Tobaccos Esoterica Tobacciana - Penzance

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pipestud (1829)	2008-02-27		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

This is as fine a tobacco as I have had the pleasure of putting into one of my pipes. As a pipe smoker of more than 30 years, that is saying a lot. Upon opening the tin and peeling back the oily wax paper, there is a heavenly smell of a clean, rich tobacco. It is a crumble cake (not a flake), and packs as easily as any blend in the world.

Penzance is not cased in any way, just pure tobacco with an all tobacco taste and is more of an Oriental/Turkish blend. While there is a little Latakia leaf in Penzance, the presentation is very delicate, not at all heavy like, say, Frog Morton or Old Ironsides which are predominantly Latakia blends. Penzance, of course, is not.

Upon lighting, your palate will quickly be washed in the full, rich flavor of the mixture. While there is plenty of latakia, it is not overwhelming at all. The blender expertly combined all of the ingredients necessary to please just about anyone.

The smoke is thick, rich and creamy. There are a variety of flavors as you work your way down the bowl, all of them good. Although heavy in flavor, I could and have smoked this stuff all day and night without fatigue. It is best though after dinner. If, like me, you do not normally heed the call of latakia tobacco blends, this will make you whistle a different tune. The oriental leaf is subtle, refined and smooth. Just delightful!

Update (2/5/05) It has been about three years since I posted the above review, and my impressions of this tobacco have, if anything, improved. Because of the decent amount of Virginia leaf in Penzance, it ages especially well for an English style tobacco blend. Sublime stuff!

107 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	FunkyD in the Morning (8)	2011-02-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Strong

Well, I've read a whole lot about this blend on tobacco internet forums across the cyberspace. The consensus seemed to be that Penzance was an amazing blend that no one would ever copy and that its so great and "oh i have 5 lbs. cellared and you don't LOL". Although I generally do not give in to this sort of bragging/teasing (I always give in), I became obsessed with getting my gritty little fingernails on a tin/pounch/mound/bowl/lick the residue out of an old estate of penzance.

Every store I visited, and every "online store" I clicked on seemed to be fresh out of stuff. It was no where to be found, but EVERYONE was saying how great it was. "Oh you know this tobacco is good....BUT NOT AS GOOD AS PENZANCE!! SILLY MORTALS AND YOUR NON-PENZANCE TOBACCOS AH HA HA!"

Feeling like Charlie from that willy wonka story, I grew depressed as I yearned for the tobacco, all the while I performed a musical number as i stared into the moon. I wanted to be just as cool as the 60-year old guy sitting in his underwear hiding in his closet from his beast-of-a-wife and posting on the internet bragging about his non-existent scrooge McDuck supply of Penzance.

So I waited for my chance, and nearly forgot about penzance. Until that faithful day.

I was browsing Craigslist for the usual stuff. Free dirt, old furniture being sold at full price, and anonymous sex, when I came across a most interesting Ad. It read "PENZANCE? I GOT YOUR FIX." I became excited and quickly replied to the ad demanding that I be sold/given penzance immediately and that I would do anything for the chance.

He said that what he had was very rare and that it would cost me a ton of money. I said I didn't care, and I knew about the rarity of penzance. We set up a drop point in the city. He would drive by in a orange and yellow VW "NEW" beetle, and he would throw the penzance out the car, I was to wear a red balloon for identification. At the same time, I was to use my smartphone to hand over the cash via paypal to his online account, as he checked for updates. He said that if his account wasn't updated by the time he reached 8th street, he'd hunt my down and drag me out to a forest. So I agreed.

The next day I took an early lunch from work and waited in the "spot" with a red balloon in hand. 5 minutes had passed and I began to sweat in the hot sun. I knew this was a bad idea, no tobacco is worth this effort. But then he came, and I saw his fruity bug vroom on down the street. He threw out what looked like a pretty large package for tobacco and I became as giddy as a little schoolgirl. He held his hand out of his bug and gave me this little wave that really threw me off. Whatever...I knew what I had to do, I didn't want to get dragged off into the woods, I hate camping. So I forked over the $200 on my phone and ran over to the package to open it up. IT was quite large and rather heavy! Take that old creepy coward liar!

This is where the fun stopped however. I opened the package and my heart sank into my lower back. Inside was a copy of the script, music sheets, and autographed picture for the cast of "Pirates of Penzance". It began to rain, and I fell to my knees and cried. That creepy old man on the internet had won, look at what he did to me. Why would I go through all of this for some stupid tobacco? Is my life really that empty that I must give into the hype of some stuff that apparently smells like old bum?

