G. L. Pease Westminster

The elephant in the room: the cut is awful. It's a ragged mix of leaf, ribbon, broad cut, chunks of Latakia, and finely broken flake. It burns as ragged as it looks - it does burn cool though. You simply can't call this a replacement for London Mixture with a garbage cut like this. Westminster trips at the starting gate and never recovers.

The Virginias are rough, but a couple years in the tin or a Ball jar smooths them out nicely. I'm skeptical of having to do a blender's aging for them. Why not use Virginias that are ready to smoke instead of shipping raw product?

The Orientals are smooth and taste excellent, they're really the star of the blend. The Latakia is understated, it trends a little more toward EMP than London Mixture in my opinion.

Once Westminster is aged, it's pretty tasty, but none of that makes up for the poor condition it's shipped in and the terrible cut.

God forbid someone says anything against Pease tobaccos... Whenever someone does not like Pease's tobaccos, some reviewers become defensive or attack the reviewer like the one on top of me... MY TASTES AND IMPRESSIONS ARE MINE AND SHOULD NOT BE CRITISIZED BY ANYONE! I don't critisize people that find Pease's tobaccos to be great, splendid, etc.

Original Review 2 oct 10

Sighs. This was rumored to be a substitute to Dunhill's London Mixture.

LM was rich, spicy, slightly sweet and tasty. And I miss it very much. This is tasteless, bland, impersonnal. Westminster is no replacement of LM. Pretending to be so is nothing less than an insult to Dunhill.

I will NEVER buy any GL Pease tobacco again. I might be dumb but I ain't stupid.

This tobacco, as the other ones by G L Pease, is insanely overrated. It is flat, harsh and boring. Skip this and the other Pease offerings and by a real English tobacco: MyMixture (yes by Orlik), Penzance, Royalty, Squadron Leader or Presbytarian. G L Pease' single talent is writing the alluring descriptions on his cans. Unfortunately, the tobacco is nowhere near those little poems.

The tin has a smoky and sour smell, a lot of dark strands with some mahogany tobacco as well. The ribbon cut is very irregular, from thick to very thick.

My first smoke was uneventful, monochromatic and nondescript so I waited a few days and tried again. Same result and this time I was annoyed so I packed a pipe and waited for a few days, I was better but not by much.

The Latakia is the main player, the other ingredients try to impart some of their flavors but fail for the most part. There's better Latakia bombs out there and while it tries to emulate Dunhill London Mixture, this Balkan fails to deliver the flavor profile of it. As if everything is in place but nothing binds the tobaccos together.

I said it before, uneventful, nondescript and monochromatic in a bad way. I can't find the drive to finish any of my bowls and the aftertaste is really bad, I don't recommend it at all. I very much prefer Abingdon, Gaslight and Quiet Nights.

Virginia lover

I agree with Marshall Laws description of Chelsea Morning and would use it here:

It seems nothing like the description, despite the pipe I use. I simply cannot mesh with this blend. Pungent and heavy with the smell of damp hay and dried grass. Lights up bitter and strong, and keeps going in that direction for the short span I can endure it. Sharp, harsh, and hot on the tongue, I found greater pleasure discarding the remnants of the tin, a bitter and disagreeable weed.

This is a poor blend of cheap tobacco. Better look into your blender and supplier, Pease, I suggest you are getting outbid at the tobacco auctions.

Glad I tried a Green Little Peas blend, but I will stick with Gawith, at least they know how to blend quality tobacco, which is why it is hard to get, and has been around for a few hundred years.

This one is supposed to be inspired by the original Dunhill London Mixture. 3 weeks ago I found a solitary tin of Dunhill London Mixture at a reputable tobacco place that moves lots of high end pipe tobacco (I put it into my own stocking as a stuffer for Xmas morning). While this tin of London Mixture seems to be Orlick made (Murrays tin top, Orlick Tin bottom with Made in EU on bottom but made in UK top that is painted). This must be a well aged, all Dunhill tins are now a few years past importing now. I compared Westminster to the London Mixture which I really like. Two bowls and I really like this blend **** REST DELETED, SEE UPDATE

*** UPDATE *** I smoked about 5 bowls off the top of the tin when I opened it up in 2009 and loved it. I then put it away in an airtight mason jar to age as I had other tobaccos to open and enjoy from my online order. A few months later and many other tobaccos smoked, I had another bowl and HATED it then put it away to sort out later. Here it is 5 years later in the fall of 2013 and I hate it more. Perhaps I have had the chance to enjoy many more good tobaccos (I was a newbie pipe smoker in 2009). One big problem I have is this tobacco seems like my can was from leftovers, stems and dust. The light colored tobacco is tiny, cubed to dust like. One black stem is about 2 inches long with just a little bit of leaf on it. I have chunk like slices, one of which I opened up and found a ragged 45 x 20 mm whole brown leaf. Any blender who allows his packer to pack up the stuff picked up by a dust broom or thrown into the trash should be ashamed. I counted this off as just a bad tin, sold as premium tobacco. However, I read more reviews and find so many other people commenting about the rough cut. This lack of care in the cut effects the consistency of the smoke, taste and enjoyment. One bowl may be mostly of gold dust and the other of stems and big leaves of a different type of tobacco. This is the only tin I have ever purchased from GL Pease and it will be my last. He should be embarrassed. If I hadn't purchased this tin online, I would have brought it back to the tobacconist who sold it to me rather than wasting a good mason jar. I read the review by PIPESTUD and he reports this being cut like shag tobacco. WHAT?!? He must have smoked specially hand made stuff selected just for the Chicago Pipe show. this stuff the rest of us get is TRASH. Unless GL Pease somehow finds a way to get me to try his tobacco again, I will spend my money on better product blended by true master blenders.

Just another insane marketing product from Mr Pease.Nothing new under the Sun.You can find a lot of similar blends with higher quality leaf.As I said in other review is very easy recommending for cellaring when you sell raw stuff.Obviously after 10 years this will become much better.One must not to be a genius to know that.

Gifted from a well intentioned friend, thank you.

This presents itself as harsh and surprisingly bland, not very complex at all, minimal balance. Considerable bite (pH out of whack) and did not burn very well, too many relights which ruined it completely.

I'll be passing this along to another pipe friend who hopefully will get better milage and enjoyment from this than I did.

Overall not pleased with Pease, just another blend tease . . . next.

I confess I was drawn in by Mr. P.'s writing and like the jellyfish that I am ordered a tin. The view from the Thames on the label didn't hurt either as I'm an even bigger "jelly" when it comes to good packaging! But as with past loves, sometimes the more you know the less you like. The first impression was good,I refer to the "tin-nose", closer to my beloved Dunhill London than some other wanna be's. But the room note was off and the bite, oh the bite! I'll admit a cooled down second light improves matters, but on the other hand I needn't wait for that with my DLM.

PS: Have done some reading on Dunhill by a Mr. Loring (the late Mr. Loring I believe) and as he seems to know more about the company than all of Alfred's heirs combined, I think GLP's whole Murray's / quality schtick is just that, schtick........"buy my Westminster it's closer to DLM than Orlik's. Maybe it is, but I like the present DLM, I also like my tongue not feeling like it just finished an eighty grit Tootsie-Pop.