Wessex Tradition

Wessex - Tradition

King Weed's "similar blends" annotation got me to chuckle a bit as I had the same sort of thought.  Wessex Tradition strikes me as a run of the mill sort of blend in the sense that it's neither spectacular nor powerful on any level, but yet at the same time it has a lot going for it.

The bowls tend to start off with a dry woody flavor that recedes in varying degrees as the other flavors kick in.  The turkish (mainly smyrna it seems, maybe also some yenidze) leads by just a shade over the latakia (cyprian).  Not the sweetest english I've ever smoked but there is some sweetness and also some spice, both in taste and mouthfeel.  Flavors include the aforementioned dry wood, some leather here and there, hints of campfire, notes of rye and even a bit of broiled steak especially after a dgt relight. 

This is a flavorful, very well balanced and fairly smooth smoking blend.  It could be someone's "sleeper" english.  For me, it won't be a solid staple but I'll pick up another tin or two from time to time.  Not quite a four star offering but a very respectable three. 

I bought three tins of this blend from a guy on ebay in the spring of 2013. I put one of them in my personal hoard and set the other two aside. I then began to ask people if they remembered this blend from the recent past. Some said no, others said they weren't sure and some said yes but couldn't really say what it had smoked like. My thought was, wow, this is not a very good situation. So, I put a tin on my 2013 NASPC table and it didn't sell. I did the same at the 2014 St. Louis show and it didn't sell, nor did it sell at the NASPC show that summer. It finally sold at the 2015 NASPC show, proving that there is somebody out there who would buy it and they come along about every two years. I donated the second tin to the 2016 St. Louis silent auction. I opened the third tin recently and found a darkish brown and black tobacco that was not dry, but had lost some of it's essences over the years. Both the tin aroma and the smoking aroma was of a light to medium English that smoked in an acceptable, but unenlightened manner in the top third of the bowl. As we crossed over to the middle third, a wonderful thing happened. The Virginias and the Orientals held hands and the Latakia sort of danced around them and created a rich and full sweet spot of four star caliber. Had that effect continued on down the bowl, I would have been very happy and regretted selling the other two tins. Reality is that this sweet spot lasted about four minutes and when it was gone, it was gone for good. It never returned in the bottom third; which ended the smoke on a dull and flat note. So, if I were grading this blend on the tin smoke, it would be a two star deal. But, just as with the C&D Haunted Bookshop that I reviewed recently, I discovered that WT was much more useful and satisfying as a blending ingredient and that allowed an elevation to three stars.

If this is a true traditional English Blend I have mixed feelings about it. The first bowl I smoked yesterday impressed me. When I smoked a bowl today I was not as impressed. It smokes very clean, very nice white fluffy ash, for those of you that like your smoke to be consistent...... this is going to be the one for you. For me this would be a mood smoke. I wouldn't take it out of rotation, just may skip it and come back to it most of the time. Very nice flavor of dark chocolate, a little honey, and add a drop of vinegar to cut the sweetness a little and give it a kick, yet smooth and consistent like a dog with it's master.