My life changed that day, and I no longer felt the need to have the best, seal away the most, smoke the best or be the "best". I became me.

A couple of months after that, my cousin came over to my house with a tin of penzance. I showed restraint, and did not get overly excited. We smoked it all night long.

It was ok.

67 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JimInks (3046)	2014-01-01		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

An Oriental smokers' delight with choice Turkish, which is woody, smoky, earthy, with a very minor sour and floral note, along with a fair amount of spice. The Cyprian latakia is smokey, musty, earthy and woody sweet as one would expect, and though it's not the star player, it's rich in taste, and is a major supporting player. The Virginia has a light citrus sweetness with some hay and grass notes, and acts as a base for the other flavors to play off of. There's also a little stoved Virginia that offers some stewed, sugary dark fruit, earth and wood. There's a decent amount of Virginia present, so it ages better than many English blends. I also sense a little black Virginia cavendish in play. Because it breaks apart very easily, there's several ways to fill your pipe with it, and one way is as good as another, though I prefer to pack it a little loose so it burns easier in the last quarter of the bowl. Burns at a little less than moderate pace, clean and cool with a continual spice hit that translates well into the aftertaste, which pleasantly lingers. The flavor is very consistent from start to finish. Creamier than one might expect without being overly sweet. The nic-hit is just shy of being medium, while the strength is medium. The taste level is full. Won't bite or get harsh. Leaves just a little moisture in the bowl, and requires some relights. The room note is pungent, and won't likely suit non-smokers.

-JimInks

55 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2008-10-17		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

I'm brand new to this review site, and it has been very interesting to read other's opinions of tobaccos that I know well. I agree with the general good opinions expressed about Penzance;it is one of my staples and the one tobacco that I would choose if I could only have one. The essential things about it that make me say that are...

It gives me that almost indefinable quality of smoking 'satisfaction' - that fulfillment feeling - right from the start. It is a very well-behaved smoke; never weak or biting. It is very consistent across tins - you can rely on it.

The taste is deep; you know that it's there without it having anything much that strikes you as easily identifiable in the flavour - so there's nothing to get bored with! I would contrast it with many of the other luxury 'English' (as Americans seem to call them - I'm English) blends containing Latakia, in that some of these have very little weight at all - you puff them in and out and there's nothing there but the dry, ashy, smokiness. Penzance adds a full bottom note to that, balancing it and making it complete.

Interesting that some people report soapiness to the taste - I have never noticed that. Also, it seems that bulk lots often receive unfavourable comments - that is why I only ever buy small, airtight tins of anything.

I have noticed that good tobaccos can some times receive bad reviews - can it be that the local, seasonal climate where people live can effect the taste of their tobacco? Humid conditions at certain times of the year here in Queensland (Australia) certainly seem to put me off some tobaccos that I usually like. can anyone tell me more about this aspect of climate & tobacco taste?

PS I notice that several reviewers say that they rub out the flakes fully - I don't do this. Instead (as I was taught years ago) I merely tease them a little as I fold them and load directly into the bowl, and add some crumbs to the top to help lighting. If there are no crumbs around, I just fluff the very top of the flake a little. Does this make it taste better, I wonder.

36 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	moniker (220)	2013-07-08		Medium	Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

My first brush with the ET line was a 7 year old tin of Penzance. Opening that tin, the smell and "greasy" appearance of the tobacco inside immediately put me into a state of nervous excitement and I fairly gulped my first bowlful. Since then I have taken the time to relax and enjoy what is certainly one of the best pipe tobaccos "available". It's a pity it's gotten so hard to come by, but I suppose that is the way it goes when the supply of something so good is limited.

