Player's Navy Cut Flake

Players - Navy Cut Flake.

This is a blend that I have heard a lot of talk about in "days gone by", so it excites me to try it. Starting with the unlit tobacco, the flakes are perfect to look at: a medium Brown mostly, with some lighter specks in there sporadically. The moisture amount is excellent: not dry, not damp but just right. The aroma that comes from the flakes is a fairly basic Virginia one with a very slight rum tang in the background, not strong at all but a gentle one.

This one takes to the flame great, for my flake blends I always use my jet ilghter but to be fair if this is prepared and rubbed correctly then a standard match flame would more than suffice. Once lit I can appreciate why this blend gets a lot of talk after many years. The smoke is deliciously cool with a great flavour. The tobacco flavour is very much split equally between the Virginia and Burley and if you retro-hale the smoke then a slight detection of the rum sweetness becomes more available. Nicotine now: very tame so if Lady N is more of a nemesis to you this will make an awesome addition to your tobacco stock. The last point to mention, to end on a high is the room-note: very full Virginia/Burley with a hint of sweetness to it. Mind you, I would say it's only a good point for smokers as it is a little full and non-smokers could find it too much!

Four stars.

50g Pouch Precision uniform rectangle flakes. I have bought this a few times in the past and smoked it in various system pipes,notably Ronsons. It always came across as a very plain natural flake ,neither very sweet or savoury either. Certainly real and no nonsense, proper british style. It is one that i have to say got over shadowed by other purchases.

It has a very mild grassy and hay pouch note and no real aromatic strength. It is such a perfect melded blend of virginia and burley that it tastes like a third variety of leaf entirely. Almost akin to thick crunchy dark cereal bran flakes.

It has a rustic woodyness,like a saw mill or timber shop air ,or chewing the end of a pencil taste, a dry hayness, a certain digestive Hovis biscuit taste, also in the beginning raw dried uncooked pasta. When new there is a degree of some citrus from the virginia but this has faded away or evolved into a darker mature virginia by now. My jar is from july 2015.

Aromatically its very mild, some say it contains rum and i dont really get any liquor or alcohol taste from this at all, but i do get a certain mild black sugar treacle molasses/ brown muscovado baking sugar that is ever so slightly like that woody natural licorice root. Spicy in a mild way,and a noticed oak cask barrel woodyness which combined produce a certain dark navy rum character minus the spirit of alcohol.

Also i get from the burley a certain earthy chalkyness that is quite reminiscent of Ceylon variety tea. It is very smooth,almost clay at times. The earthy dusty sweet chalkyness gives this a certain unique white dusty taste of which i mainly remember this for. The current pandemic lockdown has forced me to explore the forgotten stocks and ghosts of my tobacco collection.

The pipe i am using at the moment is a strait through narrow draught early USA made Falcon pipe with narrow slot bit which is really amplifying the taste in such a way that I have never tasted Players Navy Cut Flake before as well. It has more definition and complexity than I thought it had and I now lament I never bought more of this and less of other things seeing that this was a relatively easy to get OTC in some places. I didn't know this had been discontinued either, so when I use up my jar it really will be gone and history unfortunately.

Its only closest contemporary I can think off is Walnut Flake,,Navy Flake is the earthier of these two. This has aged and rounded out I do notice. No bite, tastes consistant down the bowl, no gunk,no chemicals,stays lit, burns to a fine dry fluffy ash. 4stars ****

This has been my regular day smoke for quite a number of years now. As far as a medium Virginia with no detectable additives or toppings I rate this as one of the best available. I do recommend getting into an airtight jar soon after opening,as it can quite easily break down to useless crumbs.

I'm a newcomer to Pipe smoking and this was only the fourth tobacco i tried. Being a Tolkien fan since only 10 i'd read this was his favorite brand and though it's no longer available in newsagents in the UK as it was in his time it's still easy to buy online.

Anyhow, it's the first flake I tried and I do enjoy the control you get over the rub. The smoke is pronounced Virginia but has a taste all of it's own, the room smoke isn't unpleasant and doesn't overly bother others which is great as my girlfriend and most friends are non smoking. Though one of my non smoking friends liked the smell so much he insisted on having a pipe, though he went all Gandalf and insisted we inspected his prowess in smoke ring blowing, obviously a heavy ex smoker!

I'm ordering several more packs of this soon and will be one of my staples i think.

I heard with shock and disbelief that this iconic blend has gone out of production. My impression was that it was perennially popular among English pipe smokers, and I can’t imagine what commercial considerations can have led to its discontinuance. A light, grassy, cool, slow burning sweet Virginia flake it was an archetypal traditional blend. It was a favourite of people like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. My headmaster was smoking it more than fifty years ago! The nearest thing to a substitute that I have been able to find is Gawith & Hoggarth’s Brown Flake. Ogden's Walnut Flake (now called Original Flake) is comparable also. But as, in the UK, we move ever closer to prohibition, the withdrawal of Player's Navy Cut will, I fear, prove to be a significant milestone.

Player's Medium Navy Cut completes the panorama of the "tobacco menu" of my December 2009.

