G. L. Pease Charing Cross

I bought Charing Cross from Iwan Ries a few months back on a whim, and am just finishing the tin now (my rotation is big). It is a very good full Balkan.

I spent a while trying to find the perfect full Balkan, with a good balance between the Orientals and the Latakia. So many blends are just too Latakia heavy, which I find to be much less interesting than a good interplay between Orientals and Latakia. To my taste, this blend has enough of both to be at the same time complex and somewhat powerful.

Like most Pease blends, this one was a bit wet when I bought it, but drying out has made lighting easy enough. It smokes down to a fine grey ash, and I imagine it'd be a great tobacco to break in pipes.

This is highly recommended for anyone who wants more to their Balkan than raw power.

EDIT I've now found that I prefer Blackpoint if I want something fuller from this collection, or Kensington if I want something a little lighter. Both are a little more complex than Charing Cross. But if you like really dry English mixtures, Charing Cross is a great option. Still very much recommended, but knocked down a star.

EDIT 2 Just checked in on a ten year old pinch of this. The latakia is fading a little, and the already-formidable oriental component has become a little more present as a result. A nice smoke. Still, I'm sticking with Blackpoint and Kensington as my go-tos from this range.

I would not recommend that anyone buy this blend. It will make you impotent, and your hair will fall out. A GLP delivery van ran over my mother. Greg Pease funnels money to the Taliban, and experiments on small animals. Charing Cross is high in carbohydrates. Let this blend languish on store shelves. I will collect them and see to their proper disposal.

It's a dog eat dog world, and every bad review for CC is another tin available for me. I may just buy them all.

An absolute home run.

Mr. Pease has single handedly renewed my interest in latakia blends.. After an almost 10 year hiatus I've gradually come back for the time being.. It all started with Key Largo.. Funny how that works.. bit by bit you grow back your tolerance to the beast.. I'm still a virginia/burley/perique guy.. but the mood has been striking more and more for the smoky, peaty, tar leaf.. The proportions in charing cross remind me of an old favorite.. not sobranie (although it isn't far off) but balkan sasieni.. This is a savory smoke.. at a certain level of oriental/latakia the whole character changes.. the sweet virginia character is given up a little, in exchange for a full on toasty, woody, floral, peaty more delicate smoke.. Each puff is a variation on this theme.. and you want to keep digging to discover more. The cut is also a similar ribbon.. it burns fast enough for a quick smoke, but I find it benefits from a slow cadence especially as you get past the halfway mark.. it can get warm.. but I like these thinner ribbons for a satisfying smoke that won't last all night. It comes much drier than quiet nights.. but maybe 10 min of dry time will still help.. From my perspective it is easily a 3 star blend for the moment.. as I continue to get more accustomed once again to latakia it could easily jump to 4.. as it stands, I gravitate a little more to the more Virginia forward quiet nights..

Something between Balkan Sasieni and GLP Odyssey.Cool smoke bold and tasteful. Good all through the end. Delicious, gentle on nicotine. Definitely I’ll add to my rotation. Another great blend by Mr. Pease. A Balkan lover should indeed try this wonderful tobacco.

Update: it can be a all day smoke, without hurting your tongue. If you’re going in an adventure outdoors this is the tobacco to take with you.

This is a deep flavored Balkan mixture. Wild delightful to many, some will find this overwhelming. The smokiness is wonderful, but bordwrline overwhelming when smoked on the deck with my wife. Charing and full light were fine, with wonderful burnability. I nitial flavore reminds one of smoking Cajun ribs on the grill. Rather spicy to my palate, but everything plays well with the high quality Virginia leaf in the blend. A third of the way through, and with a properly warmed bowl, the marrying of the Virginia, Oriental, and Cyorian latakia fla ors are sublime. At mid bowl, I have detected a sweet rasin note that drifts in and out. Quite delightful. The blend seems to get sweeter as the smoke progresses. The oriental tobaccos are adding a teasing tanginess that seems to make bith the sweetness and amokiness of the blend that much more delightful. The nicotine hit is mire pronounced as the smike progresses. Quite a delightful smoke for balkan enthusiasts, I highly rexcomend.

Charing Cross is yet another impressive Pease blend. Like most of his efforts, this is a tobacco of subtlety, refinement, and elegance. That's not to say this stuff doesn't have a forceful side--it does--but the tobacco's muscle and strength never stretch the seams of this beautiful blend.

The leaf is of high quality and this tin arrived with ideal moisture. The cut is broad enough that it can be a little challenging to pack into a small bowl, but it's great in bowls with squat, wide-mouthed shapes.

And the tin description? Most accurate I've yet come across.

