Esoterica Tobacciana Dunbar

I have been an occasional pipe smoker for three years, but in the last year i have got into smoking more and more. This is the first VaPer that i tried. I will say that i was not disappointed!

The tin aroma has a mild fruity smell to me, which is loads into a pipe and lights very easily.

The taste from the smoke is very evident of what it contains, virginias and perique. It is a very balanced taste, there is a bit of spiciness coming from the perique but this blends very well with the sweetness of virginias making this tobacco very well rounded and very smooth and lovely tasting.

Would recommend this to any pipe smoker regardless of experience, and even to those not fond of perique because of the well balanced nature.

About a month ago, a fellow pipe club member gave me a zip lock bag labeled Dunbar that I am pretty sure had been previously given to him and he asked me to try it. A few days later I tried it and from the tin note (zip lock bag) I detected mostly perique or a moldy bread smell possibly from the Virginias, at least to me that is what I could make out. It smoked kind of one dimensional, bland, tasteless, etc. A week later he asked me how it was. I am not one to insult a gift but asked him if it had been home blended with other ingredients and he replied no. I said I thank you for the gift but if you want my honest opinion it really was a one-dimensional smoke as stated earlier. He said he could not get any Virginia taste out of it either as was the opinion of others in our club. I was hesitant to write this review because maybe it was mislabeled by accident with no malice intended or sat out on the other guys dashboard for a long time. Ha. I have smoked some more of this and I keep looking for the 11 herbs and spices and I can’t find them. And this one gets a lot of glowing reviews about all of the flavors. I wish I could get my hands on a tin or a bag but the only place I could find it offered was 140 bucks for an 8 oz bag and way out of my price range to compare the difference. I am curious but not at that price. I am giving this a 2 star in the hopes that I can come across some more at a future date and will update this review but what I smoked I can not really recommend at this time. Esoterica tobaccos are as hard to get as looking for a needle in a haystack but recently my luck has changed and I was able to buy a tin of Pembroke, and we also were allowed the opportunity to buy one ounce of Penzance. I am looking forward to reviewing these two shortly. Most of my reviews are probably more about the experience surrounding the blends that I try. Here is my expertise when it comes to tobaccos, yep that is an English blend, yep that is a Virginia blend, yep Perique in there and yep that is definitely an aromatic. Anyhow I have fun keeping track of what I have tried and I am wondering if I am getting addicted to writing reviews. Maybe that is why I buy something different every week. I hope not, I am running out of cellar space. Ha.

The first half is very good, the second is superb. In the first half the Virginias bring more sweet citrus than hay and the Perique brings a bit of spice. The topping is extremely mild and mostly apricot to my taste. Fresh and zesty I'd call it. In the second half is where I realize that, at least some, of the Virginias have been Cavendish processed. A nice toasty note shows along with some dark fruit from the Perique. It's heavenly at this point and it finishes this way with the addition of a touch of earth. It's an outstanding smoke.

Medium in body and taste. Flavoring is extremely mild. Burns very well.

Upon opening the tin, I see ribbons of medium brown, yellow, and bits of black all mixed together. The tin smells sweet and fruity with just a hint of hay. It really smells good straight from the tin and has a bit of moisture, but not overly so. I have smoked this straight from the tin or let it dry out.

Loads very easily and stays lit with light tamping. I usually don't need a relight for this stuff and most times it takes just one match.

Upon lighting the bowl I got the usual flavors from the variety of VAPERs I have tried before, with light notes and hayish flavors balanced by slight plum, dark fruit, and pepper. It reminded me of Luxury Bullseye Flake quite a bit. But then as the bowl progresses, about 1/5 of the bowl down, the flavors become more rich and I would almost say dark tones started to show up, like some chocolate mixed with the dark fruit and maybe a bit of coffee. Very flavorful smoke after the initial light. The flavor is just a hint sweet, very savory with wood, deep plum and raisin, with just hints of hay and pepper. A great VaPer that seems to be a bit different than most with it's richness and dark plum tones. It has a decent strength as well. Doesn't bite and is very smooth.

The first time I sampled this tobacco, a friend of mine had given me a bowlful or two from a bag that had been aged (I think 6-10 years). That smoke I remember being absolutely amazing. It was creamy with the same profile I described above, but perhaps a bit subdued. I plan to age some of this for a good long while to experience it like this again.