While Penzance is basically an "Oriental-forward English blend", this characterization falls well short of a complete description. Clearly there is some sort of fermentation at work in the "processing" of this tobacco, and clearly the processing is part of the "secret" of the success of the blend. But I am also pretty sure they use some sort of fruit in some way at some point. So "fruity" is the nose that it works its way into the taste, like apricots, figs, and vague pineapple, citrus, etc. Not only this, but there are also plenty of "aromatic resins" of the "incense" variety that interleave with the fruity notes. If all this sounds gimmicky or too much, somehow it is NOT, at all, and I say this as a confirmed hater of "aromatics" and additive-forward blends of all descriptions. For one thing, all the tobaccos claimed for the blend are of TOP quality, and each is present and accounted for - in its "fermented" form. The "thick" flakes are in fact quite thin, and it hardly matters since the tobacco begins to crumble immediately when it is handled. I try to carefully fold and roll a flake and stuff it "vertically". Who knows why, but this blend somehow burns fine when it's "wet", right out of the tin, once it's well lit. The Lat here is perfect for the blend, woody but trailing in intensity, and despite the myriad resins, etc., the "incense" is kept well in check, The Prime, aged Virginias are exceptionally rich and full-bodied without bite, and they rise as the smoke progresses. Meanwhile, the loamy and exotic, dominant Orientals develop a "sour" quality that gradually overtakes the initial non-cloying sweetness. There is lots of smoke, and I always feel satisfied, like all is well with the world, and money well spent.

Perhaps some people hope bad reviews will make Penzance more available. As for myself, to be honest, I can't say anything bad about this tobacco. I will say that, to my perceptions, the bagged version is "not the same" as the tinned version. Also, while it ages very well indeed in a sealed tin, I have no evidence to date that it improves with age in a jar. Lastly, it needs moisture to do its thing.

All in all, a FINE, complex English blend that is different each time I smoke it, but always quite wonderful!

Update, 01-14-2019: Yesterday I smoked some Penzance that had sat in a "sealed" Mason jar for the past 5 years, or so. It was a "nice", medium "English", very good, but not the "Penzance" I craved, and it is not the fabled stuff I wrote about, above. And this is not the first time I have thought what I finally decided to share with TR readers, that the way to get the best from Penzance is to smoke it straight from a well-aged, sealed tin that's just just been popped. Next best is any tin that's just been popped, because it simply goes flat in a jar over time. Perhaps this fact will one day fuel "Penzance parties", where tins are shared rather than hoarded in jars...

Update, 08-14-2022: About 3 weeks ago I remembered I had stashed a couple of sealed tins of Penzance, and I thought to check on them, Both tins seemed to remain sealed, but the older one, from 2009, was lightly corroded, so I popped it. I can't say this particular tin proves anything, except it is possible to wait too long to open a tin of Penzance. The tobacco in this tin was still moist, but not dripping wet, per usual. This is still a great Oriental-forward English blend, but it lacks the magic of tins I've breached that were younger, albeit this could be just a matter of the seal. Whatever, the best tin I've smoked to date was a 7 year old tin, and I've preferred fresh tins to the 13 year old tin I'm now smoking. Just FYI, for collectors and hoarders...

Age When Smoked: new and old; tins, bags and jarred

23 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2007-07-04		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Upon opening my first tin of Penzance some four years ago, I was put off by its composition (described elsewhere). I gave it a good whiff and was put off even more so by its aroma. In short, it was the most awful looking and vile smelling I'd experience in forty years. If it weren't for the fact that I'd paid good money for this weed, I'd have thrown in in the garbage.

I'm normally averse to blends heavily laden with latakia and based on the aroma was even more reluctant to smoke it. Do NOT be put off by ABSSiegel comment, "If you don't love latakia, stay away!" You'll taste the latakia for sure, but the way in which it is tempered by the virginias is amazing. This is a must try for anyone who enjoys English blends. I would recommend it even to those who smoke only Virgina blends.

On lighting up, I discovered what has become one of the top ten blends in my rotation. Penzance has a distinctive flavor unlike any other I had ever smoked. I've since tried Krumble Kake, a similar tobacco that just doesn't measure up to Penzance.

Creamy, nutty, pungent, and smoky are, at best,inadequate descriptions of this truly remarkable tobacco.

Packs and lights easily, and burns to the bottom of the bowl to a light grey ash. Smokes cool all the way down without a trace of bite.

Works well in any size briar or meerschaum.

Works very well with DGT.

If you do like this blend, buy some to age. I'm now smoking some from a four year old tin. It is even more mellow and flavorful than from a fresh tin.

Penzance and Stonehaven are, IMHO, the finest blends made by Esoterica.

Arguably, Penzance is the finest tobacco ever blended.

22 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	fr_tom (393)	2015-08-05		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This is one of those blends I have smoked over the years and never reviewed. I have had it aged and fresh from the bag. I am working through 8 oz of it now and decided to add one more review to the body of knowledge.

