Seattle Pipe Club Plum Pudding

This is a very fine tobacco for experienced pipe smokers. The crumble cake format adds a delightful challenge and opportunity to "play" with the tobacco and use larger chunks and/or grind to finer particles. I prefer a mix of smaller chunks and finer ground. After a little drying, this blend burns well from first light to the bottom of the bowl. As a lover of Latakia, I find the taste of this blend to be delicious. Thanks for this great blend to Joe Lankford and the Seattle Club.

Opening the tin you get the direct smell of woodsy smokey goodness with hints of tang and spice that make your nose tickle. Very strong latakia and oriental content can you discerned just from the smell. The broken up cake or cake flakes, were a bit on the dry side for me, but that made it easy to rub out and load.

Lights easy and stays lit with firm tamping. Keeping this tobacco medium to tight in your pipe will help keep it lit.

I was extremely delighted by this tobacco. It has been awhile since I've delved into 'new to me' english blends/balkans. I find this one very refreshing. It is more flavorful, robust, less sweet, and deeper than it's brother Mississippi Rivier, which I also enjoy. The latakia and orientals take center stage will loads of smokey, woodsy, a bit of spice (not hot or peppery though)...just loads of flavor that all rest on a slight base of sweetness provided by the VAs and the cavendish. The perique isn't readily apparent, at least not to me, but it could help support by providing a bit of dark fruit flavors that seem to just lightly peek their heads from time to time. Produces large amounts of smoke that are very flavorful. I find this is a highly enjoyable smoke that I am returning to again and again. I am having a hard time finding a difference between the special reserve version, though I've only smoked a small bit of that. I'll have to crack a tin of it and do a comparison at some point.

Please read the reviews for this carefully. This blend is simply AMAZING! One reviewer likend this blend the the old Dunhill blend Nightcap. I truly agree and think this tobacco a bit better. Absolutely hooked and can't get enough! Try it if you like a good Balkan/English blend.

Joe is one heck of a nice guy. This tobacco smokes ok and reminds me of Frog Morton. If you want to introduce an aromatic smoker to an english type blend then this may be a great cross-over. I prefer non-aromatic/non-cased mixtures with my latakia.

Smoking now.

Finally getting into Balkan, English, and Latakia blends. So I had to give this a try. If you’re an aromatic smoker or a cross over smoker I wouldn’t hesitate to give this a try. Nic hit is below a medium.

Tin note had a dried fruit sweetness that I wasn’t expecting from a Balkan blend. I see why they named it so.

Thick slices, moisture seems right and it broke apart into crumbly pieces. Lighting and packing this is as easy as it comes.

The taste... there’s a lot going on and I don’t feel like I could give it justice being a novice English/Balkan smoker. There’s a definite dried fruit from the perique and a tiny bit of spice. Grassy, hay, bread notes as well. I get some nice floral notes on the retrohale with a balanced smokey taste. Retrohale is smooth. The whole thing has a natural sweetness to it that makes it absolutely delightful. It’s not a heavy smokey leather campfire but a mellow creamy yet full of flavor smoke and with all the elements of a Balkan blend. The smokey, floral, herbal, spice, hay, bread, dried fruit all comes together perfectly.

No bite, no mouth tingle, tingles the nose a bit but it’s nice. Short pleasant after taste. Burns very slow and clean. Just a delightful smoke. Maybe perfect.

Will keep this in stock on my shelf.

*update*

Having smoked more Balkan and English blends the thing that sets this apart for me is the slight tart almost vinegar like taste from this. It makes this tobacco absolutely one of my favorites.

I've smoked probably ten bowls per year over the past eight years, so I don't have a very developed or refined palette. Take this, my first review, with a pinch of the pepper everyone says they taste in perique.

Disclaimer out of the way, I love this stuff.

I got it for Christmas in 2018, along with a free sample of John Bull Royal English (which I loved). The Plum Pudding, however, was mediocre, so I only had half a tin of it before throwing it in a jar and not touching it again until today, a year and a half later.

A note on the packaging, by the way: I've seen videos of this stuff coming as thick flakes, but mine came already crumbled. I was disappointed because one of the main reasons I wanted to try this is because I wanted to try my first cake tobacco and crumble it up myself. I guess this is how the package it now?

