J. F. Germain & Son Germain's Brown Flake

This has to be the strangest tobacco I've yet to encounter. It was recommended as a good flake and very "popular" by a tobacconist. It was also my first Virginia flake. More about that later.

The tin descriptions below are right on, just as I found it. Smoking it was another matter. I rubbed out and dried a bowl and loaded it into my favorite Canadian. Touched it off, puffed and waited...and waited. Waited somemore. Basically what I got was the flavor of a nice Canadian cigarette and I was rather disappointed. I smoked about 1/2 the bowl and calculated that I could pickup a pack of rolling papers, roll some really expensive cigarettes and cut my loss. Then something began to happen. I got this incredible sweet/slightly salty sensation at the back of my palate that just made my mouth water and the straight tobacco taste intensified somewhat. Now that sweet sensation was something new to me. By the time the bowl was done I wanted to do it again. And I did. Struggled through the first half of the second bowl and there it was again. So I figured there was something to this VA, VA/Per, VA/Bur madness I was reading about, and so began my Virginia odyssey. And I've never looked back.

I finished that tin of BF and have since bought another, mainly just for old times sake. I have also found many more VAs that give me as much, if not more, flavor for an ENTIRE bowl. I still fire up a bowl of BF every now and then, still checking to see if there is something I missed. Nope. Still that "half-bowl wonder". And I did roll up a bit once in a cig paper. Pretty heady smoke.

6-27-11..OK, after reading Mr. Big's review above I do have to admit that you can teach a old dog new tricks. I tried nuking the BF and I have to admit it worked. Tho I never figured I would ever put tobacco in a microwave (back when I first started smoking pipes there were no microwaves)I gave it a shot. Whole different world! (My wife thought I was crazy. Not the first time). The stronger component kicked in right off (believe it's burley) and took over nicely. Nice nutty, woodsy feel, with the VAs in the background doing their sweet/salty/citrusy thing. Actually, a VERY nice smoke all the way to the bottom. This is a little stouter than your everyday VA flake but it is a nice change-up. Hmmmm... makes me wonder how others would react to microwaves. Anyway, I'm adding another star cuz this stuff is a lot better than I originally thought or experienced.

I have been trying some of the more obscure blends of late and this one is a very unusual Virgina offering by Germain. It is a Virginia blend but this blend has more body and much headier than most VA blends. It comes in a little rectangular tin and upon opening one is greeted with a sweet and very peaty aroma, like hay that has gotton wet. It is a dark brown flake with a little light leaf here and there and comes very moist. The flakes if dried break apart very easily and if left moist, are hard to get out of the tin without breaking them. They are composed of a very fine ribbon cut, about the thickness of cigarette tobacco. Because of this, it packs very easy in the pipe and is quick to light and keep lit. It also gives it more heat if puffed too fast and can bite you if not careful. If smoked slow, it is a very tasty blend, very much the cured hay like flavor of other good VA blends but it has a darker side to it. The peatiness comes out and offers more than just the sweetness, it also gives a creamyness that one usually gets with a burley. It is a very stout tobacco, not subtle at all. It burns down very nice without a lot of relights and burns to the bottom to a dry grey powder ash. It really is a satisfying smoke, plenty of "N" and lots of flavor and a full mouth feel to the smoke. The room note is typical of a VA, nice but won't draw admirers. I like this blend when I am wanting a VA blend but want substance to the smoke as well. I do recommend it, it is unlike most any other VA Flake I have ever smoked.

I smoked this as an addendum to a Lakeland tour I'm currently on. Since on this tour I'm smoking Best Brown and Best Brown #2 (by Sam Gawith and Gawith and Hoggarth, respectively), I thought I'd try this to compare them.

I have to give this a mixed review. First, as to packing, lighting, and burning qualities, it's first rate. The flakes are very thin and stuck together. It is more like a brittle plug than a regular flake. I found it impossible to pull one flake off the stack without pulling it apart. This will be an annoyance to those who prefer the fold and stuff method for flakes. For me, however, this packed and smoked with ease when rubbed out into very fine, horsehair-like strands. So for "mechanics," I'd give it four stars for sure.

Especially when I had just popped the tin, the smoke aroma had a kind of molasses (sp?), brown sugar note with perhaps a touch of vanilla. This tended to fade as the tin had been opened longer, giving way to a kind of grassy smell with the sweet smell only coming through occasionally. Aroma gets three stars.

But unfortunately, I never tasted anything in the smoke except a grassy, peaty, bitter cigar or black coffee flavor. None of the sweetness smelled in the tin or the smoke came through in the flavor at all. Some people, I know, like grassy virginias more than I do (for instance, Orlik Golden Slices). But this really needed something, like a bit of sweetness, in the flavor to balance that. So the flavor gets 2 stars for being monotone and only slightly pleasant.

Therefore, overall it deserves 3 stars.

