Mac Baren Amphora Kentucky Blend

While I still wonder why Amphora Burley Blend costs so little (as its quality far exceeds its price tag), I have no reasons to marvel about the same regarding another of the two new Amphora's mixtures: the Kentucky Blend. It costs exactly what it should cost: a lower price for a lower qualty tobacco. It's not an undervalued diamond in the ruff, like the Burley Blend happened to be, and that's totally fair.

The best thing about Kentucky Blend is its unique aromatic smoky note that manifests itself here and there in the course of smoking. The note is highly elusive and may come and go at any stage of the smoking process. You'll need to be a kind of aware to not to miss it when it comes up. When I did manage to catch it, I greatly enjoyed that magic whiff of noble leaf. It seems McBaren mixed some of their finest Kentuckies into the blend, which is praiseworthy.

That, however, came at a price. Apparently in order to cut the costs, they put their fine Kentuckies on an obviously cheap and mediocre Virginia base. I got a very unpleasant bitter aftertaste from it, which was steadily increasing towards the end. Bitterness is usually a sign of underfermented green leaf in the mixture, and I afraid that was the case here. As much as I liked the unique smoky aroma, the bitterness was obnoxious enough to keep me off buying this blend again.

The Kentucky Blend may be as good (or even better) as most similar-priced blends from other brands. But I see no reason to return to it when there's much better choise on the same shelf, I mean Amphora Burley Blend.

Very strong tobacco. So strong, I can't really enjoy it. Has natural flavour and big portion of Kentucky and I'm afraid that Kentucky is not the leaf I like. However, it has its own quality and I can imagine there are many pipe smokers that could appreciate it. (Maybe, one day, mee too.)

The fresh openend tobacco smells like dark bread, bacon, smoked ham! The texture ist oily, a little bit to humid. In my opinion the tobacco should be aired 20 minutes before be fired. The smoke has aromas of earthy notes and petrol notes and toasted flavors. I dedected gunpowder, dark bread crust, tar. It reminds me to Plasticine a play dough which we used as kids. It also reminds me to the smells of dried sea slugs which are some people use as a souvenir from holidays for decoration at home. Retronasal it is clearly spicy and a prickle in the nose. The tobacco smokes cool even tough it is forced we hard paffs. Overall it is not my cup of tea. I will use it for blending.

I have not tried any other Kentucky blend so far and I am more used to DFK as a condiment tobacco rather than the main star on a blend. Having said that, as I really enjoyed the Virginia Blend from Amphora I wanted to give this a go. Well, the puch offers a medium dark brown pre rubbed flake. It says to conatin a bit of Virginia but I cannot find it here. The aroma is what I can call salty, a little bit barbecuee and it is quite monochromatic. It packs and lights well. The aroma and taste are definitely not sweet. It is also almost salty, flavour is uniform and monotonic, it would be a good addition to other leaf blends ate 5-10% max. Smoking it as almost pure DKF is definitely not for me. It is bearable but not satisfying. It is rather dry on the pallate and does not evolve. I am not a big burley fan as well so I guess DFK as a blend is not for me. Burns down to a dry ash. If you are into DFK go for it, if you are an English or VA lover like me, maybe you won´t miss this one on your stash.