Anyway, something must be wrong with the jar I kept it in; the other jars (the exact same kind) for my other tobaccos keep the moisture level consistent, but this one ended up drying out the Plum Pudding when I opened it after a year and half. I mean dry as in it was pretty crispy. Not entirely, but very nearly so. As such, I fully rubbed out the chunks, sprinkled them into a quarter of the bowl, lightly tamped, then the next quarter, medium tamping, and the third quarter, more medium tamping. I left the remaining quarter of the howl empty because I'm a weakling when it comes to nicotine. I had doubts about my packing, but apparently I did it right because I had no trouble keeping it lit, and it burned evenly. Only had to relight two or three times before reaching that troublesome bottom portion that's 50% ash and 50% charred tobacco.

This review here is not going to mention the 28 different flavors people say they pick up when they smoke. If I did get 28 flavors, I couldn't differentiate one from the other. All I know is this stuff tasted gooood. I do know what latakia tastes like, and I do like it, but that was most noticeable in the initial lighting and lasted for maybe a minute. I don't get any perique no matter how many VaPers I try, I still can't detect any pepper or spice, so I'm saying that here as well: no pepper, no spice. I did taste the Virginias, but whether they were citrus-like or hay-like or woodsy or whatever, I have no idea. It was just good. The flavor changed halfway through, but to what, I don't know. The final third was the same flavor I get in all my final thirds: charred tobacco. Not quite ass, but approaching it. Still, I enjoyed it.

As for nicotine, I don't know what's up with this. I recently tried Lane 1-Q for the first time, which I'm told is very mild in nicotine, but of the three or four bowls I've had of it, I have needed to eat a sugar packet or two halfway through. Plum Pudding is supposed to be stronger than 1-Q, yet I didn't start getting dizzy in the head till two-thirds were already smoked. It came somewhat suddenly, but I didn't get nauseous. (I'm sure I would have gotten nauseous by the end, but after two-thirds, I decided to pop open a sugar packet.) I also had eaten a sandwich beforehand, and I drank plenty of water throughout the smoke. So I gotta wrap this up because I have to pee like crazy.

In 2018 I figured I'd never buy this again. (Oh, also, maybe that had to do with the pipe I used then. It had no cake on it. The one I used today was an estate pipe with a cake already established, so maybe that helped? I don't know what cake does besides insulate, to be honest, but I'm learning.) Now, after drying it out and crumbling it up thoroughly, I can say this is a favorite of mine and will be purchased again in the future. But not before I try out the other hundred tobaccos on my wish list.

Gotta pee.

I'm baffled by the reviews that describe this as "balkan" or "oriental forward." This blend has as much in common with sobranie as it does with 1Q, lol. Yes, I can taste the orientals, there is a little sour buttery note and a nice mellowness throughout. But they are the condiment, not the highlight.

Given that the orientals aren't forward, what is? I'd answer the latakia, but not by leaps and bounds. It's a nice latakia -- smoky not charred, pleasantly rich and cool. Its backed up by the Cavendish secondarily, and then the orientals third in line.

This is much less intense than I expected, actually a very mellow smoke. I'd call it a mild-to-medium english blend. Burns slow and cool, not overwhelming in any sense. The sweetness is restrained and a nice change of pace from many over-sweet englishes.

It's not bad! Nothing particularly exceptional, but then I have another bowl and appreciate the quiet middle-ground nature of a balanced, milder blend. It's got its place, and I could easily imagine it as an all day smoke for someone.

But seriously ... it's not a balkan.

To me, this blend tasted very different in a cob vs a briar. I preferred it in the cob, which is opposite of my usual preference. For some reason the blend was far “smoother” in a cob. The review is for how it smoked in the corn cob pipe:

At first light, the Latakia was the main tobacco I tasted, which mainly came through as a gentle smokiness, like a freshly-doused campfire. Immediately following was a slight salty and tangy note, I assume from the orientals. These notes rose and fell in intensity, but were ever-present, sometimes accompanied by some slight piquancy from the Perique. The greatest supporting player here was the Cavendish, though. Although it never took center stage, and some people mightn’t even notice its presence, it is to me what pulled this busy cast of characters into a smooth and entertaining experience. There’s just enough there to smooth any rough edges and bring it all together.

This is not for the sweet-tooth, and in a lot of ways reminded me of a nice maduro cigar in terms of the base-note, but with more complexity.

Very nice blend.

Edit: I originally thought that it was the type of pipe making the difference in taste, but after letting the tobacco dry a little more, I tried it again in a briar and it was even better. Give this one a little time to dry out a bit and the Latakia will really gain some more dimension. It went from simple smokiness to having that resinous cedar-like quality. It really opened up with a little airing out.

Lovers of English blends owe it to themselves to add this gem to their cellar. With stellar smoke production and playful spice, this Balkan will keep you entertained bowl after bowl.

Unlike its famous cousin Mississippi River, this kake will make you exercise your fingers. It's worth the extra work and the wait.