Vauen No. 14 Virginia Flake

The various Virginias offer a bit of stewed and dark, dried fruit, light citrus and lemon, a little floral grass/hay, a fair amount of wood, small bread and honey notes, and a pinch of spice. It’s mildly tangy with a touch of fermentation and sourness. There is a very mild topping which accounts for the nuttiness, vanilla and more obvious honey. The strength is in the center of mild to medium, while the taste is a step past that mark. The nic-hit is just past mild. Won’t bite or get harsh. The flakes easily break apart to suit your preference. Burns cool, clean, and slightly slow with a mostly consistent, mildly sweet, woody flavor that translates to the short lived after taste. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and needs a few relights. Has a pleasant room note. An all day smoke. Three and a half stars.

-JimInks

Vauen, No. 14:

Nice tobacco, really. Easy on the breakup of the flake and very friendly to light up. Comes in a neat little square can that will undoubtedly be useful in my quagmire of of a smoking/play room.

Strength --- on a scale(don't you just hate that expression?)of one to ten with the usual parameters from weak to strong at 10 I'd have to say it is about a "4". a pleasant"4" but nevertheless a "4".

Flavoring--- I didn't notice much if any. Then again tobacco tastes like tobacco to me unless the flavoring getsmore than a little obtrusive.Danish, German,and English blends were and are I can tolerate.That being verbosely said this tobacco Vauen ( the guys at PipesandCigars.com say it is pronounced "Vaugh")is a lightly flavored offering similar to Peter Stokkbye's Luxury Blend series. Most similar to Navy or perhaps Twist.

Romm Note/Aroma --- I don't have to worry about this but it does seem very pleasant.

Taste --- As has been stated it tastes nice. Not a "Wowser" but a pretty fair taste. Light Virginia is what is promised and delivered. Probably would make a good mixer for some of the "high-toney" blends as well.

Would I buy iot again? Probably not even though the price is very nice I would go with Peter Stokkebye probably for the same money. Just a personal opinion,mind you.

(Sorta like going to the senior prom with your cousin and hoping to meet the hottie from English Lit. class and dump your cousin on someone.)

In conclusion a good tobacco but not a remarkable tobacco--- at least not for me.If you are looking for a very mild and unassuming Virginia blend you might want to meet my cousin at the senior prom in 1965.

The piper at the Gates of Dawn (trucking in the crepuscular dawn)

Vauen - No. 14 Virginia Flake.

The tin contains two rows of slightly mottled, medium brown, quite thin, flakes. The thinner construction has aided the moisture in not being held in, so a fresh pipe lights easily.

The smoke has a touch of the usual hay, but the leading flavour's a unique nutty-Virginia one, accompanied by a honey-sweetness. It's quite unique compared to other Virginias. There's only a smidgen of citrus sharpness, the majority of the flavour's quite 'robust'. No. 14 burns consistently but can become too warm and a touch fast if not sipped. However, it remains bite-free.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: pleasant.

If it were cooler as it went I'd rate this with four stars, but I'll deduct one due to the burn:

Recommended.

When a virginia flake is spotted that means a must buy for me!Vauen it's known for it's pipes and not so much for the blends as i found them only on Germany.when i cracked the tin a nice aroma of cocoa and honey accompanied from some citruses came out.the flakes are mixed from bright,brown virginias and some cavendish.their moisture was perfect either to rub or fold.i prefered the rubing method for easier lighting.while smoking the virginias are smooth and creamy.citruses,dark fruits,tea and grassy notes combine very well each other with the cavendish wich provide cocoa and honey notes.the flavours are very natural and satisfying.burns medium hot and slow with some moisture being created at the end of the bowl.the nicotine level is almost medium with no chance of tongue bite.the room note is pleasant.generally this blend is an easy going all day smoke that promises a tasty and smooth smoking experience.

Opening the now round tin, with a now plain blue label stating "N°14 Virginia Flake in white font, I got greeted by the old rectangular cover-paper around the flakes. Inside there are two stacks of thin sliced, rectangular flakes. To my surprise the colors are not only mostly medium-brown, with golden-yellow, but also have some black strands all over the flake slices. I find it remarkable nobody else wrote about the black speckles. Maybe Cavendish-ed Virginas? The flake is rather dark for a Virginia, maybe some Burley/Kentucky as well? The taste as well suggests some Burley to me, but step after step...

...because the tin note also has a great smell to it! Underneath some honey and Virginia freshness (namely grass and citrus), there's very obvously a top -note! Very mild, but it's there, no doubt. Lovely, lovely scent of hazelnuts and milk-chocolate, wow, I superlove it!

At the beginning of the bowl Vauen's Virginia Flake is very mild, but it doesn't take long for the strength and flavors do develop.The flavor-profile steadily builds up throughout the first quarter and is then very consistent. In the first puffs I only perceive a nice mellow-sweet honey-ish sweetness that would build the sweet backbone of this blend throughout the rest of the bowl. Slowly sipped this flake has quite a bit to offer. Decently Bready, with slightly fruity and earthy nuances to it... but here it comes! A delicious, deliciously delicate (hazel-)nutty note is present all the way through the bowl and it also has a minor hint of bitterness to it (but in a most pleasant, nutty way!

It's that very nutty nuance, that makes Virginia Flake N°14 so tasty and loveable to me! It's so delicate and mellow, very unobrusive, yet always present, and oh so sweet! (Not in the sense of sugary, but beautiful) Damn... wouldn't have thought I'd find a VA Flake that I want to have around all the time... but well, here it is!

**EDIT:** I found a description only stating as following: "[...]with hints of hazelnut vanilla and almonds - all those aroma-nuances are coming from the tobacco itself, mind you; the applied casing is only to lift up the natural sweetness of the Virginias".... well... I'm most certains Virginias don't come along "vanilla-ish and nutty" by nature, I insist on a slight top-flavoring!

