Robert McConnell Folded Flake

The first word that comes to my mind while thinking about this flake is "easy": easy to pack, easy to smoke and easy to undestand, a fine starting point for a travel into the world of flakes. The tobaccos are good, in the tradition of the brand, and play their role in a perfect balance: the Virginias give a nice sweetness, kentucky gives body and keeps the heat to a cool level, perique in little quantity spices it up a bit. I've found an excellent burning throughout the bowl, very little relighting needed, not a wet smoke at all. I'm not a perique blends fan in general, but this is one I might want to smoke again.

The name describes the packing, a first. Good old tobacco; no frills but a good body.

A nice natural flake. Similar in composition to Paul Olson's 111 flake, but instead of typical bacon strips it is a single long-wide strip folded over several times into a tin compactly (like Marlin Flake in a can or Long Golden Flake, but more compressed). The extra folding and the aging have allowed the above three tobaccos to meld well.

It brakes apart easy into a thick shag which I just fold into a medium pipe. It burns well and on the quick side for a coolish flake.

It is also similar to P. Stokkebye's Luxury Navy Flake but the burley added to Folded Flake gives it more heft. The perique is light and hardly noticeable. But the combination of the three tobaccos puts it midway between Navy Flake and 111.

The natural sweetness of the virginia base is ever present but toned down a bit due to apparent brown leaf employed and the burley. The burley also leans it to the cool side -- good. It is, nevertheless, on the spicy side as advertised (not bite) with a little more weight than a straight virginia blend.

The room note is light, sort of hit and run I am told. The flavor is past medium in my opinion, but still not as stout as some brown flakes (G&H) or as 111. So if you like 111, here is a slightly milder variation but still flavorful and somewhat spicy.

It is dry (I used one pipe cleaner). Stays lit well. Not hot. Easy to pack. Interesting complex of natural flavors well blended together. I recommend this for the straight virginia smoker wanting more heft and a little spice but nothing real stout. No scenting here that I can sense. I liked my full tin (about 20 medium bowls worth, more in one Connoisseur pipe than in a Bjarne for comparison with several) and have several more tins in storage.

Stout and sweet, gentle and interesting. This tobacco was recommended to me by a gentleman with Dutch roots at Telford's Pipe and Cigar on the borders of San Francisco. Now, half a year later in my own hometown, I'm starting to truly appreciate his recommendation.

Folded Flake: it offers a mild-in-strength and pleasant experience of high quality blend. Here, from start to end you smoke real tobacco. It is Virginia-forward and I perceive the perique and Kentucky to be only on the background offering a supporting role. It is grassy, mildly woody and earthy with hay and sweet notes, lightly-to-mildly spicy. It can be an all-day smoke. I can smoke it directly from the jar or with very minimum drying time. I break the flakes in rough pieces and after the charring light and 2 first real lights, it stays fairly lit with perhaps some minimum number of relights. It burns very cool with no chance of bite. This is a great blend. 4 out of 4 stars.

This one lives in the shadows of it sister blend (Scottish Flake) but I actually prefer this one. The Virginia’s are sweet and the sugars caramelize as you smoke down the bowl the Perique and Dark Fired are just slightly present and add interesting nuances that weave in and out of the smoke that make you stop and go “Mmmmmm”. It’s got just the right amout strength (Medium) for all day puffing. It’s more on the malty, bready spectrum than it is grassy and it’s just a delightful sweet and savory smoke. I’m glad this one goes under the radar as it’s pretty easy to obtain but I always like to play it safe and stash a few away in my cellar and I imagine that age will be kind to this one too. This fits up there into the essential category for me. This one and Latakia Flake are staples in the Robert McConnell lineup for me.

Not a bad smoke, but I think there are better VA blends out there that cost less. The scent from the tin was pleasant like dried apricots. Flakes folded on top of one another that require rubbing out before smoking.

Not too much moisture content with my fresh 50 gram tin, and it doesn't need much relighting once started. No problems packing, and it smokes well down to the bottom of the pipe.

The taste is pure, mild VA, with a hint of spice. I expected more of a "spicey" taste, but there's nothing too complex here. I don't plan to buy another tin of this, as I prefer Samuel Gawith's Full Virginia Flake for a fuller, sweeter smoke, but this is a decent smoke if FVF is not available.

A Spicy Flake composed of Virginia, Fired Kentucky and Perique

I picked up a half dozen tins of this at the Chicago Pipe Show; a good decision. For those who may be looking for a friendly perique blend with excellent, natural tobacco flavor, this may be the one. The texture of the tobacco was a bit stiff or brittle and arrived dry enough for immediate smoking. The flavor is mainly Virginia with just the hint of perique. I did not taste the Kentucky; my guess is that it is there to tame or mellow the Virginias. The tobacco has no bite. It is not a complex smoke, but it delivers a constant, slightly sweetened, Va. tang with just a hint of perique zip. This is a good one, and I will be smoking a lot of it in the future. Well recommended. Paddy.

Being a lover of burley, I picked up a tin of this about a month ago. The first thing that I noticed upon opening the tin was the high moisture content noted by pipeco, in his review of the blend. The other thing that I noticed was that the aroma seemed to be dominated by VA, leaving the burley and perique hidden somewhere in the mix. I like to smoke this blend in my Dunhill 4103 w/ bamboo shank. It also smokes well in a miniature bent bulldog by Butz Choquin, that I have. I have found that this blend performs best with at least 30 min drying, and a gratuitous "false light", and thorough tamping prior to smoking. Throughout the first 25% of the bowl, the flavor seems to be over powered by the VA. Initial flavors are typical of a stoved, sweet, VA with a mellow character. The mellowness present is almost certainly due to the burley working its way through the mix as the heat begins to pick up. After the first 25% of the bowl I noticed a consistant flavor of candied apples and caramel that did not diminish until the last 25% of the bowl. As I sat back and enjoyed this blend with a cup of Earl Grey tea, one thing struck me as being odd.... There seemed to be no characteristic spiciness from the perique. Even in small quantities, a blend containing perique will be very obvious but my taste buds just never picked it up. After 5 bowls of this blend I decided to add a pinch of blending perique to a bowl and was met with a very satisfying smoke indeed. All in all the blend is solid, just a little less complex than I prefer.