In spite of the VaB(Ky) formulations referring to Walnut and St. Bruno, here we are talking of a straight Virginia blend, and of a milder strength as well.

Just like its British companions, PMNC shares the same packaging: a sealed plastic tray inside an unsealed pouch. It goes itself that, once the tray is open, the tobacco should be put in a glass jar, unless one would commit himself to smoke all the contents out in few days. Even jarring the whole content, I see that PMNC is prone to a quick drying, and this feature makes me think there is not any substantial casing, and that's so good to me !

I'm thinking to the nice reviewer before me, talking of something as PMNC being Escudo minus the Perique. Uhm, very interesting point of view ! In effect, PMNC is showing the typical medium Va Flake behaviour, and some peppery note without the sweet & sour thing.

Side-by-side to some companions (Capstan Medium - currenty Original - and Orlik's Golden) PMNC shows a fruity characted instead of hayish. In case, seems to me that a bridge is with Torben Dansk's no. 15, but the latter has a more generous body, is stronger, and has definately a (stwed fruits) casing. PMNC wins the match being something in the old tradition, well balanced and consistent, apparently without recurring to remarkable external helps.

I've smoked PMNC in various shapes, for this review it's an aged BBB straight billiard (gr. 5). This lady, able to contain two flakes and half - which I have just folded and plugged inside the bowl - has the great value of smoothing the unavoidable rough edges of a flake of this kind, delivering nearly two hours of excellent smoke.

Four full stars.

Tin Aroma: I guess this should be pouch aroma because sadly this blend is no longer available in the round tins. The tobacco has a rich aroma remeniscent of Christmas cake lightly topped with caramel.

Room Note: There is certainly no topping detectable in the room note which can only be described as a generic virginia tobacco aroma with a slight soapiness about it. Similar to St.Bruno in aroma; nothing to offend but then nothing to make the smoker's companions appreciate it either. The best I've heard it described is 'old fashioned in a classic way'.

Packing: If smoking 'pressed' the flakes are thin enough to fold easily into the bowl. If rubbing out the small, thin flakes transform quickly and easily to an almost cigarette tobacco consistancy. The stands are a nice length and the mixture packs well and evenly with little effort whichever method you prefer. I do find the flakes an odd size though, as I always seem to need 'one and a bit' flakes whichever size bowl I'm using. Moisture content is perfect; dry enough to smoke easily but moist enough to be easy to handle and rub out without turning to dust. Because the mixture is a bit springy as well as fine, I pack on the light side as you could easily pack it a little tight if you're not careful. This can make drawing a bit of a pain.

Lighting: The weed takes the flame very well as long as you pack it right. I find one charring light, a very light tamper and a second match are all that's required to create a good and even burn that creates copious amounts of wonderful white clouds of virginia smoke.

Appearance: An attractive flake that's medium to dark brown mottled here and there with light tan and yellow bright leaf. When rubbed out it produces a pleasantly light brown, fine stranded blend.

Smoking: Although I find this tobacco very mild, I really enjoy the light but rich flavour. There is a classic taste of aged virginia, melded with a subtle spiciness which is topped off by a creamy almost caramel top note. Underneath is a hint of soapiness that reminds one this is a classic English virginia blend with an almost 'Empire' feel to it. I have to say when compared directly to St. Bruno, the latter wins due to it's superior flavour and superb coolness. Nevertheless, Player's Medium navy Cut comes a close second and indeed might actually be preferable depending on your mood as it is a lighter smoke. Because much of the complexity of this blend is subtle, I would never smoke it after eating a strongly flavoured dish or it would come across as quite bland. The first half of the bowl is velvet smooth but you need a degree of measured puffing or it can bite a little. I found the blend burns evenly to a medium grey ash but produces a fair bit of moisture which leads to gurgling and a bit of gooey dottle in the base of the bowl. I admit as it's been about twenty years since I last smoked 'Navy Cut', I can't remember how it compares to the original round flakes in the tin. But I did enjoy it in it's current form so I guess it coudn't have changed that much!

Pros: A truly classic blend that smokes cool and evenly with a light but wonderfully rich flavour. Rubs out and packs very well. A great 'mainstay'.

Cons: Can bite a little if you're not careful and does produce a lot of moisture whilst burning which in turn creates a bit of dottle on the last leg of the smoke. Very light in the nicotine department, which ofcourse can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you want out of a blend!

I can't write very much about this tobacco, which I found very agreeable, because it has now been discontinued in the UK (as of Summer 2016). I only got to try a couple of pouches and then it was gone; considering it had been in production since 1883, I put this down to my usual bad luck. I liked what I smoked very much - it reminded me rather of St Bruno but milder, slower to smoke thus longer-lasting, and it hit the nicotine spot very nicely. A substantial and elegant smoke, with a good deal of frown in its brown study. In fact, I'm so aggrieved that it's gone that I'm seriously considering quitting pipe-smoking altogether. If you have any of this delicious tobacco cellared, treasure it, because it was one of the best.

Now discontinued. The Danes strike again. I guess there's always a chance Peterson's will have bought another mock up from the culprits, seems to be the game lately.