Cornell & Diehl Da Vinci

This blend scared me at first with it's 75 percent Latakia content. Normally, I only like Latakia as a seasoning, not as a main character. I thought this would be way too strong, and harsh, but as I won five tins of this in a Pipe Chat essay contest, I gave it a try. My first reaction upon lighting it up was WoW! Not a bad Wow, but a good one. This tobacco has the sweetest, smoothest Latakia I have ever smoked. And the burley background really works with it. It has the leathery aroma of Latakia in the pouch aroma, and is mostly black with some dark brown leaf mixed in. It comes the perfect moisture content as do most C and D blends. It packs very easy in the pipe, and takes a couple of lights to really get it going. But the sweet taste is wonderful! I had several bowls with my morning coffee and it just was a great wakeup blend. It smokes slow and steady, it has very little bite and then onlt if one puffs too agressively. The Latakia obviously dominates, but it has a wonderful sweet taste on the tongue and is smooth and creamy. It takes a couple of relites with it's slow but and the fact it's best smoked sipped. It smokes down to literally no dottle just a nice grey fine ash. No moisture in the pipe at all. Room note is good to me but it chased away anything within a mile of me and it does tend to cling to the smoker for hours afterward. I really enjoyed this blend and plan on keeping in my rotation for when I want something to wake up my taste buds. I recommend trying it, a very good good blend from C and D.

In critiquing anything fairly one must confine his critical review to those elements which the creator of the "thing" purports it to be. In reviewing a tobacco blend, therefor, it would not be an objective review to grade it upon a scale which is beyond the scope of what the blender intended. To this end, the tin description must be our guide as to whether or not the blend succesfully achieves this.

In the case of Craig Tarler's "Da Vinci", I have to say that it is everything that it purports to be.

This is, indeed, a Latakia lover's blend. The tin odor is exceedingly Latakia with an earthy, musty, smokey odor that I somehow relate to the smell one first encounters upon stepping into an Army/Navy surplus store. If you know what I mean then you know what I mean. If you've ever camped in a damp canvas tent and warmed yourself by an open fire then this blend will undoubtedly stir those memories.

Da Vinci is blended very consistently and the moisture level is perfect. A couple of charring lights and it burns slow and long. I first smoked this in a new, unseasoned Savanelli Opera #316, which has a relatively shallow bowl. This lasted a full hour and needed only one relight toward the very end. With no cake in this pipe I fully anticipated a wet, troubled smoke but was pleasantly surprised when absolutely no moisture developed. This pipe utilizes Savanelli's balsa filter system which may have had some bearing on this and also seemed to help tame the richness just a bit.

Although the room aroma is barely tolerable to the non-smoker, I found the smoke true to the tin aroma and absolutely intoxicating.

Da Vinci is a fantastic blend and because it is everything that the tin describes, I give it a 10 out of 10. A must try for the Latakia lover.

The only question here is: do you love Latakia? The other 25% of the blend or just there to offer structural support to the smoking experience (although the Virginia does add a bit of sweetness), giving a nice smoking experience with a good amount of billowing smoke.

If you are not looking for a nicotine fix but like strong flavors, this might be for you. If you like your whisky to smell like a peat camp fire, this might be for you.

This tobacco does not pretend to be anything that it isn't. It makes your mind relax, makes your surroundings smell like the loveliest camp fire, and puts you in a contemplative mood, ready to invent crazy flying machines or make beautiful sketches.

There's a fermented, pungent and an old school ''soda'' like smell in the tin. The dark, black and mahogany strands of tobacco are very thick. Moisture level is perfect to light it right away.

The Cyprian Latakia is delicious, smoky and as expected will leave you with a cotton mouth. Having smoked pure 100% Latakia, I can honestly taste the other tobaccos. The Burley's nuttiness and woodiness is there in spades and the bright Virginia flake imparts some sweetness sparingly. I smoked the bowl surprisingly fast and was left with a dry white ash and no dottle.

I prefer Pirate Kake as the Turkish does a better job with the 75% Latakia than the Virginia of this American/English mixture. It also left me wanting for more tobacco taste after I finished my bowl, a thing that didn't happen with Pirate Kake.

Virginia lover

Da Vinci. Oh where to start. How about with that latakia eh?

I was pretty concerned at first thinking the latakia was gonna be too much. I was very wrong. It was so well blended. It smokes very cool, and the taste was incredible.

The room note is not pretty and the wife was worried for my well being. However that is normal for a lot of english blends.

The burleys and virginias, which I haven't seen as an extra add great flavor and calm down the smell just a touch.

In the end the ribbon cut and cool smoke add up to yet another fantastic C & D blend.

This was my first experience with Latakia, and about my 5th pipe tobacco back when I was first starting pipe smoking. It is heavy latakia and I'm very fond of this blend, and will always have extra tins in storage and open on the shelf in an mason jar.

Tin note is very strong latakia, with nice sized tobacco leaf inside. It smokes great, down to the bottom with very little dottle, and layers the pipe nicely. Dedicating a pipe to just this blend makes it even better. Like it was stated above, this will always be in my collection of tobacco.

Is exactly what it purports itself to be. Heavy Latakia. After smoking other Latakia blends da Vinci has grown on me more than I would have imagined a few years back, and it is my go-to when I want a smooth, slow burning Latakia smoke.

I recommend this to Latakia lovers, but I can't see why someone not into Latakia would smoke this.

Preface: I have been smoking Dunhill Standard Mixture Medium for near-on 30 years, believing that it has no equal anywhere on earth. But it is gone now, and so I begin a quest for my Holy Grail: A substitute to replace the standard on which all English tobaccos are based.

DaVinci will not be the one. Primarily I object to the presence of Burley, which to my mind has no place in an English, and whose flavor I do not appreciate. Otherwise it is a quality smoke. Any Burley smokers out there who want to try what we English smokers rave about might want to start here. English absolutists will be disappointed I think.

Da Vinci is indeed a heavy Latakia blend. 75% of the smoky leaf is a measure unsurpassed by any other blend on the market I'm aware of. But the high Latakia content is also the blend's Achilles' heel, especially if you like a little complexity in the smoke, for plain and simple, there is none. Lot's of woody smokiness, with a little tart Virginia sweetness, the Burley is hardly noticeable at all, but certainly gives some body to the smoke. And the taste stays the same throughout the entire bowl.

Mind you,uniformness in taste is not always a bad thing, quite the contrary. When I'm working on things that demand my undivided attention there's hardly anything better to accompany such tasks as absent-mindedly puffing on a bowl of Da Vinci. The same holds true for a smoke to go with a dram or three of a peaty Islay Single Malt that I like a lot.

But one should be aware that, after a bowl of Da Vinci, one will not be able to taste virtually any other tobacco for a while, so either reserve this blend for the last bowl of the day or don't smoke anything else all day long.