Cornell & Diehl Eight State Burley 2021

Why is it not discussed in the tin description or the huge write up about this blend's production that this blend is cased in nasty vanilla cake topping?(EDIT: After the tin airing out a bit for the first day, it's not a vanilla topping but more like honey with some other fruity sweetener) After airing this out for a few minutes and smoking it in a large bowled pipe, all I am met with is a sweet aromatic that is drowning out any of the tobacco flavor. Even ten minutes after sitting the pipe down all that I taste in my mouth is weird honey/cake like flavoring similar to C&D Sun Bear, and the tin smell is similar to that of C&D Sun Bear Small Batch. And I note that alongside Sun Bear it smells like many of the same toppings. I cannot be sure if it's elderberry/tequila, along with some mild tonquin-esque topping or precisely what each topping is here. It's just cloyingly sweetened when all I was expecting was natural white and dark burley, the Oriental condiments, and that red Virginia varietal leaf that I love. You get none of this, just overbearing topping. Leaves a long lasting aftertaste of nothing but these toppings. It was fine in Sun Bear as that blend is as advertised with a bunch of nuanced toppings. I did not however, want 20 tins of Sun Bear.

Haunted Bookshop is my favorite tobacco and I readily expected this to be a good burley blend.

EDIT: I've nearly smoked the entire first tin and I've smoked it in clay pipes, meerschaum, various briars, and many cobs. This sits firmly in the heavily cased OTC burley category. My initial scathing review still stands, as this was not ever mentioned as being such an aromatic. The component tobaccos are all masked by the continuous flavoring all the way down to the very end of the heel. 4-5 days after the tin has been open and breathing, the only tin note is that of the casings, there isn't a single hint of good tobacco smell here. The quality of the tobaccos are superb. Just that you could case any old burley with this sauce and it would taste the same. It takes away anything that could have been special about these vintage varietals.

3/23/2022 EDIT: After just under one year sealed in a jar, I decided to dip into my second tin. The honey/vanilla sweetener casing in the burley has now toned down a bit to the point where there's a nose of burley/Oriental. The casing is still heavy-forward the first ten minutes of the smoke but quickly settles down and wafting the smoke gives way to burley and Oriental and is very pleasing. Fresh, this was overpoweringly cased. Now, the VA and Oriental have calmed it just a smidge and married well. The tins should be much better at the five year mark.