Smokers' Haven IN-B-TWEEN Mixture

The name of this blend is really a description of the blend and where it places verses Our Best Blend. In-B-Tween is a very good quality medium English blend. It lacks the richness (and Latakia) that OBB offers, but it is nicely balanced and could be an all-day smoke for most English smokers. I don't seem to be able to single out the sweetness that others have pointed out, but my review is based on two newer tins and it may be due to the “newness” of my tins. Due to the very thin ribbons, it should be packed with care to get the best results. I am eager to see what a couple of years in the cellar will do to this blend. It is also great news to see its return to the marketplace! All in all, IN-B-Tween gets a solid three and a half stars for my taste.

Looks in the tin like the picture here and is mostly a shag. Smells like a light latakia/oriental blend in the tin, with a delicate mustiness. Loads like a shag, meaning you'll probably want to tear it in places to get it to load properly. This performed best at tin moisture, as shags are too thin to hold excess water. It came pretty dry anyway and further drying just destroyed it.

This one is a case in point as to why reviews based on a couple of bowlfuls are usually not helpful. The first half-dozen bowls were "meh". A light latakia flavor on top of what appeared to be characterless Virginias and not much of an oriental presence. Eventually somewhere around the halfway point of the next bowl, the orientals came out, and they are stellar, with a beautiful spiciness and depth. They ruled the show from that point and carried a lackluster blend into something very nice indeed. This is considered an English blend with the predominant flavor being latakia but I found the orientals more enticing and apparent at midbowl. The Virginias shored up well but provided almost no sweetness - more of a bready quality. It's a nice trickle down of SH's "Our Best Blend", which necessarily for me means a less enticing smoke. But this is a worthy blend if you like your English mixes more on the mild side, both in potency and flavor. I happen to prefer Exotique for it's more Balkan qualities but I seemed to smoke this tin rather rapidly, which I find meaningful. I enjoyed my time with it but don't miss it now that it's gone.

This is another wonderful Latakia blend by JF Germain for Smoker's Haven. I have now had the luxury of trying all of these blends. They are all different despite having very similar make up of Va, Lat and Or.

This one differentiates itself by having very little latakia presence and focusing more on the oriental components. Similar in the way that Select mixture does. I would put this below Select Mixture as my tastes go as the orientals in Select lean more to the woody, nutty side; whereas, IBT tends to come off as more sour to my tastes.

overall the fine Virginia used by SH carries these blends adding sweet hay and citrus. I like this one better than 20th anniversary, but that is about it. I prefer all the other ones over this.

I have not given any of these blends below two stars, because it is really splitting hairs to determine which one is better as they all are good and offer an enjoyable smoke.

We had an unofficial club meeting today. A few of us went out and grabbed lunch and settled down for a cigar or pipe or both. A friend of mine brought some of this in and I was lucky to get a nice sample smoke from it. This mild English had a sweetness in the tin note and the smoke but not sure of what. There is no flavoring added as stated on the website so maybe the sweetness is from the Orientals. I was smoking this in my Dagner Corn Cob and man did this put out a lot of smoke, I had a solid stream of smoke coming out of my pipe that looked almost supernatural, like a thick long white snake. This is a really nice blend. Pipestud thinks that this is Penzance in a shag cut, with over 1800 reviews I will take his word at it and they are both manufactured by Germain. Alas, this is no longer in production but always a pleasure to try something new, albeit if only a bowl or two. Interesting to me is that the last review on this one was 3 years ago.

Objective: This blend was fairly dry when I recieved it. Dark short ribbon cut and some smaller pieces. Seveeral relights needed.

Subjective: This blend bit slightly with only moderate puffing, but yielded a good amount of smoke and a nice flavor. A good medium blend, but left me wanting something stronger after two bowls. Very grateful for the gift, however I will not be making a purchase for future use.

Smoker's Haven, as it has been mentioned before, has their house blends made for them by Germain & Sons (maker of Esoterica blends, amongst other lines). As such, all the SH blends I've tried have been very well put together; they use high quality leaf (as far as I can tell), blend and age their leaf very well, and pay fine attention to detail.

Of the three standard english blends SH offers (and I'm not counting here their heavy hitting Krumble Kake, as it's a bit different, or Exotique, which is a classic Balkan, not english style blend) this is in the middle. Not as full and rich as Our Best Blend, not as wimpy as Select Mixture. I think it achieves a happy medium.

IBT is a medium english style blend with a stronger focus on the orientals than what I typically see in these blends. It's still very well balanced and no one component steals the spotlight from another. In this way it's similar to Dunhill's London Mixture. Though this lacks the mustyness I usually got from LM, IBT has a very briney smell and taste which I also appreciate. I think it often gets overlooked due to its marketing and name, but for those who don't need the latakia bomb which is OBB and KK (see above), IBT is a fine blend with lots of flavor.

Recommended for all smokers wanting a solid medium english blend, highly recommended for those who love the above with a solid oriental component.

This is a nice tobacco, it is just as it says and in between tobacco, not a lot of latakia or anything else. It is like a warm cu of soup on a cold day, I guess what I am trying to say it is the tobacco equivalent to comfort food. It is always the same mellow and cool smoke no matter which of my pipes I put it in and it never lets me down. I have on a few occasions used this tobacco as a base for my own blends, it works well with Cyprian latakia. I think this tobacco must consist of at least some Turkish tobacco. I prefer this tobacco in the morning but have smoked it latter in the day as well, but by late in the day I want somthing with more of a punch in the taste department. If like me you sometimes want a gentle smoke that makes you forget the troubles of the day this one might be your ticket to mild English tobaccos. It might also be a good way to break yourself of the habit of aromatics.