Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Brown Flake Aromatic

Overall a good place to start for this type of floral flake. It appears to be in the middle in several ways to include: strength of tobacco, floral flavor, tobacco flavor, room note, and actual appearance (mottled brown or medium brown). Which is why I only give it two stars there are just other flakes I like quite abit better then this particular flake. I like these flakes less strong, and with more floral flavor. It did seem to have more of a tobacco flavor and was abit stronger but not over the top by far. All and all ok but prefer other offerings.

First up, I have to say that from reading the descriptions here I am not entirely certain that I am smoking the same blend as the other reviewers! Nevertheless, the tobacconists tub said it was Scented Brown Flake so I have to assume that it is.

So, let's cut to the chase. It's scented and then some! I've not tried many other G&H blends but I enjoy a bit of St Bruno and various other 'English' style flakes and plugs so I was prepared to like this. Unfortunately the particular scents used do not appeal to me at all.

I get a combination of violet, rose and geranium, all pretty cloying. The tobacco is there (I get a fair amount of burley in addition to VA) but it is mostly overshadowed by the powerful perfume. At about the half-way mark the VAs peep through more regularly and I experience the odd moment of pleasure, but not sufficient to make smoking the first half of the bowl worthwhile.

English readers may recall the flavour of those little purple 'Parma Violet' sweets from their childhood. Now imagine smoking them!

Somewhat recommended as if you enjoy that type of thing you will probably enjoy this tobacco more than I did. I am going to put mine in a jar then try it again in a few months to see if has mellowed at all, probably in a clay or cob to prevent flavouring my briars any further.

Of all the 'Gawith and Hogwarts' blends I have tried so far I have enjoyed Black Twist, Brown Twist, Revor Plug and Dark Flake Unscented (not because they all happen to be strong, but I have found the flavours pleasing). I have not enjoyed this flake or Rum Flake. Hopefully this will help other reviewers to orient themselves when assessing the relevance of this review for their own particular tastes.

This is the second of G&H brown flakes. I like the unscented brown flake the best - full and hearty but with a natural deep virginia sweetness and a helping of burley earthiness to boot. If I want something a little lighter (and I do mean a little), I go for G&H Best Brown Flake No. 2, which is also a little sweeter than the unscented, fuller version. But here goes with the aromatic version.

Same body and underlying earthiness as with unscented brown flake, but obviously here we have an amalgam of flavors added. No one flavor stands out to me, but it is noticeably sweeter than either of the other two versions. Tasty indeed. Smoked slowly it does not really bite me, but it can be a bit sharper than the other two. I understand the comments about the charing lights.

Despite the many flavors added (like maple, etc.), they are clearly evident but not overwhelingly so. (Some other G&H scented lakeland flakes are even more aromatic.) The natural tobaccos underneath still come through.

If you want a sweet full tobacco and you are use to flakes, give this a try. You'll probably like one of these three brown flake versions. If they are too much, try something like Germain's version (straighter) or then to Samuel Gawith's version (sweetened).

Yep, another scented flake from the Gawith guys, this one built on G&H Brown Flake. This one is not quite in the same league as their other scented "soapy" flakes, IMO. The flavoring is quite similar to many others (they all differ in subtle ways, but the floral "scented" theme is the same). I happen to like the admittedly acquired taste, but others clearly do not.

I must agree with pipestud above that this blend has a wicked bite. My order arrived very dry, not sure whether it was shipped by G&H that way or had been sitting around at my suppliers drying out. At any rate, excess moisture was not the issue with the bite. In fact, I even slightly rehumidified about an ounce in case the bite came from too-rapid combustion, and it still had shark's teeth.

The odd thing is, regular (unscented) BF does not seem to have this biting problem for me. And other scented G&H flakes (like Ennerdale for instance) do not burn so hot. It seems like BFA is an outlier.

I would not recommend this blend for this reason. Maybe if one built up enough oral scar tissue though...