Torben Dansk Blue Note

This stuff is not for diabetics. It isn't goopy or artificial tasting but it is sweeeeeet. This one of those mixtures that you take with you to visit in-laws. You can smoke it on the patio and the fragrance that will somehow waft into the house will actually draw compliments.

Try as I might, I just can’t find a happy medium with this blend. I dried it, smoked it right from the tin, tried different sized bowls, packed it both loose and firm and took my time with each bowl. Careful or carefree, the results were the same. Blue Note just doesn’t have enough flavor for me. From charring light to the bottom of the bowl, any amount of flavor was fleeting at best. At a gentle sip, I found subtle hints of coconut, fruit & vanilla with a flash of booze, but these flavors came across as minuscule blips hidden within vast amounts of sweet smelling, vapid smoke. Dan Tobacco describes Blue Note as an “extraordinarily mild blend.” Without a doubt, a most spot-on & honest description. Anyway, Blue Note does create an excellent room-note. I just wish there was more to taste.

Popped this tin a week ago and after 5 or so bowls I've made up my mind that it's good but I can't dig it like some other aros. The tin note is a fruit explosion... almost a bubblegum aroma. Not a bad thing I guess. If you're into that then rock n roll (reminds me of the first whiff when busting open a box of Fruit Loops and jamming my head in the bag - I'm ok with admitting that I do that). Smoking this is nice... fruity... sometimes someone sprinkles a little pepper on my fruit. The reason for two stars is I thought this blend was pretty high maintenance. Packed too tight and it burns hotter than the blazes of hell and damnation itself (stole that line from Back to the Future III) and bites like crazy. Packed too loose and I have to puff like a hypoxic maniac to keep it lit. Tried this in three different sized bowls but can't get this one right yet although I really want to. Every once in a while I get a nice taste but then it goes away and I'm fussing like a first time parent that brought their newborn to a fancy restaurant (been there, done that, got a t-shirt). Gets a bit more care-free after the first half of the bowl. I'm not ready to give up on this blend yet... it does taste great. Until I figure Blue Note out, I'll stick to only two stars and one tin for now.

They should have been called it "Blue Nothing".

I purchased a tin of Torben Dansk Blue Note because of its amazing reputation about balanced sweetness, quality of tobaccos and legendary room note.

Thanks to the Spanish Government I just pais it 12€... If I would have paid it in Italy it should have costed me something like 32€ and I would have been really angy about it.

I know that my taste does not appreciate Virginias just by themselves. People talk about several fragrance layers about Virginias, but the outcome for me is something that does not have taste, does not have room note, and it normally costs x2 (i.e. Capstain) or x3 (i.e. Blue Note) of a more balanced, affordable and popular mix (i.e. Skandinavik Mixture).

I need a decent Burley in the Sweet oriented mixtures, because apparently black cavendish and virginias, left alone with some additional scent, they simply don't work for me.

Vanilla flavour is possibly a daydream about someone with a strong fantasy.

Blue Note is simply another Virginia based blend that justifies its reputation just because it costs more than many other tobaccos: because of that it's more exclusive, because of that it gives you the status of a picky and wealthy pipe smoker.

Someone may say "hey dude, Virginias must get a little aged before expressing themselves at their best". True, this is exactly what happened to me with the St.Bruno, but this last one is indeed a well balanced affordable and time tested blend, "Blue Nothing" is not. I smoked it sex months later and it still taste of nothing.

At the end of the day, it costs quite a lot, it tastes almost zero. For sure the quality of tobaccos inside is good because after smoking it does not leave bad taste in your mouth, but I don't see the point of smoking it.

Stay away and pick something more affordable and more tasty: -for an high target, try the NORDING - SEAWEED (tin); -for a budget target, try the SKANDINAVIK MIXTURE (bag).

Dear fellow puffers; don’t be blue, put on a Coltrane track light up a bowl of Blue Note and listen as you puff the blues away...

