Mac Baren Three Nuns Green

It is a Curly Cut like the original Three Nuns red label. Loose spun curly cut discs in the size of small coins. The moisture in tin is spot on to smoke right out of the tin. Although, after opening the tin you should keep it under some moisture to prevent it from dying further.

Base and body of Three Nuns Green (3NG) is formed by a selection of different Virginias, mainly of the dark sort. The typical aroma-palette of the Virginias is all there, but it is slightly pushed aside by a strong, peppery Perique without the usual notes of dried fruit. Dark Fired Kentucky is on stage too, but it is a little more in the background and donates tasty notes of spices, no notes of smoke or campfire.

However, the secret star of the show is Perique. It provides exclusively an aroma of powerful White Pepper and makes this mixture quite strong, especially after the first third of the bowl. Therefore it is not an all-day mixture for me; I could not smoke several bowls in a row. I enjoy smoking it after dinner.

To me 3NG is a deep digging mixture, combining numerous flavours of the above mentioned tobaccos. This mixture is definitely in my wheelhouse. I find it delicious and interesting enough to introduce it into my rotation.

Modern tin design with a classic feel, looks good.

Little coins, medium moist. Dries quickly and then the coins fall apart. Either way, it’s easy to pack and relatively easy to light.

Tin note is “ketchupy”-BBQ but not overpowering. Typical Va/Per spices with medium-high intensity. Lovely.

Stuff and fold works. Straightforward aromatic intensity all the way to the end. Round and full bodied, meaty and fruity too. Pleasure to smoke. Not too spicy to bite. Gets very very hot though, even in my largest pipes, even with a pipe competition smoking speed. This is possibly due to the high sugar content.

Classic Va/Per, a must in the cellar / rotation for people suffering in Tobacco Acquisition Disorder (quote: Bruno).

Worth the money.

Looking forward to age this for a long-long time and see how it performs 5 years later.

Comes from the tin a little dry but ready to smoke. The blend is spun cut into very small coins. They are loosely spun, and break apart easy. From appearance, each coin contains a varying amount of Dark Fired Kentucky. Some have almost none at all, and other are mostly comprised of it. The tin aroma is mostly Virginia with a good portion of the Kentucky. The VAs smell of strong hay, with a touch of sweetness, and a little bit of grass. The Kentucky is smoky and tangy, with a lot of earth and spice. The perique is in the background but offers a little bit of a dark fruit aroma.

From the first puff, Three Nuns Green sports complexity in its flavor profile. The Virginias are mildly sweet and on the darker side, but has a light touch of grass with some citrus lurking in the background. I find the perique as a lead player behind the VAs. They offer a lot of black pepper and spice, and give a little bit of tingle in the tongue. It also offers a bit of dark fruit, but not quite the usual plum note perique gives me. I would say it’s closer in taste to a prune. The Kentucky is more then a condiment but it isn’t quite a lead player. The flavor notes are very much like the aroma notes, smoky, earthy, and spicy. In a addition to these, the Kentuckys are also savory and sport a hint of a floral, musty, and woody undertones.

3 Nuns Green smoked slow and cool, but could bite a little if puffed fast. Smoked slowly, it was well behaved and offered a wide range of flavors. It needed a few relights but not enough to worry. It smokes dry with a satisfying Nicotine hit, though I could smoke this blend more than once a day. 3.75 out of 4 stars.

I will admit up front that I started smoking this blend because Three Nuns was proportedly C.S. Lewis' favorite smoke. I picked up a tin of the Three Nuns Orange and liked it a lot. It has a lot of hay and sweet grass notes. I read online, however, that the current Three Nuns is nothing like what the famed Oxford Author smoked since they had changed the recipe and removed the Perique. So I started on a quest to find a similar VaPer and all the groups online seem to agree the this blend and Savinelli's Doblone d'Oro are the closest. I have to say this is not my first tin of Three Nuns and it won't be the last.

