ThePipeRoom.com King Arthur Blend

This is a diva of aromatics, lots of show, but not too much substance. I must admit that King Aurthur has a good smell out of the bag, like a forest floor strewn with wild berries, and it has quite a crowd pleasing room note. Its flavor kind of lets me down though. Its something that is quite sweet, has a nice taste of berries but where's the nicotine? Where's the tobacco for that matter? I smoked one bowl through and later tried a second, but didn't want to finish it. Its two dimensional sticky sweet flavor was something that was a bit much for me. I suppose if your one of those aromatic smokers of heavily cased cherry cavendish you'll like this a good deal. If you want a subtle and complex smoke of actual tobacco flavors, this is not for you.

I don't know if I would buy this again, I might mix it with some Virginia or something else to give it more depth of taste, the flavor might improve with that. I do like the great clouds of white smoke, but that's its best point. It's a great tobacco to smoke around nonsmokers, sweet smell, billows of smoke, it'll look great in my bent churchwarden along with a wizard's costume, but most pipe and cigar men will laugh at me when they try it.

So its a sweet smelling, smoke producing, flat tasting, oily mass of leaves, that will be good to smoke for other people's benefit, but no so much your own. I've had worse, but then I've had way better.

This is an overly moist aromatic that smokes hot and will bite if you aren't careful. What saves this blend is that it has a VERY interesting flavor profile and a wonderful room note. It really does taste somewhat like berries, and if you try hard enough you might actually catch a whiff of tobacco flavor somewhere, too. I bought four ounces of this stuff and put it in jars, but I don't plan on buying any more of it once it's gone. For those who really like strong aromatics, however, this might be a keeper.

Perhaps this blend has changed in more ways than just its name. I tried a couple of bowls a year or so ago and found it to be an extremely sweet tasting and bitey blend. Not long ago, I ordered a batch for a friend up in Canada and likewise got a small pouch for myself figuring I'd give it another go. I'm glad I did. It was much better and will be a bell ringer for the aromatic lovers among us. As a very rare change of pace, I'd smoke this one again.

Middle Earth/King Arthur is a mild aromatic with no nicotine punch. It has a light taste that certainly does remind me of black raspberries. If you try hard, you'll also taste the tobacco.

Having just read Lord of the Rings, and having watched all three movies, I was in a bit of an LOTR mood, so I broke out the bag of Middle Earth Blend.

The aroma was quite pleasant, though not totally unfamiliar. Standard aromatic fare, a neatly and evenly cut Cavendish with a mixture of light and dark leaf for some visual appeal. The moisture content was a bit much, so I set some out to dry. Eventually, it did dry a bit, though the process took a bit longer than I would have expected..

With moisture under control, I loaded MEB into a medium sized ¼ bent bulldog. It lit fairly well, only one extra light needed to get it going. The fruit flavoring comes on strong at the beginning, builds a bit, then settles down ? all within a few minutes. The fruity taste is supported by a bit of a nutty taste in the background.

The burn rate is pretty good, and the tobacco burns evenly. The flavor is pretty constant once it settles down. Not overpowering, but very sweet and berry-ish. Monochromatic. Finally, after the 2/3 mark, the flavoring has burned away, and there is a bit of Cavendish flavor for a few seconds. If you aren?t there at just the right time though, you?ll miss it.

Overall, this is not a bad blend. I can?t imagine smoking it very often, as the flavor can be cloying. For future visits to this blend, I plan to use a smaller bowl to try to alleviate this problem.

I said at the top that the aroma wasn?t entirely unfamiliar. Same for the taste. Middle Earth Blend bears a striking resemblance to Lane?s RHQ-3. The room note must as well, because I was asked if I was smoking RHQ-3 when I smoked it at the local B&M one day.