Cornell & Diehl Star of the East Flake

This is more of a broken flake and is dark black to dark brown with a bit of medium brown mixed in. Smells like smoke, leather, wood, and fermented dank earth. Loads and lights easily and remains so with very gentle tamping.

Flavors of smoke and wood are strong from the Latakia and the Izmir provides some incense and slight floral tones here and there. All of these flavors mix together very well balanced by some sweet, sour, and tangy VA. Though the smokey, woodsy flavors are definitely more pronounced.

**Original Review** Good strong and rich English blend! Latakia abounds...it takes control of the train and doesn't let up. It's delicious though and is a great deviation from my normal english blends. It is a bit monochromatic, though still a great smoke!

This is my first C&D blend. I'm impressed and will be trying and reviewing more from C&D.

If you like English Latakia blends then by all means you need to give Star of the East a try. Broke it open last night and oh boy what a feast...with coffee this morning the flavor was even better after leaving it out overnight in a pipe packed last night. I've read on this review site there are no sweet notes to this blend, but they were there this morning...mild, sweet chocolate. If the taste was my imagination, then I hope that imagination is intact tonight! Four stars award in my book.

A true masterpiece. Has all characteristics a good pipe tobacco should have: tasty, burns evenly, white ash, plenty of not too strong latakia, virginias,turkish. Can be smoked in hot weather, has a nice room note, not too strong and nice packaging. A must for lovers of Penzance, Balkan Flakes, Westminster, and so on and so forth. Just a suggestion, enjoy in rather small pipes.4 full stars

This is by far one of my favorite blends to smoke. The flake breaks apart easily and has just the right amount of moisture out of the tin. The tobacco has a rather strong latakia flavor which I really enjoy. This blend is not for the faint of heart. It is rich and is a tobacco to be smoked with a meal in my opinion. I have several tins of this put away to age. I will try to rate it a year or two into the process.

A nice strong latakia with a slight spice note to round it out. The broken flakes pack easy and burn slow and cool.

One of my top English mixtures. Although from time to time Latakia overpowers its companions, the wonderful interplay of Virginias and Orientals makes this a velvety and sweet smoke which reminds me of a campfire in the woods. A full English mixture with no subtetlies. If you enjoy Latakia there's little chance that you won't love this tobacco.

Star of the East is a very strange blend. Cornell&Diehl declare 50% latakia, but when you open the tin the first flavor is a strong vinagred-matured virginia. Very strange. It burn easy, and you'll appeciate it for the great smoothness and fine orientals. Latakia is good but not too much smoky. The strenght is strong. Very fine tobacco !

This is by far one of the best Latakia-blended tobaccos I've tried. Probably one of the best. Of course, there is 50% Latakia in the mix; which I absolutely love. You can clearly taste the Lat of course, but the other component tobaccos do stand through-out the entire bowl. This will definitely be in my daily rotation as a mid-afternoon smoke...

As I expand my experience of English blends I thought SoTE flake sounded interesting so I had a go. From the tin description it is a pretty heavy hitter in the Latakia department, 50% to be exact. I have had other Lat bombs before, notably Pirate Kake so this isn't my first experience.

The tin art is pleasing and interesting enough that I would grab it from a shelf if I didn't know what it was. When the tin is opened you find a nice semi-broken flake that is a gorgeous dark brown in color. The smell is soft, smokey Latakia, sour Orientals, and bready Red Virginias. They come a little moist so a little dry time may help. They stuff well and light well.

The taste is Latakia forward: smooth, creamy, smokey and slightly woody to my taste. Next I taste the Orientals. They are herbal, sour, tangy and give off a little of that incense flavor at the back. The Red Virginia adds a bakery aroma in the back to hold everything else up. This smokes incredibly slow. It reminds me of Black House in an odd way.

The taste is a medium-full. The Latakia is not here to play around and the taste coats your mouth in a pleasing way. The strength is a medium and as full as it is on taste I'm not sure I would want any more that that. Nice and cool burning even when puffed hard. A great smoke for a cooler day, though it can be easily enjoyed at any time.