pipe tobacco was about and I was smoking it wrong because I was getting very hot pipes (tried it in 4 different ones), tongue burn, made me drool a lot, the bowl was lasting very little time... was not enjoying the experience, but stuck to it to not smoke cigarettes. I even ruined a pipe (a cheap, imperfect one).

After 3 weeks I bought a bunch of different blends to try, and to my surprise the Clan experience wasn't the norm. Smoking a pipe actually is a great 40 - 60 minutes affair, but this tobacco in particular was the problem. I'm still experimenting and trying blends, but so far this is the worst I had. It almost sent me back to cigarettes.

I would not recommend this to a novice pipe smoker. It was an awful experience, but I didn't knew any better.

During a trip to Italy the other year I managed to leave the tin of tobacco I had brought with me behind at a café in Rome. In dire need of more tobacco, I found a so-called tobacconist near where we were staying. Clan was the only pipe tobacco she carried. Having never heard of it before, I decided to give it a try, unwisely not going online first to look for reviews.

I'd consider this tobacco unsmokeable. The room note is tolerable enough, even pleasant, indeed that might be the only area in which this tobacco can be recommended. It smells well enough in the pouch. It doesn't taste much of anything, it burns so good you could use it as tinder, and if you aren't careful the tongue bite is out of this world.

I stuck with cigarettes and cigars for the rest of the trip.

A friend of mine smoked this stuff for 40+ years and swore by it. Well I swore at it! I really don't know what to say about this blend. It's not as un pleasant as some would have you believe but it's just too expensive for what you get. The pouch note is quite delicious. That's where it ends. It tastes like pine needles and napalm! Boy this stuff burns fast and hot. It matters not how you pack it, it will burn like nothing on earth. I didn't experience too much bite when sipped.It leaves a nice smell in the room but so does air freshner for a quid! I can't say what tobacco's are being used here, I just can't detect any particular tobacco type but I suspect there is a lot of cheap Burley here topped with chemical warfare. I can't recommend this blend when for the same money, or less, you can buy some really lovely tobacco. Stick to St Bruno or Condor for OTC blends or give up smoking if you can only buy this. Shame, if it had quality tobacco's with that lovely pouch note it could be a winner.