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

As a Matured Virginia Plug smoker for 45 + years this flake intrigues me a great deal. I've read all the reviews and perhaps it is a cigar-type smoke but I don't taste that from this tobacco.

What I'm having a tough time with is the mild yet very present flavor that comes and goes as the bowl is smoked. I've smoked two tins of this over the past 3 weeks and I have wrestled with what/where the taste and aroma comes from. Actually, sometimes it taste like a very mild cheviot type flavoring which I abhor, yet not the way this tobacco presents itself.

Smoking this in group 5 straight billiard.

I will continue this review later...

...a pipe is to be savored.

A high quality Virginia. No tongue bite if smoked properly, it provides a cool and steady smoke. The tins I've tried came with the perfect moist level, unlike most flakes that are better off left to dry for a while.

The smell right from the tin showed me that this was not your average Virginia, but one probably "over-cured" into a more cigar-like leaf. I'm almost certain that there is also a small dose of burley, but I might be wrong.

I opened this tin up to find a very rich and somewhat musty, dark Virginia Flake occupying it. I packed this tobacco up in a nice wide pot in preparation for a several hour road trip, and found that about half way through the bowl, the cigar taste was just getting too much for me. It is milder and sweeter then most cigars I have tried, but as I don't like cigars much at all this was still a bit too robust. After letting the bowl sit for awhile I came back to it, and found that the sweet, almost grassy taste had sprung up a bit. Unfortunately I still received a fair note of cigar leaf with it as well.

After reading through another review of this I decided to try it again, in an environment where I could pay a little more attention to it, and smoke it slightly slower. The second time through I let this dry for a while before packing it into a billiard. This tobacco is definitely much better with a slower, more even cadence to the smoke. The cigar note sits in the background lending a slight kick to the almost mocha Virginia sweetness. Again I set this pipe down for a little while, and when I came back to it I found the sweet tangy taste had crept back in, something that really serves this blend well. Additionally this tobacco has quite a nicotine kick; a bit more then I usually care for.

This is a good blend, but just not something I could smoke on a regular basis.

SWEET,MUSTY,CIGAR

This truely taste like a nice mild cigar. Upon intense investigation- you can detect -earthy brown sugar, sweet potatoe like, but the mild cigar like quality definately predominates in every way and is fairly unilateral.

IF YOU LOVE A NICE CIGAR- This is so much like that how could you not like it? A little sweeter than most cigars, less caustic, SMOOTH and milder- is the only difference.

I bought an ancient unopened tin stored in a humidor at a pipe shop that discontinued it. It was 30 % off as it had some rust. I cannot age it, But there was no tax stamp if that tells you something.

Therefore- Mine may have been milder and smoother than some. And man- was it mild and smooth.

If you like cigars this is a 4 stars flake. If you don't...well..it may not. Really the cigar flavour is that strong, dark and heavy, almost no room for something else. I like cigars, so it wasn't that bad for me, every once in a while: being a very particular beast, this blend isn't suitable for everyday smoke. The strong flavour keeps consistent throughout the bowl but doesn't develop into anything new. A very good point was scored by the cut, easy to crumble and easy to pack in a traditional manner, making the lighting easy and the burning remarkably cool, dry and even. Maybe there was some topping, but really hardly noticeable; when puffed slightly faster the blend can develop a lightly sour taste.

This flake is bound to occupy a place in my heart, given that it was the first tobacco smoked in my first ever Dunhill. Be that as it may, I don't like cigars and that is exactly what this tobacco tastes like, a cigar. It is rather strong stuff as well, which was gratifying, though not strong in the full Virginia sense, but, once again, strong like a dark Mexican cigar. Sadly there was none of the metamorphoses and variation of a really good Virginia, starting out grassy and then becoming sweet or floral as the bowl progresses, just cigar all the way down.

I did like the way in which the leaf had been cut before being pressed. It would rub out into the finest hair-like filaments. This is not often found with flakes. Even this, though was not all for the good as those strands would knit together as the pipe was tamped, making for a near solid mass at the heal of the bowl that I had a devil of a time smoking all the way. Not a good thing with a new pipe.

Regards, A. Morley Jaques

Perhaps the best succinct description of this tobacco would be "medium body cigar in a tin". Musty has been used to describe this blend and musty it is, but not in a latakia sense, more with regard to various orientals which show their heads in this mostly dark virginia concoction. I detect little or no additives and moisture content is fine. This is a flake which is strong in flavor, full and earthy, much like a cigar. It will burn very hot if you tempt it and can also turn alarmingly bitter in a moments notice(again, cigar-like). I am rather enjoying it as a change of pace, however, the room note is stale and lingering, be forewarned. I did not find the nicotine content to be high, but nicely present throughout smoking. Fans of crossover blends would do well to have a go with Brown Flake.

I tried this as the result of some folks over at Holt's in Philadelphia. This is what I told them.

Germain Brown comes in well prepared slices - they seem neither too thick nor too thin. The flakes are a medium brown. The "sugar crystals" did not appear to me to be the kind naturally found in some VA flakes but actually appears to me to be similar to table (cane) sugar. Is it possible that cane sugar was applied to the tobacco?

I found that this tobacco works best in medium to large bowled pipes. It burns fairly well and leaves nothing on the walls of the tobacco chamber of your pipe. The remaining ash is a sandy white/grey with black specks. For me, Germain's burned rather hot and I found it tough to truly enjoy. The flavor is a typical grassy citrusy kind of sweetness that was not unappealing and some body did develope toward the end of the bowl.

However, this flake just doesn't do it for me when compared to so many other tobaccos in this genre. If Germain is going to try to make it in the VA flake market, they will need to come up with something that will make a better impression so as to carve its our "niche." This doesn't do it. It is just so-so.

An interesting flavor to this Virgina brown flake. Has a nice musty aspect to the smoke with a hint of something I can't quite describe. It's not soap or perfume but an unusual by-product of processing. I like the flavor but it, unfortunately dissapears after about 1/4 bowl. The rest of the smoke is rather plain but pleasant. A good no-nonsense smoke.