Paul Olsen Curly 44

The Virginias offer some earth and dark fruit, a little grass and citrus, and have slight fermented, toasty quality to them. I have a feeling that the black cavendish may be fire cured and could be responsible for the light “Danish” spice as well as a little brown sugar. There is definitely a little sugar topping and mildly applied cognac, as well as some fruit. While they do tone down the tobaccos just a little, they also merge with the tobaccos to create a harmonious tasting blend. The nic-hit is fairly mild. The taste level is in the center of mild to medium. Won’t bite, but the spice will tingle your tongue a little if puffed fast. Burns clean at a moderate pace with a mostly consistent flavor. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires an average number of relights. Has a pleasant, short lived after taste. An all day smoke.

-JimInks

Paul Olsen - Curly 44.

I'm puzzled by the name, rather than getting what I expected, a tin containing a blend that's prominently coins, mine would be a closer match to the name Mixture. Yes, there are a decent amount of coins, but there's also a lot of ribbons (some short, some long, some extremely long), a few slithers of broken flake, and some cube cut pieces; Curly 44? a bit of a misnomer there!

The moisture was good so I could fill and light my first pipe-full imminently from freshly opened the tin. And then, once I had some burning, I thought it was great!

I'm not too sure as to what the added flavouring is; it seems to me to be the kind of taste that would usually come from a Cavendish-heavy blend: slightly sweet with some vanilla qualities. Other than those, I can't particularly identify any other taste aside from the Virginia.

For me, the other merits are: the smoke's quite thick and cool, it bites none, the room-note's pleasant, and as it's a big tin there's plenty of tobacco to enjoy!

I feel this is easily worthy of getting full marks:

Highly recommended.

This blend is recommended as a replacement for the discontinued Caledonian No.410. The reviews for that blend, to be found here, mostly praise it as a wonderful Virginia/Perique, some reviewers noting a slight topping, others not.

The tin I recently received was an aromatic, so much so, that the tobacco very much played a second fiddle in the taste experience. A second issue is that there was but one tobacco "coin"; the rest of the tin was made up of short ribbon cut tobacco.

The trend, thus far, as I explore the MOB tobaccos, is that if the word "Cavendish" is used in the description, assume the blend to be quite aromatic.

Tin: Ribbon cut, with a few small coins, and Cavendis as smaller bits. Mild fruity smell, that has subsided. Slight smokey smell. Detectable hay. Smells sweet and clings a bit in the nose. Slightly moist, but smokeable.

Burn: Requires few relights, if right moisture level. Fairly cool smoke, slightly wet. Quite toungebity if not smoked carefully (I can smoke a bowl now without getting bitten, so it's great for practicing correct smoking technique)

Taste: Slight Citrus, (pamelo?) Heavy neutral sweetness. Something I can't quite define, could be cognac. What I can only describe as a smokey taste.

This is the first pipe tobacco I have ever smoked, so my palate isn't very evolved yet. The sweetness, which I guess is from the Cavendish, is a little to strong for my tastes. I mix it with a 20% perique blend, and that brings it down, and handles the tonguebite, to make for a pleasant smoke. The description on Paul-Olsen's webpage says that it is topped with cognac, but I can't really detect any.

Just got a tin of this today and i must say its something special for sure Smells nice in the tin and also when lit. I cant really figure out what im tasting but its really nice and stays good all the way through. I dont agree with the overly aromatic review its just a nice all day smoke in my opinion. Edit Having smoked some more bowls of this and in different Pipes i must say this tobaco keeps impressing me and i think i get some of the same taste in this as with Mac baren club blend. So if you like mac baren club blend but want a Little lighter blend of it this is for sure something you should try!

A newer production Danish delight with broken flakes and intact little coins of Virginia leaf stoked with a very discreetly flavored black Cavendish that is remindful of both liquor and dark fermented berries of some sort. A nice, rich Virginia flavor with depth provided by the Cavendish. I personally found this blend to be a little too light for my own personal tastes, but believe it is a very nice aromatic blend for those who enjoy a tobacco taste with extras.

Pipestud