Wessex Brown Virginia Flake

Very thin flakes of a chestnut brown color. Hard to load as a flake due to the flakes falling apart so I rubbed it out. It took to the match quite well and didn't suffer too many relights.

The only way I have to measure a blends nicotine strength is if it gives me either the shakes and dizziness or makes me hiccup. Some heavy burley blends do one or the other or both but this was the first straight VA that made me hiccup. So I have to assume this one is heavy in vitamin N.

Taste-wise, this was good but not great. Not a reference virginia like Blackwoods Flake, FVF, Opening Night and several others. But worthy enough. The taste was on the light side but it had good body and strength. Very much a bread-like quality, as it went beyond hay. A slight spice and an even slighter sweetness. This is about as "straight" a straight virginia as I've ever smoked - no frills of any kind. I preferred this one to the Wessex Red, which surprised me. This didn't have half the tang of Red and didn't make up for it with the usual VA sweetness. I guess you could say I found this one tilted toward the boring side. Nothing special, but worth a try. I'd give this a 2.5 rating if I could but it's good enough to round up to 3 stars.

Well presented medium brown flake. Moisture level near perfect but a few minutes dry time worked well. Tin note is slight raisin, mild bread and very slight hay. Smokes well, cool with no bite if smoked gently. My preference for this one is rubbed out. Flavor is sweet straight Virginia. This is not a complex tobacco, but a wonderful straight Virginia with no discernible toppings or casing. I would put the nicotine hit as firmly in a medium category.

High quality tobacco at a premium price. The tobacco delivers a round sweet tangy Virginia mellowness that I do savour. It is sweet, and needs a night to dry out. My favourite is the red virginia flake by Wessex,but this is a second choice. Good tobacco if you like the Brown Virginia variety.Sure to please.

This flake comes in a 50g tin. The flakes are cut endwise into narrow strips. This tin is a bit on the damp side, and the tobacco smoked a bit moist. It required a pipe cleaner and two relights, but other than that it burned very well to the bottom of the bowl. This is a beautiful smoke for the lover of brown Va. flake. A very light neutral sweetner has been added to enhance the flavor. The smoke delivers a consistent toasty, brown Va. taste. It also provides that marvelous tingle in the nose that you get from a fine cigar - not the cigar flavor, but the tingle. This has the deeper brown Va. flavor as opposed to the tang of the red Va. or the mildness of the gold. For the lover of brown Va., this would be an ideal all day smoke, but you would need to love the straightforward, consistent flavor from start to finish. Its only drawback is that it is quite expensive, and probably too expensive to be an all day smoke. I recommend this most highly to Virginia lovers as a special treat and to every pipe smoker as a must try tobacco. Paddy.

A pleasant, straight forward brown VA with some bits of bright. A smooth, mellow smoke, the folded flakes burn a tad faster than many, but not enough to overheat. An all-day smoke on its own, it also is good smoothing out some of the more overpowering blends when you don't feel like the intensity but want the flavor (1792 for example).