Edit: Just a bump up on this one for the sake of honesty. I've come to respect Charing Cross' potent beauty more and more everyday. For my money (what little there is), this is the finest Balkan available today. A masterpiece.

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this tobacco until now; maybe I was just too busy enjoying it. I love Balkan-style blends, and this is my desert island tobacco -- If I could only smoke one blend for the rest of my days, this would be it.

Tin aroma is extremely pleasing; leathery and woodsy. A note about the moisture content: it's tricky. If it seems about right then it smokes like it's a bit moist, so dry it a bit more than you think it needs. Then pack it evenly, breaking up the big chunks; if the moisture content is right it will burn all the way down on one light. Best in a larger bowl, due to the cut. The orientals constantly peek through the latakia smoke and there's just enough Virginias to lace it all together. A very well-balanced Balkan blend.

In a briar it's full enough to satisfy on a winter's night, and in a meerschaum it doesn't overwhelm on a hot, humid day outdoors. There are lighter balkan blends, and fuller ones but this strikes the best possible balance between the two extremes, and the flavor is rewarding any time.

To me, Charing Cross is the epitome of Balkan mixtures (or is it Odyssey?). Anyway, CC is another outstanding offering from what is at the present day the best pipe tobacco maker in the world: GLPease. Charing Cross is a Latakia powerhouse, with rich Virginias and Orientals providing enough sweetness and depth to keep you in heaven throughout the bowl without being overly complex or sweet.

Don't expect a nicotine kick here: CC is full flavored, but not strong at all.

I have several tins cellared and I'll be buying a lot more, considering that this is my only everyday Balkan.

All trades admit of many jacks, but few masters. Greg Pease is unquestionably a master of tobacco blending (AND photography) and therefore deserves of our respect and gratitude. All one need do is smoke a few of his blends (I've been smoking them since his F&P days) to know that one word can never be aplied to any of his creations: "Generic."

I do not smoke all them regularly, but I understand them. There is a theme to each and all Pease blends are marvelously crafted, visually enticing, and will make one salivate upon opening the tin--the older, the better.

As a man of integrity, Greg uses the finest tobaccos available and does not release a blend until the tuning fork of taste rings true for him. As a man of experience and confidence, he does not kid himself and think (or demand) four stars for each of his blends from all reviewers.

Charing Cross is one of the "Classic Collection" tobaccos, each created as an homage to the best of days long gone. Blackpoint and Kensington are my personal favorites in this group. Charing Cross, though displaying the same craftsmanship and quality as all Pease blends, is not.

Not that there is anything wrong with Charing Cross, it is a simple matter of individual taste. And, for reasons I shall continue to explore, Charing Cross just misses the mark for me. I bought my first can of CC concurrent with a can of Blackpoint, which for the third time in my life kindled to flame "love at first sight...or tin aroma." Charing Cross did not, and, sorry to say, it still doesn't.

Charing Cross is a fine tobacco; it is, after all, a GL Pease product and as such is first-rate and impecably constructed. It simply, for me, does not resonate with somethig in my body chemistry. As you will note from other reviews, some find Nirvana in a bowl here. And, indeed the character deveolps as one makes way down the bowl.

Make no mistake, Charing Cross is a full Balkan, though, to my taste not an outstanding one IMHO. For Balkan blends, I would recommend Odyssey or Caravan from Greg's Original Mixtures, or Kensington, from the Classic Collection. Each is smoother and more complex than Charing Cross. For a full-bore Latakia dollop, Abingdon is the best choice among the Classic Collection.

Three out of four stars.

**After further evaluation I can say that the qualities I found less-than-satisfying in Charing Cross are mitigated in part, if not in whole, by pipe selection. My initial review was based upon smoking this weed in Sasieni 4-Dot pipes (the REAL DEAL from the "family-era"). Sasieni's are funny; they augment some blends while detracting from others.

Since the earlier review, I have tried this tobacco in a 1930s-era GBD and a meerschaum. The GBD, for whatever reason, eliminated the bitternes I found objectionable in earlier smokes. Both Sasieni and GBD are undervalued specimens of British pipemaking at its best; nevertheless, they smoke quite differently. GBDs are sweeter, while Sasienis are drier. Go figure!

A meerschaum likewise removes the bitterness, but, alas, much of the good things as well. Meerschaums are funny that way. In "the good old days" (hence, the "oldmanpipe") I could enjoy Rattray's Red Raparee and Dunhill's Nightcap ONLY in a meerschaum or calabash. Greg's blends are best-appreciated in a companionable briar.

The rating does not change, as I believe GL Pease has better to offer in this genre; the appreciation of Charing Cross, however, has been enhanced by exploration.