Davidoff Mild Mixture

Some sweet, aromatic stuff doesn't hurts always. But not this time! If you are in love with your pipe smoking pleasure like me, please stay away from this tobacco. It does not even worth trying!

This tobacco was a sample from a local B&M who are trying to expand their pipe tobacco lineup. I was asked to sample it for them and give my 'recommendations'.

Appearance: Predominately Virginias and dark (black) Cavendish. A nice mottling of color in varying shades of browns, tans and nearly jet black.

Tin aroma: Initially, some cheap smelling casing agents probably some kind of liquor brandy or some such and other 'k-mart cologne'. There also seems to be some kind of generic 'fruit essence' to the mix, completed disguising what looks to be good quality tobaccos.

This tobacco is seems to be very moist and I employed the 'Frank method' for packing each review smoke. In general, the samples I smoked lasted 45 minutes to an hour in a Armellini Freehand used for smoking Virginia Flake mixtures.

Upon lighting, I'm greeted with a blast of aromatic flavorings that completely mask any flavor the 'host tobaccos' may have. As the smoke settles down following a brief visit of the tamper, a bit of the Cavendish flavor one comes to expect from poorly done aromatics. I hoped that maybe some Virginia would come through eventually, it never did. This blend has a very 'even' palate and changes very little throughout the bowl. There is a nauseating sweetness to it probably from the casing agents and over processed Cavendish. What flavor there is to this blend left me wanting a bowl of 'real tobacco' each time I smoked it.

Mid Bowl: Approaching mid-bowl, the emptiness builds to mediocrity, the blend finally achieving its prescribed level of 'fullness' (mild so says the packaging) and I'm left wanting a cigarette or something, anything that tastes remotely of tobacco. This blend (as is typical of poorly done aromatics) gets quite hot while smoking and I'm a careful and seasoned Virginia smoker.

Home Stretch: As end of the bowl approaches, I?m still more or less where I started, the flavor having leveled off somewhere in the middle of the bowl. The final 1/4 of the bowl becomes decidedly wet and eventually will not stay lit, leaving a substantial amount of goupy dottle. This tobacco failed to satisfy me on any appreciable level.

Supplemental Notes: I might recommend this blend to anyone wishing to give up smoking. It might indeed provide a catalyst for such a decision. Rating for those interested in numbers - ** (that is negative 2 stars)

I thought this blend would be a virginia mixture of some sort...Imagine my surprise when I opened the tin and discovered it was virginia alright, mixed with some cavandish and sweetened to the point of being sickening.

This is a lite blend that did smoke cool, perhaps because I puffed so slowly. I wish I could tell you I finished the bowl, but frankly, fell short by about half a pipeful.

I hate wasting tobacco, but since I'm not sure this is tobacco, I threw away the tin.

Overpriced aromatic pipe tobacco that lives on a famous name. No taste or strength to speak of. I'll stick to real pipe tobacco thank you.

Virginia lover

Not my cup of tea. Perhaps for beginners or for compulsive brand-conscious duty- free shoppers. Probably the result of a wise product / market / channel strategy, benefiting both Davidoff and airport duty-free merchants (low cost / high margin / limited supply product). Half star because, sometimes, in some places, duty free-shopping replaces the absence of regular tobacconists.

definitely not my kind of tobacco,it says mild on the tin but think its far from beign mild...and it gets dry soo quickly in the tin after opening

I just flat out did not like this tobacco at all. Sort of like the song goes, No Filter, No Flavor, just the cotton pickin paper.