Hearth & Home Black House 10th Anniversary

I smoke mostly Balkans and Oriental blends, so I thought I would give this one a try. The tin note is mostly latakia, with a little sweet and sour underneath it. Good moisture out of the freshly opened tin, and it smokes well, moderately cool, no gurgle or moisture left in the bottom of the pipe. However, it's a little on the bland side for any kind of Balkan, and this most recent variation bears basically no resemblance to 759, which was my daily smoke for the longest time. To be fair, I don't think any modern tobacco blender can be blamed for not being able to match a tobacco from 40 to 50 years ago; the Syrian latakia is long gone, and the Cyprian variety, while good in it's own way, is a completely different variety of leaf. I'm not sure the currently available orientals are even remotely like the ones from back in the '70s, either. Frankly, all these marketing strategies recalling the old Balkan Sobranie are more than a little disingenuous. There is very little complexity to this smoke at all. Despite the smoky, burning rubber note in the tin, with the vague sweet and sour aroma underneath, this is a mild to medium tobacco of no particular distinction. I purchased a few tins, and I will leave the remaining unopened tins in the cellar to see if age improves this. I smoked a tin of the regular Black House variety a few years back and I thought it was a decent smoke. This is certainly no improvement over that.