Anyways... be it pure Virginia, Virginia + Burley or even some Cavendish as well.... top-flavoring, casing or natural.... this blend is gold to me, and to every lover of a nutty, not overly sweet and smoothly spicy smoke! It's like having some hazelnut-syrup and cream in a cup of coffee.... great morning smoke!

**Edit 2:** It does have some flavouring to it 😉 https://service.bmel.de/tabakerzeugnisse/index2.php?detail_id=104917&site_key=153&stichw_suche=Vauen&zeilenzahl_zaehler=12

I got the opportunity to sample this via a German connection and I am glad that I did.

Vauen are of course a pipe maker and this brand is obviously made for them. Who by? I don't know, but the packaging, look of the flake and overall composition lead me to believe that it is most probably Mac Baren.

So we have a perfectly formed flake and a tin note that is both fruity and nutty alongside the expected natural sweetness of the base leaf.

The aroma from the tin pleasingly carries on into the smoke, where there is a taste which I can only describe as nougat, if this means nothing to anyone outside the UK, then my apologies.

As others have observed the flavour deepens a little further down the bowl, but it never departs from an underlying fruit and nut tang which remains pleasant throughout. Cased? Maybe. And if so very successfully in my opinion.

An interesting twist on an old standard, whatever the Vauen boffins specified in the composition of this blend, then they have done a fine job.

Highly recommended.

This is a nice blend of straight sweet VA. It will not lnock you socks off but it could easily be an all day blend as it has no bite at all if dried out a little. It comes in long thin flakes that break up easily and a touch too moist right out of the tin. Dried for a couple of hours being left out, it is just right. It breaks up essily to rub out, but I like to roll it up and stuff into my pipe bowl for a nice long slow smoke. It is the color of hay and the tin aroma is a musty vegi smell. Upon lighting up it has the nice hay like taste of a quality VA. It does gain strenth as it smokes down. It never gets overpowering or hot, but it goes from hay like to just sweet. It stays lit very well and burns down to a fine grey ash and no dottle. The room note is similiar to other Vs blends, some like it and some think it smells like cigarettes. I like it myself but a neighbor yelled over to me "are you smoking cigarettes now?". I would recommend this blend to anybody that wants a nice, smooth, no biting VA to smoke. For those that are really into to fancy VA's this might be a little simple for you.

The tobacco is a light mottled brown with prominent bits of very light stem embedded in the flake.

Tin Aroma is musty. I've had the same sensation in farm wineries - slightly fruity, but musty wood and grass aromas dominate. The flakes are very moist, and it is difficult to peel them off of each other. Upon rubbing out the flake and taking a deep inhale of the unburned tobac, the scent is more reminiscent of a Hay barn - the mustiness and grassiness take me back to when I used to throw and stack hay bales for the local farmers as a youth. I managed to pick off about a flake and a half and fold/stuff into the pipe. There was just enough sticking out the top of the pipe to rub out with my fingertips for easy lighting.

The charring light can be harsh. Initially, the flakes are very moist, and my initial reaction is that I should have let them dry. However, this blend lit right up, and after about the first quarter of the bowl, it really settled down. After the charring light, I got no tongue bite. This flake reminds me of an unscented Erinmore flake. The tobaccos are very similar, right down to the cigarette-ish flavor of the tobacco (sans acrid paper of course!) There has got to be a some burley in this blend - both because the blend did not bite, and because of the nutty bitterness that is telling of a burley. It's there. The middle of the bowl was rather unremarkable, in that there wasn't huge depth to this smoke, but it burned well and the cigarette tobacco qualities gave way to more of a cigar / cocoa smoke. The nicotine content was similar to that of a mild cigar as well, and wasn't entirely noticable until the bottom quarter of the bowl.

The flakes smoked down to a nice dark ash. This flake rubs out nicely, and Rubbed out, the smoke seemed a bit hotter, and harsher, but still did not bite, but I didn't force it, either. I think that the virginias stand out a bit more when rubbed out. (Both in the unburned aroma and burning state of the tobacco.)

Room note is almost pure tobacco. The ingering aroma is more cigarette than pipe. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, but it may be a quality that prevents some from smoking it inside.

I'd give this a three out of four stars. It's a nice and pleasant unscented Virginia Flake. I think there are better out there, but it is definitely worth a try. I am planning on throwing a few tins in the cellar to see what some age does.

As a non-VA smoker, this stuff is exquisite. Reminds me a lot of the Virginia flavor found in Peterson's Uni Flake but obviously with no topping. But still a decent amount of sweetness. This might convert me just a tad bit to the Virginia lovers category haha. We shall see. Good stuff!

This is nice Virginia flake. It is not in my top 5, but I enjoyed my time with it. I like my Virginias sweet with Dunhill Flake being my benchmark as it is my favorite. This one is not as sweet as Dunhill Flake and provides a little more depth and earth than citrus and hay.

Still it is sweet enough to enjoy and it smokes wonderfully. The flakes are rather fragile, but this makes for easy packing. The smell from the tin is all Virginia. It smokes great with nary a chance of bite. It is also quite easy to get this one in the zone and stay there. I notice the description reads that there is a topping. I did not notice one upon smoking, so one should not fear they are purchasing an aromatic anymore than they would if they are buying Dunhill flake which also has a topping that is not overt.

It is good and I enjoyed it. Where I would rank it amongst the several Virginias I have smoked is hard to tell, but I feel the rating should be at 4 stars because it is splitting hairs when you get past my top 5 and this is a solid smoke that I can't see any Virginia smoker disliking.