Cornell & Diehl Three Friars

Naturally sweet and nutty with just a hint of spice best describes Three Friars. An aesthetically pleasing mixture consisting of light golden, cocoa brown and black leaf. The Light Virginia is naturally sweet and creamy to my palate. The brown Virginia Burley has a subtle nuttiness providing body and the Perique compliments both adding a perfect richness of aroma and flavor. The cut affords easy loading and cool burning down to a dry clean ash. Nice nicotine content as well, but never overwhelming. A very consistent mixture that requires very little attention to satisfy. This is a great candidate for an all day smoke that never bores the palate.

This is another fine "English Type" blend from C&D. The combination of the VA, Burley & Perique provides very pleasant,but not overpowering flavor. The VA is naturally sweet, the burley is nut like, and the perique provides enought spice to compliment the sweetness of the VA.

The ribbon cut provides easy loading and cool burning. Burns very cool and down to a fine ash. No tongue bit at all. The price is very economical, especially from Smoking Pipes.

Hight Recommended

I have been told that this is supposed to be similar to the original Three Nuns. Well, if so I now know why everyone loved the original. This is wonderful stuff! As usual, C&D only uses the best quality leaf, so I was immediately impressed with this when I recieved a generous sample along with a recent order I placed with C&D. I have been smoking this out of a vintage Churchwarden, and I cannot say enough good things about this blend. In my opinion, it is rich and mild all at the same time. A wonderful flavor, no tonguebite, burns very cool all the way down the bowl. Not too strong in the Nicotine Department IMHO, either.Very pleasant room note...My partner says it smells like burning leaves in the room. Anyone wanting a smooth, relaxing smoke, this tobacco is the one. I will be ordering an 8 ounce tin with my next order. HIGHLY recommended!!! It is a shame I cannot give this a 5 star rating!

This is a lovely tobacco. The Virginias are naturally sweet, creamy, thick, and lucious. The Perrique is not overpowering, and in fact adds just enough of a spice to the sweetness to make it a complex and medium-bodied flavor. In the jar, there is a distinct Raisin Bran smell, which you cannot taste when smoking. The taste when smoking is sweet, honey, nicotine, with just the slightest hint of a flavor that I cannot describe, but that I compare to the flavor of Early Morning Pipe. The overall impression is luxury, smoothness, calm, sweetness, and relaxation. I would recommend this tobacco after dinner, before bed (I am about to go smoke a bowl of it then go to bed!), or anytime that you want to relax. But don't get me wrong: it is medium-bodied and not overly mild! There is enough body and flavor to enjoy and to seek out the various components of the complexity, but not an extremely powerful, English- or Perrique- like boldness that is good for other purposes. Overall, I think every pipe smoker should try this. It has just enough natural sweetness to appeal to aromatic smokers, yet enough body, complexity, seriousness, and quality to please burley smokers like me. Try it! You will not be disappointed! And Cornell & Diehl's prices are very, very good. It was less than ten dollars for an 8oz jar, which is alot of tobacco!

3 Friars is a neat looking tobacco, lots of light colored leaf mixed with cocoa brown and black. The tobacco fills the pipe easily, small bowls may have a harder time with the wide ribbons but it will work. Easy to light, and easy to keep lite. It tingles your tongue at first, and you think oh boy hold on. But all of sudden you get a sweet and pleasent taste and the pepper stands back and almost goes away. Then mid bowl it comes back and mingles with the sweetness which I really liked. You get plenty of smoke to watch curl away and give you that satisfying feeling. Smokes right down to the bottom of the bowl, and leaves a nice dry ash. I have decided to add this one to my regular smoke list and will see how it ages with time. Its going to be a good every day smoke. No Buzz either, just enough of nic to soften your day without putting you away.

After spending some time with Three Friars I have to say that I've really been enjoying it. I get the sweetness and some of the citrus of the Virginia's, the dark plum and spice if the perique and it's rounded out nicely by the earthy, nutty, woodyness of the burleys. It's got all the lovely notes I look for and has been a nice smoke . It's got plenty of nicotine, but it's still mellow enough to smoke multiple times throughout the day.

I would echo the sentiment of MysticRune...'Naturally sweet and nutty with...[an indistinguishable] hint of spice best describes Three Friars.'

In my 4oz offering, I too have an aesthetically pleasing mixture consisting of light golden and cocoa brown...but, no ‘black leaf' that he mentions.

The processing involved in order to make Perique creates a black tobacco...and...I have no black leaf in my mixture...none. So it makes some sense, that I, like DoctorThoss, ‘...didn't taste much in the way of [P]erique.' Nonetheless...I, like the Dr., found Three Friars to be naturally sweet and creamy to my palate as well.

Highly recommended.

A companion infusion: as with other Virginia/Burley blends...a couple of pints of Newcastle Brown Ale.

Not being a fan of C & D, I went into this by the legend of Three Nuns and the great price. This is really a bargain at twice the price and should be tried. All flavors are mild, nothing stands out or dominates, the last 3/3 of the bowl become very ashy and ciggarette like so I usually stop on the 2/3rds. But initial flavors are quality and perfect for an all day smoke that wont BBQ your mouth.

Nice stuff!! I give it 4 stars First third was ok, had a little warm up. I noticed not much sweetness or tongue bite. The taste was a little sweet but nothing spectacular. Second third: Taste came in very well, one pipe cleaner was necessary, no re-lights and not much nicotine hit. Really nice flavor, a little sweet, the room note was VERY good, nutty almost. A little hint of spicy/tangy feeling in the roof of the mouth. Last third: Very spicy. This stuff was complex (noob speaking here) to me! I think this just might be the holy grail for me. No accounting for experience and taste but I really liked the finish. No second pipe cleaner necessary, a couple of relights and it really worked well down there at the bottom. The taste started to get "menthol-like" and I liked it. The room notes got more complex and it was very very nice.

Found very little grease at the bottom, nothing like most blends, less than some english I've had recently. No gurgle at all, a dry, warm smoke. Smoke generation throughout was very good.