Samuel Gawith Chocolate Flake

A slight burst of latakia initially upon lighting is followed by a softly sweet mushroomy flavor. Throughout the first third, the taste, oddly, continues to be of spiced mushrooms. Although not as intense as Just for Him's Shortcut to Mushrooms blend, the flavor is still strong enough to stimulate my appetite, and might be worth smoking between a heavy dinner and dessert.

By the second third, the taste is of a musty English latakia blend, remarkable only for its resemblance to the flavor of the fruiting body of a fungus.

Finally, in the last third, this blend settles down into something fairly enjoyable in its oddness, though for me, it's just not worth the journey to get there. But I must admit the aftertaste of smoking a bowl of this blend is luscious.

This dense very dark brown long flake smokes dry, producing a decent quantity of smoke of a medium strength with medium flavor and body. But contrary to my expectations, this is not a particularly good choice to accompany a cup of strong coffee.

This review was made possible by generous samples from pipesandcigars.com of both this blend and Gawith, Hoggarth, & Co.'s Bob's Chocolate Flake smoked in a few different pipes.

Now, I need to go fix something to eat.

Easy pack , easy smoke , easy on ya tongue , then !!! O. M .G - They are right -the soap smell!!it stinks in the tin of soap , even when it dissipates in the smoking process , once you latch onto the pre-smoke stink [ the pinky phenolic stuff @ school when you had short pants} it spoils the whole road show ,don,t be fooled by the room note- its the decoy{ as it is OK ] blec

This Blend BITES in Every sense of the word. It Bites the tongue like a rabid wolverine, and it Bites as a Smoking Tobacco. I know I'm only a "Rookie" pipe smoker, but I'm arrogant enough to say "THERE IS NO CHOCOLATE!!!", at least to my damaged, undiscerning, unlearned palate. I decided to blend it half and half with a cut/shredded chocolate Phillies cigar blunt just to have some chocolate flavor. It killed the chocolate flavor of the shredded blunt. I like english blends, (love Squadron Leader) and arromatics (Lane's 1Q etc.) and naturals (C & D's) Serenity Series - Conmort) so I'm not completely Ignorant as to quality. Avoid this one, run backwards and throw rocks.

Before going into the real story of this review, the most important part - the tobacco notes - should be quickly reviewed. This is a nice blend, led by the balanced Latakia leaf which adds to the overall chocolate character. It is not overly leathery, woodsy, or smoky, but more silky or creamy.

It is only mellowed by the other ingredients. However, I'm not getting any citrus or bread-like notes from the Virginia. The Burley probably adds some cocoa and earth notes. However, it isn't really distinguishable in the smoke. This is a Latakia-forward blend without it being considered a Latakia bomb. I only get some chocolate in the tin note, but nothing much in the smoke.

Now, for me (unfortunately) the big story is the mechanics. In order to enjoy tobacco, it helps if it is easily smoked. Well, Chocolate Flake is not. Many have commented that it comes in moist and recommend anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours of dry time. Well, even after couple of days my flakes were not ready. In fact, I forgot the tobacco in a tin can for two whole weeks, only to discover pretty dry tobacco. And even then (!) it wasn't easy to deal with and requires several relights. What's in this thing?

The trap is that once the flakes are dried up, it is harder to rub them out as you would with a fresher flake. So I got the bad news of both ends. To be honest, I really want to just finish this tin.

I considered giving it two stars because the flavor is not bad. It's ok. I'd like it more or less if it smoked easy. But in the end of the day if I can't actually smoke the thing, then I can't recommend that anyone gets it.

Mild in body and strength. Nothing complex here.

Will absolutely not buy again. I've dealt with blends that aren't considered easy to smoke but this was just the worst.

...More like chocolate fake. I'd rather spend my money on something else. I was looking for a really good chocolate tobacco. After the first bowl that went right out the window. It's not sweet and it hardly tastes like chocolate. It's not delicious in that way.

I love English blends, so I tried to forget about the adding of dark chocolate and just pack bowls and smoke it. Still sucks. I got bored with it. Smoked it just to get rid of it, because I feel like I paid too much for it.

puff puff pass...

