Windels Half Grove Semois

The above description agrees with the pitifully little information I've been able to find on the internet. As (true) perique is only grown in a small area of Louisiana, semois tobacco is grown only in the Semois River valley in the Ardennes, Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge was waged there.

It is only sold in Belgium. You won't find this at your local Piggly Wiggly. (My benefactor lives in the Netherlands and I thank him for this sample.) Why the restricted marketing? Obviously, Belgians want it all to themselves! Probably an artifact of tax and export laws, possibly due to limited supply.

First impressions: when I opened the mailbox, I immediately smelled dried tarragon. You know: clover, sweet hay, chamomile. When I opened the envelope, I also detected some tonka. It is a medium brown very soft shag cut. It packs well, but care must be taken not to pack too tightly.

Being forewarned by its strong aroma and of its reputed nicotine level, I chose a funky little "The Smoke" with its nonporous pyrolytic graphite bowl of about 10 cc capacity, knowing that I could clean with fuming nitric acid if I had to. Oddly, the strength of the casing(?) did not show up in the taste. Little if any. It first tasted and smelled cigarettish and slightly cigarry. The closest comparison of my limited experience would be Edgeworth Flake: burley-like. Later down the bowl, deeper flavors emerged and any light aromatic character that may have been originally present totally disappeared. No bite. Nicotine? Well.. let's just say smokers of this will never suffer from constipation. It seldom requires relighting, probably owing to the shag cut, yet smokes cool.

This is not a tobacco for girly-men. This is one for wooly- bearded bikers and truckers and smokers of Lucky Strike unfiltereds. The strength went past my normal quitting time but I persisted to see how it finished. The bottom of the bowl revealed the true uniqueness of semois: a somewhat tarry non-sweet, non-bitter plain tobacco taste. It lacked the ammoniacal taste and aroma common to strong burleys. It did give me a slight case of what others have described as the "burley curse", a roughness in the top of my throat which I've never had before.

It would not become a regular for me if it were available here. I'll stick to my Prince Albert, but I'm glad to have the opportunity to sample this. Thanks again, Martin!