One more note which does not affect the rating is the nicotene content. I found it quite strong. Perhaps it will not compare to ropes or other famous Lakeland heavy-hitters like 1792, though that will remain to be seen for me. I am a 1 or 2 pipe a day guy and something this strong really hits me hard, at least until I got more used to it. But that is a matter of personal preference.

I would recommend this to seasoned smokers who like grassy virginias and don't mind lots of nicotene and some bitterness in their smoke. Otherwise, there are tons of better choices. For me, this mostly has whetted my appetite for Germain's Latakia Flake, which I will be reviewing later in the year.

Another great flake by Germain. This one is a bit difficult to strip whole flakes out, but it doesn't matter much. The shaggy flakes still burn cool. I didn't detect bite. But it is always best to smoke these slowly.

Heavier than the traditional flakes, like F&T cut viginia cut plug or Old Gowie, and plenty of tobacco is stuffed in the 2 oz. tin. I got 21 full smokes in a medium large Savinelli auto., whereas F&T only gave me 13 or so in a medium Vesz pipe. I have another tin of it just waiting in the cellar. The first tin was good without any more aging.

This is virginia all right, as the slight tangy sweetness is present, but there is something else that makes it tastier, richer, cooler and heavier. I don't think it is turkish note, but it is likely a combination of added burley and maybe some air cured or cigar leaf. It definitly has a nutty taste. My spouse said it doesn't smell like pipe tobacco. Strange comment, as it is not the least bit aromatic to me.

This is not quite as full as some other brown flakes, like G&H, but it is full and satisfying enough to me. Dry smoking and steady burning; a no nonsense real tobacco taste.

This blend tastes a great deal like Gawith Best Brown Flake, so if you like it you’ll enjoy this. It’s a bit smoother and has a slightly less grassy note to it. It doesn’t have a great deal of flavor, but I suspect it’s not supposed to. It’s just a decent, enjoyable smoke and that’s about the extent of it.

This is good tobacco, but I will not miss, and will not buy again. Germains made legendary rich dark flake and rest of blends it's just good... IMO. Brown flakes smokes dry,cool,no tongue bite,nice depth of flavor, but ordinary. Worth to try it and go to search for other blends.

Upon opening the rather small (50g) oblong tin I was presented with two rows of neatly stacked narrow flakes of a dark mahogany brown. Tin note was a rather vague affair with perhaps a little leather and old 'mustiness', nothing really sprung out at me.

Tipped out onto a tray those skinny flakes rubbed out very well indeed, not quite your Dunhill ribbon cut but not far off. Sam Gawith, please take note! Moisture content was a tad more than I like so the obligatory couple of hours drying time was allowed afore re-tinning in a larger tin (no way would the rubbed out flakes fit in the original tin). Of course a bowl was packed first.

The tobacco took to the flame rather well after the initial char light & tamp. I was immediately struck by the mildness of the smoke, by all accounts on Tobaccoreviews this was supposed to be a medium/strong affair. The flavours seemed to me to be very subdued, rather like the tin note. I got a little molasses occasionally and a mildly sweet taste of something akin to burnt biscuit. No tongue bite but if tugged hard it did tend to burn rather hot. A fair clump of soggy dottle remained at the end of the smoke.

In summary this was a rather pleasant smoke despite not having too much flavour, one perhaps for a quiet evening in. Would I revisit this blend? Quite possibly, but I think I might leave it a while afore I do.

Simple things please simple minds. Well this tobacco pleased me and it is simple. Its a great little package to carry around as the tin is pocket sized. You have the functional wax tin liner and easy to use thin cut tobacco that burns straight from the off. The moisture content is such that it will remain to preserve the tobacco till the last smokes. So as a product it works and easily.

The taste is also simple and hits the spot from the off, once lit it stays lit and the nic hit is fair as well. A simple brown vg with dirty bass from the Kentucky. I would guess it has a single light natural topping of some kind but that's my guess not knowledge, It seems to have a special note that follows from start to end of smoking.

This is not an every day smoke for me but one to have around for when I fancy it and that day will come around every week or so I'm sure.

This is a good everyday smoke if you like to smoke virginia flake tobaccos at first. It makes you an artist in fingertipping because it takes time to get a good amount of tobacco out of the tin to fill a good bowl. The strips fall apart once you try to get them out. I dislike to rub flakes out so I try to be patient 😉 Once lit properly there is no great effort to keep it going. I don´t use small or xlarge bowls for this tobacco. To me this tobacco is excellent in the middlesized pipes because it changes from a pleasant smoke into a heavy bouncer within the second half of the bowl. I think it is a good tobacco to start smoking flake tobaccos because Germain offers a tobacco of excellent quality of leaf and BF is pure va tobacco as well. I rate it one step below Full Virginia Flake and the Rattray line tobaccos. There is more body and taste in my benchmark tobaccos.