Cornell & Diehl Bayou Morning Flake

NOT REVIEWED YET A Virginia/perique lover's delight! The folks at C&D start with old belt red Virginias, add 25% perique and press the whole thing before slicing it into Bayou Morning Flake.

Tin note of fermented fruit, Rasin, and spices. The broken flakes are orangish-brown, dark brown and tan. Moisture is ok, may need a little drying. Rubs out with little effort. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and mostly consistent, with notes of very bready, very spicy, very woody, tart dark stewed fruit, sweet grass, earthy, leathery, mild vinegar, mild tangy lemon, and a peppery retro. Virginias are leading with perique supporting. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

This blend is a perique lovers dream. You get all the flavors from perique. That plum raisin chili pepper profile is upfront and the Virginia’s help mellow it out by adding a natural tobacco sweetness that breaks up the spice. I line this one a lot when I need a strong powerful favor. I don’t need to think as this is not a subtle blend just a lot of flavor.

There are VaPers out there, and lots of good ones. But this ? This is an alien. Telegraph Hill is an excellent VaPer, might even be the best, the « king » as some call it. Bayou Morning Flake pets Telegraph Hill’s head whispering « good boy ». Oh you can disagree … But still : I know.

For starters this blend is nothing like the ribbon cut version, it may be the same blend but it's completely different in flavor. These broken flakes are easy to work with, and a tad wet, but can be smoked immediately if you please.

I get some bread notes & a bit of hay, that's about it. Not very much sweetness at all. The perique doesn't seem to hit as hard as you'd think it would for being 25%. In fact I don't taste much perique at all. It's there, but I'm missing a lot of the normal plummy, peppery notes I usually get. I don't really enjoy this one until I hit the final 1/3 of the bowl. There the flavors finally develop and I get a bit of earth, stewed fruit, and pepper. Fortunately its easy to smoke, and doesn't bite whatsoever.

Overall underwhelming. Pretty one note Virginia flavor and not a great one at that. The ribbon cut variety is a whole lot more interesting, and cheaper. Planning on throwing it in a jar and if I get to it in a year or two I'll report back, I feel like with the large perique content may have massive aging potential, but as it stand right now, pretty bland.

I think I'm in love.

The tin art on this blend is pretty simple and fun and it's definitely something I would pick up based on design alone. When you open the tin you get a wonderful aroma of hay, baked bread, figgyness, some sort of matured cheese, with a background Virginia sweetness. There is a stack of fairly crumbling flakes in the tin that very easily rub out to your preference. I find no problem with lighting and keeping it lit. It takes an average amount of relights in that respect.

The taste is incredible. After lighting up I taste some beautiful dark fruits and plummyness from the Perique. It's spicy but not in any way overpowering. At 25% I wouldn't expect this kind of smoothness from Perique and maybe the process of making it a flake has something to do with that. The Virginias in this blend are Red, and they offer a lot of baked bread, softness, wood, and sweetness.

The taste is medium, it's not so complex that I can't do anything while smoking, but it's not too simple that I loose interest. The strength has the potential to be strong with the Perique content, but I find it a happy medium. The room note won't win any friends. I think I have found my new all day blend. I even went so far as to buy the 8oz tin of the stuff and I can't foresee that it will last long. I give this blend a solid 4 stars. It has everything I'm looking for in a VaPer: fruit, plum, bread and spice.

The great thing about the pipe tobacco world is that it is always changing, a blend that you like today you might not like tomorrow. This happens with this blend. Although not my favorite, I always give it a try. Taste changes maybe next time would be better for my taste.

Bringing out the flavour of a tobacco is kind of an art, especially with this one. The aroma from the thin is very nice, acid almost like fermented goldenberry. With the firsts puffs the greasy acid flavours emerge, later on some leather and bitter pepper.

Even though the name of this tobacco implies the taste of the morning, in my case it does not work well for this time of the day, but I enjoy it during the afternoon marinated with a cup of hot sweet cocoa which enriches the tasting experience.

I would hardly recommend a very slow smoke.

I had it in several pipes, briar, meerschaum, but it really worked well on a poker Missouri Meerschaum.

At this time still not one of my favourites, i really hope you like it though.