When you first open the tin, you find some loose coins and spun tobacco packed to the brim of the tin. The tin note is slightly bready, hay like, sweet grass, there is almost a hint of BBQ from some Dark Fired, and there is a raisiny plumyness from the perique. Filling a pipe is easy the loose tobacco packs well and the coins easily rub out. Lighting is really easy, and it keeps lit really well. The room note is typical of VaPers.

Once you light it I taste hay and bread from the Virginia's but the Dark Fired comes through adding dark fruit, and a slight after taste of BBQ. The slower you puff the more you enjoy. I get some really nice Perique spice on the retrohale. I think this has a very rounded flavor profile. It isn't melding together but the components really sit well with each other. In my experience I finish a bowl of this and Immediately pack another. I can't say how it ages as I've never had a tin sit long enough without being smoked. My only qualm is that they don't sell it in bulk otherwise I'd buy several pounds of it in a heartbeat. Overall the taste is a strong medium and the strength is more of a mild - medium.

If you interested in a nice complex VaPer to sit down with, give this a try. Highly recommended.

I really like this one. Bought it on a whim out of curiosity. It sat unopened for a while in my cellar. Grabbed it recently to give it a shot and wow! This is much better than I expected! Don't get me wrong, I knew this would be a quality product, but I sort of anticipated a run on the mill Vaper/Ky, and I got so much more. After I smoked a few bowls of this I went to the interwebs to grab a few more tins to put away and ..........ugh, such is the life of a pipe smoker.

VaPers are my home base. They are where I am most comfortable. For me, my favorite type of Virginia is the high note. The bright, sweet, citrus type Virginias. For this reason, I sometimes have issues with Vapers that have included dark fired Kentucky. Dont get me wrong, this combo can work, and has many times. Unfortunately, I find in some blends, the addition of DFK just muddies up the works. It can be like a bad cup of lapsang souching tea. Yes it it supposed to have a smoky flavor, but I still want to taste tea.

Long story short, this blend does very well of balancing everything. The flavor profile does shift throughout the bowl, but often times it is so subtle I don't even notice at first.

This was a 2018 tin. When opened, the coins were pretty sloppily presented, kinda a ready rubbed coin situation if there was a thing. You could find some whole pieces to stack if you wanted to. There was less moisture than I anticipated, and wondered if the seal had been compromised even thought I got that nice vacuum "Whoomp" on opening, but it performed beautifully so who cares?

The start of the bowl is right in my sweet spot. Bright, high note, sweet, citrusy Virginias. Very nice. This gradually mellows out through the journey of the bowl, and will gain strength and gravitas as it reached toward the heel. very nice.

If you happen to find some of this out there, even though it is out of production, DO NOT BUY IT! Just leave it right there and let me know where it is located, I will take care of the rest.

Purchased yesterday, I really like Three Nuns Red, so I thought to give the Green a try

It seems this tin was made in around 2018. If so, they have already been aging for 5+ years.

In the tin: As with the Yellow I purchased at the same time, the coins are small, thin and quite dry. Aroma of Ketchup / BBQ as other as mentioned.

After rubbing out: it packs and lights easily. The whole bowl only needed one relight. Burns perfectly. No tongue bite.

Flavour: Thick and somewhat rich (but not too rich), full of Virginias and Kentucky, very well balanced, with the subtle hint of Perique in the background. Very pleasant and relaxing. Sort of a lighter bodied, but still flavourful, version of Three Nuns Red.

Conclusion: It's good. It's not as heavy or rich as Three Nuns Red, which can be nice if you are looking for something lighter in your bowl. Would I buy again? Well, considering the production was stopped, I will be buying the last three tins that at my local shop. It's a pity they stopped production of this.

Tin note of sharp tart plums and tangy sweet. Tobacco is a Curly Cut of light brown, medium brown and dark brown coins. Moisture content is great and rubs out easily. Burns slow with few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and mostly/very consistent, with notes of sweet bread, dry wood, spice, Rasin, leather, spicy, tangy plum, floral, peaty vegetation, earth, mildly savory, mildly herbal, rich ripe dark fruity, a lemon grassy background note, and a peppery retro. Virginia is leading with Kentucky and Perique supporting. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.