Not what I was expecting to find in the tin. I do like English tobacco but only once did I seem to find the ideal conditions to get a satasfactory smoke from the tobacco. It seemed unbalanced.

Sorry, this stuff made me sick. I tried it many times, in many pipes, prepared many ways and it is disappointing to say the least. If it's me, so be it. If it's not, be forewarned.

I must admit before starting that I'm not much of an aromatic smoker although before making the switch to VAs and Burleys I smoked aromatics exclusively for about 2-3 years. I believe I have some ground to stand on to review this blend.

When first opening the tin you will be greeted with the most outstanding smell of VAs, a little Latakia and that all important chocolate topping. The strongest smell is the VAs to my nose, not the other ingredients and the chocolate seems to be more of a coco smell rather than a chocolate - or if a chocolate, then a bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate at best. I was so mesmerized with this smell and the look of the flakes that I dove right into my first bowl. Now, I must note that the tobacco is a bit on the wet side in the tin so you need to give it a little drying time before lighting up.

Methods of smoking tried: My first bowl was the roll and stuff method of loading. My second bowl was about 70% rubbed out. My third bowl was fully rubbed out. Roll and Stuff gives the most intense flavor. As of this writing, I've just about finished the tin - don't know how many bowls it's been.

Pipes I've tried this in: A Group 3 Meer, a group 3ish Stanwell HCA II with short stem, a group 3ish Stanwell paneled horn, a group 4 Aldo Velani, a straight paneled Nording billiard, a Gourd Calabash. So, I've kind of run the gamut on pipe sizes and styles as well.

Here's what I find ... this tobacco is a disappointment. I hate writing that even now because it smells so wonderful in the tin that I almost can't believe it just wouldn't be a winner. But, sadly, it just doesn't cut it for me. I will say however that its substantially better than GH's Bob's Chocolate Flake for sure.

The best I can tell, smoking this tobacco is nothing more than a way to make steamy clouds of smoke leaving grey dottle in the bowl when done. That's a sad review, but it's the best I have to offer. When smoking the tobacco I always thought the VA's were far to mild, the Latakia never came to center stage and the chocolate never really made much of an appearance either. It was just bland, bland, bland. At times, I did notice a slight whiff of the chocolate / coco topping as it interacted with the latakia in the 2nd hand smoke but it did little for me. The worst part was the morning after taste if you smoke this before going to bed ... ugh.

So, a long review for me but I didn't want to post a negative review without at least showing that I did really give this tobacco it's fair day in court. And, unfortunately, it will never be in my bowls again as soon as I finish off this tin. (no, it's not good, I'm just cheap and don't want to throw it away) rp.

I had high hopes for this, as a friend of mine absolutely loves this stuff & raves about how it's like smoking a chocolate milkshake. My experience was very different - proving once again that everybody's palate is quite different. I've tried this in 3 different pipes with 3 different prep methods (rubbed-out, cube cut, and fold & stuff), and my smoking experience has been the same each time. This is not a bad tasting tobacco, but to me it is a very flat-tasting, uninteresting experience.

My flakes were a bit on the dry side, but not problematically dry. It takes a fair bit of effort to get these flakes burning, but once they were going good they required what to me seemed to be an average number of relights compared to other flakes I've smoked. To my mouth, the chocolate casing is extremely light, and is not evident in every puff - I was only able to detect it occasionally, and only if I was really focusing and looking for it. Not a chocolate milkshake - more like a mild cocoa dusting (think baking chocolate, or mild chocolate notes found in some dark roast coffees). The tobacco flakes appear to be decent quality tobacco, with an appearance that isn't that different from other SG or GH flakes that I've smoked.

The taste to me is very homogeneous - I can't really pick out the virginia, burley, or latakia in this. It all blends together in such a way that none of the components stand out, but together they somehow make for a very monotone, flat flavor. I enjoyed this most when I was reading a book, as I was then focusing on something other than the smoking experience. On the plus side, there was no bite, and the smoke produced has a thick creaminess to it despite the lack of popping flavors. The room note is inoffensive as well.

Needless to say, I have no desire to purchase/stock this in the future. There's a lot worse things to try to smoke, but there's a lot better too. Tastes are subjective, and this blend just doesn't do anything for me.