Mac Baren Harmony

Delicious blend. Honey is defintely here. It packs greately, burns steadily and delivers a honey / caramel flavour with nutty tobacco undertones. A nice rotation to Mixture Original. It is not heavily cased or aromatic, but still it is very fulfiling.

I am smoking this as a change of pace since many years now, this is a balanced mixture of many tobaccos mixed at equal proportion where it is hard to taste or to recognize any of them, the balance is strict and well calculated, the flavor is particularly neutral and monochromatic (in the good sense) and the only remaining element in the flavor is a taste of "chocolate" with the Mac Baren honey flavoring.

This blend is particularly enjoyed by Mac Baren fans (and I am one of them) who are very familiar with the famous Mac honey casing.

I like to smoke this blend when I am in mood for nothing.

Why the name chnge? Next time I'll try a tin just to re review this Blend.

One of the best tinned Virgina & burley blends. This is simple and dose not smoke hot unles puffed fast. This is a Slow and Soft mellow with honey note to it. A little tricky packing this is actually a german cut tobacco blends like this. You will get more on the floor then in the bowl.Somkes dry and will need to relight it from time to time. Definetly more Virgina then Burley but the burley is definetly there. A good blend to keep around from time to time. You can get away with smoking it in doors with out to much bother to others. Slow puff is best.

Well, I don't usually buy my tobacco in tins, but I found myself in a small tobacco shop over the weekend, and came across some tins of Symphony. On a whim I decided to buy one tin. I only wish that one could light up a sample bowl of an untried product, before getting stuck with an entire tin of something one doesn't like. First of all I thought the tin note was rather bland. It was OK in preparation for smoking. I was disappointed in both the taste and the room note. It starts out quite mild, but after a few minutes it starts to gain a lot of heat, and I don't draw hard on my pipes. The one thing I can say about this product, is that it burns quite well, though I am quite disappointed in the $9.00 I paid for this bland boring tobacco. I'd rather fire up a bowl of Carter Hall. At least I can smell and taste my drugstore pouch of the Carter, and it's a lot cheaper than $9.00

2/3/08 I've changed my mind about this Mac Baren Symphony. After giving it some time to dry out a bit, I have to say that this has turned into a very pleasant smoke. I find it hard to believe that a wee bit of aging, once the tin was opened, would result in so different a tobacco flavor, but indeed this is the result. A nice flavor and a nice room note will have me buying another tin of Symphony for sure!

I smoke predominately va. flakes, and va. mixtures. I love Navy Flake and Plumcake, even though they have a heavy burley component to them. Symphony has much more burley; it is burley with a smidgen of va. and a dottle of cavendish. But, it works.

This ready rubbed tobacco is very pleasantly cased with the standard MacBaren honey-like flavoring, but it is applied with a light touch. The tobacco smells sweet, but not syrupy, in the tin. The medium brown pieces rub out very easily for the pipe, and the moisture level was perfect upon opening the tin. It lit right away, and after a couple tamps and a relight, it burned all the way down with no trouble. It wasn't 100% bite free, but it required far less attention than other MacBaren blends.

The flavor has been described as 'nutty'. I'm not sure that is how I would describe it, but I see what others are talking about. I found the flavor to be straightforward and simple, but at the same time, not completely one dimensional. The surface layers of flavor are earthy and 'toasty'. The va. plays a minor role in lending natural seetness, while the cavendish kind of holds everything together.

Symphony would never become my favorite smoke. But it's very smokable and very affordable at two bucks an ounce, and for that alone it earns at least one star. I do smoke a couple bowls of it every few days or so. It's not the kind of tobacco that is going to bowl you over, but there is nothing to not like about it. It's simple, fairly tasty, inexpensive, and you can probably get it anywhere (in the world). I guess if it was the only tobacco I could get hold of, I wouldn't be unhappy.

For some reason which neither scientists nor theologians can explain, this MacBaren blend smokes very cool to me. Nice and light, yet with sweetness that never covers up the quality tobacco.

I experienced the best of all three main components (Burley, VA, Cav). This tobacco is aptly called "Symphony" as the components complemented each other quite harmoniously. It wasn't a mish-mash of different tobaccos fighting for dominance. And it also had a subtly simple aspect to it. The very light top-coat was expertly applied in the right amount, as it never distracted but instead added a little something extra.

It required only a charring light, then one more touch of Colibri...and it required no more maintenance after that. This really allowed me to settle back with a good book and relax with my pipe, which really fit the bill.

As you can tell, I really enjoyed this smoke.

I smoke a lot of MacBaren blends, and this one ranks up there with the best of them.

Yet another blend from Mac Biten that couldn't decide what it wanted to be, so it ended up being boring and hot. Molten lava in a tin.

I am unable to find a single redeeming quality in this blend.

Don't know what else to say about the MB offerings, and I have tried many....this is a mild, nice smelling, hot burning, boring flavored tobacco. Its burley base tries to offset the heat produced by the extra sugars added...at least not propylene glycol...I think they opt for natural sugars....but if you are into the cased tobaccos at a reasonable price then try this one out...just puff slowly or it will bare its fangs.