Cornell & Diehl Oriental Silk

This is an OK tobacco.

Cut is loose and smell is perique forward. Taste wise orientals shared protagonism with perique and virginia stays in the background barely noticible. As with many other C&D blends with perique I found this one to have too much perique, to the point of stepping over the orientls. Also related to C&D blends found the taste to be too harsh and dry.

I'd like to taste this blend substituting the perique with more virginia. Recommended to those who enjoy C&D blends and also oriental blends.

Two and a half stars.

This review is based on the tin version.

Tobacco is mostly blonde, although some strands of brown tones also appear. The cutting of these strands is fundamentally in ribbon, although there is also some piece of flake that is of a darker color than the rest of the tobacco, so I deduce that the perique is there. Its tin aroma is one of the lightest and most confusing that I have seen to date in this type of mixture, and I think that in a hypothetical blind tasting, if I did not know in advance what are the ingredients that make up this mixture, it would cost me specify it based solely on your tin note. Once I know what these ingredients are and by sharpening my sense of smell, I think I appreciate the slight fermented aroma of the perique, but very subtle, as well as slight notes of hay from Virginia and perhaps very deep the fragrance of the Orientals.

Once the pipe is lit, the flavor is very rich. Virginia and especially the fragrance of the orientals take center stage, the perique remaining somewhat hidden, with slight appearances in some puffs. In my personal experience with this tobacco, I have been able to observe that it is not convenient to load it too tight, but rather loosely, thus obtaining a better experience because the tobacco burns better and needs fewer re-ignitions. Recommended.

I bought 2 ounces bulk of this a couple years ago when I could see that my cellaring days were coming to an end. Up popped a sale on C&D bulks from Smokingpipes and I just went down the line ordering 2 ounces of pretty much anything I hadn't tried at the time. (OK, I did skip some aros)

In a jar this one rested for nearly two and a half years. I popped it a few months back and was instantly wowed with the smell from the jar. It had a wonderful vaper smell, rife with hay and fruit with some citrus notes. I only wish that I enjoyed smoking it as much as I enjoyed smelling it.

This is not to say this is bad by any means, but I found it kind of boring. I also found it tricky to stay in the zone on this one. Whenever my mind wandered it started turning harsh on me quickly. It was when I had my full concentration on my technique that I was rewarded by the sweet and slightly sour taste reminiscent of the jar note. Once there, it just wasn't grand or interesting enough to keep that attention. So either this is difficult to smoke right, boring or I have attention deficit disorder. lol

I don't look at reviews before I have smoked through what I have as I am long past buying tobaccos and would rather not let myself be swayed prior to reviewing a blend. I was actually surprised to see all of the four star reviews on this one. I was trying to decide whether to give this one two or three stars myself. Based on the smell, those wonderful fleeting moments and all the four star reviews, I will bump it up to three stars, but would say it is really a 2.5. I am glad to have tried it, but I won't miss it or rue the fact I only bought two ounces.

As the name suggests Oriental Silk is very Oriental forward. The Izmir really is showcased in this one. It is dry, woodsy with a peppery spiciness. It is buttery and a little sour and only slightly sweet. The grassy VA's form a solid base to this and have a note of citrus to them. The perique moves in and out and goes from almost undetectable to forward competing with the Izmir for a few puffs before moving to the background again when forward the peppery, plum, fig and raisin notes really shine. The frustrating thing here is that both the Izmir and the perique have similar but unique peppery notes I can tell the difference but I lack the ability to articulate exactly what is different so the description of pepper while fair falls a little short overall. I do think the Izmir is a little too far forward muting the other tobaccos slightly. I have used Izmir straight to add to blends myself and it does not take much to overpower other elements and this is the case here, but only slightly so. The room note is tolerable and the nic is at the upper end of med. The finish is very short and the flavors do not linger on the palate long. This could be a very nice morning smoke or used as an in between bowl between bigger stronger blends. I smoked a couple of bowls in a pipe dedicated to big lat blends and the lat ghost added a very nice element as well. So adding a pinch of lat might also be rewarding. This is easy to recommend but I don't see myself trying to horde pounds of this but I can see picking up a few oz to smoke from time to time. Well worth trying.

Cornell & Diehl makes hundreds of blends that I need reviews on TR to help me decide which to sample, and this is on top of the list. Vaper with oriental, simple but impressive combination. Easy to work with and good for all day smoke.

An interesting blend. I get the ‘silk’ element because this blend is smooth, almost understated. I taste the strength and the bright VA bedrock and then the sweetness of other elements.

The blend doesn’t speak to me. It us good but not great — the balances are interesting and tasty and pleasant but … but something.