Solani 656: Aged Burley Flake

I would echo the sentiments of our brethren who prescribe the excellence of this Burley blend. A strong tobacco, with the taste of walnut and dark chocolate. Best when not overly dried on a sideboard.

Highly recommended.

A companion infusion: a cappuccino...or two.

I debated with myself whether to give this three or four stars. On the one hand, this is as good as straight burley can get. It reminded me of Edgeworth RR, but of an obviously higher quality. Same chocolatey, mouth-watering smell in the tin, but with very little sweetness in the flavor. There's a bit more smoothness and sweetness in SABF, not QUITE as much of that annoying dry mouthfeel that I get from most burleys.

But in my book, burley needs something besides burley to make a really great tobacco. It's like if someone tried to play a round of golf using only their putter...impressive if he breaks 100, though that score isn't that great in itself. 4 as a straight burley, 3 in comparison to other tobaccos.

The quality of the tobacco is excellent and the nicotine content is satisfactory to me, but I can't like the taste, it is like a kind of soil plant burning, but it is not tobacco, maybe a friend who likes Mixture No. 79 can accept it, I won't buy it again.

There is every good reason to keep Solani 856 Aged Burley Flake on hand. An easy burning, pleasant smoke if you like pure burley. No particular bite if you go slowly. The flake rubs out easily.

It’s stronger than Lane’s Burley Without A Bite (as one would expect) but not as flavorful or nuanced as Ken Byron’s Morning Burley Pipe.

I like a straight burley ‘now and then’ but not on a regular rotation. People say they can taste licorice. Yeah, no. Don’t get any flavoring. There may have been a cocoa in the past but not now. It’s an ok burley.

Good burley blend. I cannot detect almost any flavoring. I love burleys, so I expected I would like this. Anyway, after smoking a HU tobacco´s Dockworker I can´t give this more than 3 stars. This flake is not as fantastic as that. Very strange thing is, I couldn´t smoke it till the end of the bowl when it wasn´t rubbed out.

It´s typical burley blend. I think burley lover won´t be disappointed.

Smoking this blend was like an illustration on how to get to a classic three star rating; a constant push/pull of positives and negatives with the positives winning out in the end. I got this tin at last year's NASPC show in a trade with a friend and put it away at the back of my personal stash until recently. When I pulled it out I thought that it didn't quite look right; too flat in the lid. When I opened it there was only a mechanical click and no air rush; proving that the vacuum seal was gone. This is negative one. On opening I found a beautiful tin presentation that looked like an umber brown solid rectangle of tobacco. On closer inspection it resolved itself into two thinly sliced horizontal 1 and 1/2" by 3" rectangles of a slightly caramel colored mottling. This is positive one. When I opened the tin and set it on the counter in front of me I got no particular aroma. Closer whiffing yielded a somewhat subdued and narrow range aroma that reminded me, vaguely, of caramel apples and tobacco. This is negative two. When I roughed out the first smoke I felt that the tobacco had lost about one third of it's original moisture from losing it's seal. This was no problem, as it was almost in perfect condition for lighting. This is neutral in the equation. The blend was well behaved under the match and lit instantly and burned evenly. This is also neutral in the equation. The top third was okay but a little distant in taste and aroma. Then, as we crossed over into the middle third, things improved greatly and the smoke was richer and more satisfying; almost four star quality. The bottom third was a typical decline in enjoyment, but still enjoyable in a bottom third way. So, all in all, this is positive two. Then I began to substitute Aged Burley Flake for other burley tobaccos I was currently using in micro blending. This didn't work out so well as ABF lowered the tenor of most of them, and I didn't want that. This is negative three. On a whim I threw together a 50/50 blend of ABF and C&D's Big n' Burley and, wowie zowie, that was a four star Burley smoke all the way. This is positive number three. I then smoked the blend in other pipes and discovered that it smoked better in most of them than the Becker. This is positive number four. I agree with reviewer rattdogg99 2019-07-27 that this blend is very pipe/shape sensitive. All in all ,I feel comfortable with a three star rating and agree with reviewer Skando 2018-06-06 that this blend missed a four star rating by virtue of it's monolithic overall presentation.