Samuel Gawith St. James Flake

I open the tin with excitement, as I really wanted to try this mix and it took me a long time to get it due to the shortage of Samuel Gawith mixes that we are experiencing in tobacconists due to problems with distribution. When you open the tin, it is not one of those vapers that give off its strong aroma from a distance. Here you have to put your nose close to the tin to perceive the cold smells well. An aroma that reminds me above all of the ferment with a certain reminiscence of cured cheese and with a slight spicy nuance, but very light. The aroma reminds me of Cabbie’s Mixture, from the same house, although if I remember correctly that one had a more fragrant smell and a touch of vinegar that I do not perceive in this one. Inside the tin there are beautiful and large flakes, made up of dark and shiny virginias and of course the perique, with some sparkles produced by the natural sugar of tobacco. This promises a lot. I let it dry for a while and after that time my impatience overcomes me and I load the pipe when it still maintains a certain humidity (in successive puffs I tried longer drying times). The ignition causes me a bit of confusion since I do not perceive any remarkable aroma. It is probably because I have been smoking vapers in which the presence of the perique is immediately noticeable, especially in its more sour version, such as Telegraph Hill, Sixpence or Pennington Gap. I am in the habit of letting the pipe go out after the first lighting. With the second, the real start-up, different aromas begin to appear in a very slight and intermittent way, sometimes fruity, other times hay, fig bread and on some occasion I think I perceive the reminiscence of ferment and cheese that I captured in the cold smell. It really costs to keep the pipe on as I have read in many reviews and if you try too hard it will get hot.

Besides that first time I have already smoked it several more times with the same conclusions. It is an excessively soft mixture for me, which seems to want to start as the smoke progresses and threatens to become a little tastier, although always staying within limits that my esparto tongue considers extremely light that never exceeds. The different tobaccos are closely linked in such a way that none overlaps the other, making this a mixture that could be described as "fine" and subtle (too much for me).

However, in my opinion (and in this it also reminds me of Cabbie’s Mixture) it lacks a point of flavor to make it a mix that invites you to repeat. I find that extra flavor, for example, in Tordenskjold Virginia Slices by Dan Tobacco, to name a vaper with a type of perique that in my ignorance seems similar to that of St. James Flake. As always, I will continue to be attentive and eager for this mixture to evolve in me in a more favorable way, hoping to raise the three stars to four.

1st revision (09/25/2020): I have noticed a slight increase in the sweet taste by folding and introducing the whole flake in the pipe. This has led me to wonder if some of the visually perceptible sugar microcrystals in flakes can be lost when crumbled.

2nd review (10/09/2020): I am writing this second review while I smoke the last bowl that I have left of this tobacco and while I think about whether I will finally miss it when I miss it. The last flakes at the bottom of the tin have been the sweetest and tastiest. Either I have been getting used to the flavor or these last flakes had some difference with the first ones. Perhaps gravity drove the sugar microcrystals to the bottom of the can. It is possible that when a time passes, repeat with this mixture. It will depend on how the next vapers you discover are...