To me, this is a soft tobacco. Gentle and warm, it sets you at ease through the pipe. Smoked in both briars and cobs I tend to enjoy it more so in my country gentleman Missouri Meerschaum but it’s been remarkable in my Savinelli Roma as of late. I had been anticipating this tobacco for some time and my expectations were at a premium. Dunbar was not a blow me away from first puff kind of smoke, nor was it a disappointment. This is a tobacco that slowly reveals itself; it has many layers and subtleties. This is, perhaps, due to the variety of Virginia leaf they loaded in this Esoterica mixture. If smoked immediately with no drying time, I got a slightly hot, hard to keep lit bowl. No problem, just a few minutes drying and the tobacco smoked cool and retained a light exceptionally well with very little relights, and puff slowly to reveal lots of dark fruit flavors that dance around the tongue, never fully exposing themselves for long. As the bowl progresses a nice tang starts to rear its head and do a little battle with the fleeting dark plummy traces of fruit that are in and out. This is where the smoke gets very enjoyable and puts you in a good spot. Back and forth, the flavors are here then there, plum, cherry, tang, plum, tang, grass, tang, dark cherry, plum, tang, grass, berry, tang, berry… but you are only going to achieve those flavors if you take care to nurse Dunbar. This is not a deep dark tobacco filled with red Virginia’s that are going to jump out at you at first light. The taste is deep, but it’s a deep bright… lots of fermented hay, deep grass flavors, playing right along with the plummy perique that is just slightly below the surface, making itself known only in sparse moments and even then there is a darkness in the flavor, no spice at all, to my palate. Dunbar really is a joy to smoke, if just for all the intricate details of each loaded pipe. At times the perique is present much more than at other times, when it seems it’s not a VaPer at all, but a straight bright Virginia. And that is where this gets interesting and grabs a hold of you. Just when you think you got it figured out, and know how you like to prepare it, what pipe you want to use, the blend reveals something else about itself opening up a whole new avenue of flavors and characteristics of which you didn’t think this little blend was capable. I smoked through four ounces of this and I’m still figuring it out. It’s soft, subtle, deep for a mostly bright Virginia, and constantly revealing new idiosyncrasies to the pipe smoker.

This is (at this moment in time) my favorite Virginia Perique blend available today. Whatever Germain does to these VA's is simply brilliant! I imagine other tobacco manufacturers would die to get their hands on a copy of their technique as no one else has been able to cure Virginia tobaccos like J.F. Germain, everything else falls short in comparison. This is currently my all day smoke and I never tire of it. There is true depth to this smoke, you get more low notes than most VaPers but there are some splendid high notes that work synergisticly with the low notes to create a beautiful symphony in your mouth (Cheesy). To this date I have only had fresh Dunbar but I can only imagine this one will age gracefully, and I have plenty in the cellar so I will one day find out. I have nothing negative to say about this one as there are no negatives to speak of, ya can't mess with perfection, and Dunbar is indeed perfect. Unfortunately this one, along with every other Esoterica is very hard to come by because the demand for such a high grade tobacco is high and I will say the hype is very well justified with this one. I just hope I can get my hands on enough to last me the rest of my years.

ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL

Edit 3-20-19* Two years after my initial review and I’ve only come to love it even more. I just opened a jar of 2 year aged Dunbar and it’s just pure heaven! I’m stocked up well on this one and I can’t wait to try it as it continues to age, 2, 4, 6, 8 and even 10 years from now, I imagine it will just keep getting sweeter and sweeter. As far as VaPers go, all roads lead to Dunbar

I have been attempting to compare and contrast Dunbar and Dorchester for a few months now and they are very similar. They are both excellent quality with about the same amount perique that is contained in our benchmark Orlik Golden. Dunbar and Dorchester are natural and smoke wonderfully. These blends definitely provide a unique experience worth trying. the difference in taste between the two is small, but dorchester is lighter, sweeter, and fruitier while dunbar is spicier and has more of a rich plum taste. If you could only choose to try one, I would personally recommend Dorchester.

I am a VaPer fan smoking Escudo a lot so when I got a tin of this I was excited to try it. Upon opening the tin, the smell of musty and spicy. It is a ribbon cut mostly light colored tobacco and come pretty moist in the tin so I dry it out some before smoking it. It does pack easy in the pipe and lights easy, one to raise the crown and one after tamping it level with the bowl. It burns well and stays lit and does burn all the way down to a fine whitish grey ash with some dark areas. The taste is of a nice virginia but not sweet or hay like and the perique is right there from the start. It picks up it's presence as one smokes the bowl down and I like the perique used, it is nice an spicy and gives the blend a kick. However, without the stweetness of the VA coming through like a lot of good vapors, I grow bored with it before finishing the bowl. I have tried it right out of the tin, somewhat dried and very dry and get the same result. Also have smoked it in numerous pipes. I do like the final third of the bowl, then it has a lot of taste and flavor, and I like the room note it leaves. But I think there are many VaPors that are much better than this one. I do recommend trying it but I think it will drive one back to the better Vapers.

1/8/2013

I was gifted another tin of this blend that the sender had left it out to dry out and it appears to be aged. I have been smoking it this week and it does age well, it is very mellow and the VA in it is a little sweeter now. I do enjoy this blend, but I still find it to be a little too mild for my tastes. I much prefer aged Escudo if I am smoking VA/Pers. It is a good blend that I will smokke if gifted but would not buy it myself.

Appearance: A mixture of coarse ribbon and broken flake. Color runs the gamut of medium light through dark.

Aroma: Typical Esoterica aroma, quite musty, almost unpleasant. I assume it has something to due with the maturing process, as Tilbury has a similar aroma. It does not ever go away, only becomes less noticeable.

Packing: Must be packed with some care, owing to the coarseness of the cut. Never packs easily into a small bowl.

Lighting: Somewhat slower than average to catch fire. Sometimes needs two matches for a good charring light.

Initial flavor: Very full bodied Virginia flavor. Sweet with a trace of sour, peppery tang. Lacking in complexity or layering.

Mid-bowl: Still somewhat monochromatic in flavor. Tends to be boring in a tall bowl, but not well suited to a small pipe. (See note on packing).

Finish: Ends not with a bang, but a whimper. No significant change at the end. Leaves a clean ash.

Summary: For me, there are much more rewarding Va/Per blends out there. Worth a try, but I won?t be back.