McClelland Syrian Full Balkan

Being a fan of Latakia, Orientals, and the Balkan blends I thought I?d have to give this stuff a try.

I am by no means an expert on tobacco but here goes with the impressions of this Balkan. On opening the tin I found the tobacco to be at a good moisture content. The freshly opened tin had a vegetal smell to me that remained as the tobacco was used up. The tobacco is mostly brown, going from light brown to a very dark brown not quite full black. This tin only had a few strands that were close to a full black. The quality of the tobacco was excellent, there were no stiff pieces of veins or those teeny little sticks that you sometimes find, no dust, no oils, nothing gooey. The tobacco is somewhat springy but easy enough to pack. To me a fine ribbon cut tobacco is easy to pack but you need to be a careful, it should also be easy to draw when packed properly. While this tobacco does have an easy enough draw for the ribbon cut, its not quite as easy as others I have smoked. With every bowl that was smoked, I used two lights which is not unusual for me. Once the second light was made the tobacco stayed lit long enough for me to enjoy. The tobacco was smoked in both briar and in meers. As usual, the couple of pipes I have that always smoke better than the others played right along and made the tobacco the best it could be. I did find that a tall bowled Peterson System pipe did this tobacco some good, making for a longer smoke where the taste would build a little better at about the three quarter mark.

With most of a tin of the Syrian Full Balkan gone I have to ask where is the full part. This is to me a very mild form of a Balkan. But then they say mild on the tin so it is, as advertised. The ads also say rich aromatic character, but no one who was around me found this tobacco to be aromatic at all. Not topping aromatic or tobacco aromatic. My wife said that the tobacco aroma was noticeably lighter than other tobaccos I smoke. I enjoy the whiffs of smoke from the top of the bowl and get my greatest smoking sensation from them. It was hard to catch a really good whiff from this stuff to make you think what a great tobacco.

So far as taste goes I did not find this blend to have much taste for a Balkan, maybe the next tin needs to have some age on it prior to smoking. I found this tobacco to be about the same from top of the bowl all the way to the bottom with most pipes, very mild, enjoyable enough, but not my idea of a Full Balkan. Absolutly no bite, and the bowl temperature especially in the meers was noticably less than other tobacco. This tobacco burned surprisingly cool.

Balkans should have some zing, my perception is there isn?t much. To me, everything is muted. I found that there was little nicotine hit from this tobacco blend. This would in my humble opinion be a good tobacco for someone looking to try a non-aromatic. I?ll buy a few more tins and celler them for a while for the change of pace every now and then some time in the future. Maybe a year or two in the dark will bring this stuff to life for me.