Wessex Burley Slice

This burly is very nice from top to bottom. It is a bit difficult to initially light, but once a lit it burns to a nice fine white ash. The burlys flavor is initially nutty smooth flavors develops into a rich creamy taste that can be enjoyed anytime.

This is my first Wessex tobacco and I chose Burley Flake because I had a craving for the old Edgeworth Slices which are, sadly, no longer available. The tin itself is awfully dang boring but it is the tobacco I wanted, so I dove right in.

Perfectly pressed medium brown flakes with specks of darker tobacco. Perfect moisture - slightly on the dry side. The flakes are about 3.5 inches long and not too thick. Thinner than the Edgeworth as I remember it. Great tin aroma - musky Burley with a slight top dressing (perhaps molasses). I mean top dressing - not casing - because this is no cased aromatic at all.

A bit of work to rub out the flake but not too bad. Never really rubbed out fully. I also tried cutting it into strips/cubes. Both methods worked well and I did not notice a taste difference.

Easier to light than most flakes. Burned well, but there was a bit more dottle than I prefer.

Taste was excellent. Full flavored American-style Burley. Truly a Norman Rockwell old-fashioned style of tobacco. No sweetness but for the hint of molasses. Pure, simple and straightforward. Medium to full in the nicotine dept., nothing like Royal Yacht or a rope tobacco, but more than most.

All in all a delicious Burley flake. Straight out of the golden-age of American pipe smoking. I will keep it in my rotation.

Very nice burley flake. Burns fairly dry, with a tendency to gurgle in the last third (my smoking tech?), were it also gets too strong for me. The nicotine simply dries out the back of my palate and tickles my tongue. If I try to go slow, it goes out. My remedy is to smoke half flakes 😉 but it ends very abruptly... All in all a good tobacco for the stout burley lover!

A tried and true European treatment of burley. Were it not for the high nicotine content which gets me slightly in the throat, this is a monochromatic, yet fine all burley flake. In this vein I much prefer the Peterson University and the Gawith Chocolate Flake. It doesn't make a great impression at first and its a bit stringy when rubbed out, but it opens up very nicely after about the first third of the way down. Aroma is toasty, bright and pleasing. I'm smoking this in early summer, but this would probably be a fine smoke during winter in front of a comfy fireplace. Like most European tobaccos, I believe this flake is now produced in Germany. Burley lovers will find Wessex a true gift. Unpretentious and genuine, WBS is a distinguished, highly enjoyable flake.

Three and a half of five stars

I generally agree with kilted1's fine review below. Unlike him, though, I found that the flakes arrived far too damp for my tastes, and smoked much better, with less bite, after some serious open-air drying. As kilted1 mentions, this is a cool, slighty sweet burley that opens with the taste of molasses. Down the bowl, I taste pepper and butter, but by bowl's end, this is just plain old earthy, slightly bitter Burley. That's fine by me, as the Burley is of excellent quality.

This stuff can be a bit dull for me by the end of a larger bowl (But I am much more a Virginia smoker, so mark my bias.) The blend is quite well made, burns well once dried, and smokes well in just about any pipe. To my tastes, it ranks with Mac Baren London Burley Blend as a preferred smoke for Burley lovers.