Cornell & Diehl Halav U'Dvash - Milk & Honey

This has been an interesting smoke. It is very dark in the bag and has the distinctive slightly sour smell of aged Virginia. It is a very tasty, mellow and slightly heavy smoke. You get a little perique in the profile, and the topping is almost a burnt sugar. I noticed the orientals in the last third of the bowl. It works quite well, and I am finding I enjoy it.

This is not a flavor bomb, but it is a nicely balanced blend and I would recommend you try it if it sounds like your cup of coffee. I could see smoking a lot of this.

Almost no 'flavour' though the aroma is gentle and predominantly caramel. Disappointed with first few bowls - but a little drying time and a subtle smoothness together with a moderate flavour from topping was apparent. Be careful - don't try and over-smoke this one. Tongue-bite will leap out at you!! Be gentle with it... and it will gently satisfy.

The cut of this tobacco is different range of cuts of red and black tobaccos, it packs easily and lights even easier, at first draw you get a natural sweetness that I'm pretty sure it's the cavendish with a note of coffee,this is what you get for the first third of the pipe, in the second third of the pipe the kentucky and the perique start coming trough, the coffee taste leaves and in it's place you get whispers of perique. the last third it's a combination of red virginia and orientals with whispers of burley, plenty of smoke and plenty of flavor, what's left on the pipe is some thick white ash and a little bit of dottle and a room note that my wife has described as the "smell of a two pack a day stench" to be quite honest this blend is not going to win you any friends in the non smoking committee. This blend reminds me of Peretti's Cuban Mixture in the way that there's a lot of ingredients and a lot of flavor happening at the same time which for me might be a little tiresome for an "all day blend" whatever that is. would I buy it again: yes, would I go out my way to buy it: no.

One of a few C&D blends in the Hebraica series. I am quite impressed with the blends which have made me a real C&D fan.

In the pouch, it is a very dark blend, I suppose from the black cavendish and the orientals, with a perfect moisture content. No sign of any humectant or any real casing. The aroma is slighty like raisins, but very subdued. In the bowl, this is an extremely satisfying smoke. Smokes rich and creamy. Not quite an aromatic, nor an english blend, but unique maybe tending towards bland, but in a good way. Smokes extremely cool, and has many faces as the bowl proceeds, not sweet, yet not so dry either. Gentle draws seemed to pull out a delicate earthy flavour. It is described as an "aromatic", but I find nothing flavoured about it. Maybe it is just a topping for the aroma that the smoker himself cannot discern? The room note was not offensive, but not for indoors amongst non-smokers either. This is for those who love the leaf.

Halav U'Dvash is not one of those tobaccos that I would just pick up randomly. However, this tin came in a sample pack from smokingpipes.com and I have to say that I really enjoyed it, I didn't think I would because I'm generally not an aromatic fan by any means. This, however, is not your typical aromatic, I hesitate to even refer to it as such because though it has a nice room note and tastes really good, you definitely get the true tobacco tastes as well. The orientals and perique are just wonderful in this blend.