Very interesting and very good tobacco. Smells like bread pudding and that taste carries through into the smoke, too. Also, I sometimes detect a flavor of coconut cookie... maybe a little muted raisin too. But mostly bread pudding. This is an easy smoke. Won't give you any problems as an all-day choice, and it's definitely not over-sweet and doesn't have too much casing on it. A good, easy aromatic. Interesting and highly recommended.

Let's revisit a tobacco and a category of tobacco I have avoided for a couple years since I first encountered it. Torben Dansk Blue Note.

This was a tin I had popped open and sampled from two or three years ago, wasn't moved to finish it and let it languish in the back of the cabinet. No reason, it just did.

These days, it isn't as heavily scented in the tin, but more of the natural tobacco note comes through on the nose. This is backed up by the coconut, vanilla and touch of fruit Blue Note is known for. Moisture level is now PERFECT. As others have mentioned, the leaf is in a variety of cuts, ribbon, broken flake, shards....for lack of a better term, and it packs and lights easily. No fuss.

On first light as an aromatic, of course you get a decent shot of the topping, but pay attention as BN is about to shift gears and hit a big tangy red va note. As you sip and puff along all the different va notes come and go, the vanilla/coconut flavor and aroma sometimes shows up as a flavor, sometimes shows as an aroma floating around your head.

The best smoking happens when you keep it on the threshold of going out, then taking a few sip with some side draft. Just when you think it has become a mid-bowl dud and stopped changing flavors, boom. It's starts eveloving again.

DGT works in this case, which isn't always a good idea with an aromatic blend and speaks to the quality of the tobaccos used to make this blend.

BN smokes dry and clean, especially for an aromatic. It hasn't gotten the gurgles, and leaves no nasty goo in your pipe.

I am having a really hard time deciding how to rate this. I want to give it a solid four star rating when competing in the aromatic arena, but if you were to put it up against a straight aged va, it would be a little lacking. In that case, I would like rate it a solid three.....

Closing comments.....recommended. Pairs so well with a good cup of black coffee and has a gentle yet assertive nic hit making for a great breakfast smoke. Sweet, and dessert like enough to be an evening after dinner smoke which will please your company with a classy, room note which makes folks want to tell you how much the love the smell of a good pipe.

This aromatic is an ode to subtlety, beginners who prefer really sweet blends will have a hard time in order to appreciate the true character from this blend, it has a very complex and limited palette of flavours that require certain expertise and disposition to get. It is very "jazzy", that is subtle.

I read somewhere that "Blue note" was made as a tribute to the famous jazz club in New York, the person said that it was mainly a sensuous re-enactment from the place, the general jazzy atmosphere, the odour and sensation from the leather furniture, the warmness and the coolness altogether, the blue note... I think i can imagine all this while i smoked this blend, it does have all those nuances and its intriguing.

It all starts as a timid note flat and constant of virginia and as it gains intensity the musicality from this smoke tunes in. An aroma of leather and soft bourbon takes in, the band is now developing the jam, tobacco dominates above the aromatic and it just varies the intensity from virginia, moderated by the bass lines from the cavendish. At times a little vanilla note jumps in very vaguely adorning the trumpet lines from the domminating virginia, sips from bourbon as you sit and contemplate. The band is in full digression till the mid of the pipe, jamming hard, drums kick in, wildness in the air. Intensity is moderate.

The last quarter is where there is more aromatic approach, a lot more into smoothness, clarinet submerges you into volutes of blue smoke and the atmosphere in your palate receives all the most intensity from vanilla and bourbon, a little citric which remits to general coolness, a little sweetness wall of flavour and virginia strength. You get in, youre seduced by the rhythm, it is endulging and appetizing, it maintains this cadence until it finishes.

Very interesting smoke. Truly complex and mysterious. The flavour is certainly undetermined even though you can detect the components, but the trick is to find the "atmosphere" it creates, the whole blend flavour which sums up the "blue note". Recommended.

Wife was complaining about Petersons smell after smoke in the room, so I wanted to try something nicer for home. This really smells nice when smoked. Easy on the tongue, very mild taste. I could call it light tobacco. Really liked it, will buy another can for sure.