First, the tobacco has a cult status and is almost impossible to find. It gets a lot of traction on the various pipe smoking fora, and there is a suspicion that it is hyped and maybe only a ho-hum smoke.

I think it deserves the love. It is an oriental forward blend with a distinctive "mouth feel" and pleasant aftertaste. The orientals are spicy and play off the smoky latakia. Sweet, grassy Virgina pokes its head out from time to time. It is a great combination.

I am not claiming this is the greatest latakia blend on the planet, but it is very good. I think everyone should try this just to see what all the buzz is about.

16 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-02-27		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

This recipe should have been the penultimate English/Balkan blend for me. But as Maxwell Smart would say, it "missed it by that much". I very much enjoyed the tin I bought but I probably won't puchase it again, or at least, not very often. It was a nice tasting smoke, fairly complex and quite a changeling. If I had to put my finger on the "problem" (overstated - it was more the reason it missed the mark for me slightly rather than a problem), I would say that the virginia didn't mesh quite as well as I'd like. It was there and then gone... or so it seemed to me. Then the orientals and latakia took over. It seemed to be two different blends depending on where I was in the bowl rather than a blend cut from a single cloth. That isn't a bad thing at all, and if you love latakia, you definitely need to try this stuff.

So in a sense, my 3 star rating is more for how it suited ME rather than a recommendation to others. I give it a 4 star recommendation for lovers of hearty english/balkan blends.

16 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	StevieB (2080)	2016-04-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Very Pleasant

Esoterica - Penzance. This is one seriously 'manly' smoke.

I can't comment on the quality of the packaging as I received some VERY generous samples of a few of the Esoterica blends in a trade with Gentleman Zombie; his review's been helpful to me too.

As much as the flavours full, it's also quite unique; the Latakia offers more depth than just smokiness alone, it's woody and earthy as well as smoky. The Oriental makes up a very large portion of the taste, making it sublimely creamy.

I'll end on another few good points: it doesn't bite, burns steady and the smoke's cool!

Thankyou Franck, highly recommended.

Pipe Used: Mastro Cascia

Purchased From: A trade with Gentleman Zombie

13 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	balkan_boy (49)	2014-04-02		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

There are no superlatives for this masterpiece. Whatever is said, all the praise can only be pale reflection of its mighty greatness and glory. You can write poetry about it, it's truly the greatest flake ever made. It's beyond the comprehension of human mind. It's awesome, it's great, it's the greatest.

10 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-11-26		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Very Strong

Everybody and their mother has heard of Penzance and for good reason, this blend is amazing. There is something about it that is just magical. Every tobacco in it works together to create an unbelievable smoking experience. The Latakia and Virginias are the main flavors of note, but don't dismiss the orientals as they meld in like they should. A cool smokey with a slight tang flavor and a hint of sweetness as well. Something in this blend makes ur mouth feel cool kinda like menthol although in no way does the penzance taste like it, it's just the feeling, the way it coats ur mouth, it's just perfect. It truly is a shame that Penzance is hard to get now, how people buy it out and hoard it, and worst of all are those who buy it only to sell on eBay for ridiculously price gouged amounts, this goes against everything the pipe community is about. But besides that, Penzance is awesome and is easily in my top 5 favorite English blends. Do ur self a favor, buy or trade for some, but please don't do the eBay thing or pay their incredibly inflated prices. Boom.

Pipe Used: Any

Age When Smoked: Varied

Purchased From: My cellar

Similar Blends: Nothing.

10 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-08		Medium to Strong	Mild	Overwhelming	Overwhelming

O.K. here's the deal. This is a fair tobacco, but honestly it is beyond overrated. The room note is by far the most perfumed smell of ANY blend. So much so, that it made me feel slightly nauseous ( and this comes from a smoker that can handle Night Cap all day long ). There are literally far better blends available that actually smells like tobacco instead of the perfume counter at Macy's department store. Honestly, just thinking about it makes me feel dizzy. And the way it crumbles into tiny little bits and pieces ( actually more like dust ) is just plain awful. Why would you subject yourself to this?

I have an idea. If you have a cat, go to the litter box and pull out some doo doo. Let said doo doo dry like the sands of Iwo Jima, then crumble it into your brand new Dunhill pipe. This good sirs is a spot-on analogy to the unique flavor that you will not soon forget.

Gentlemen I introduce you to the FRENCH WHORE of pipe tobacco.

10 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-05-29		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

A beautifully sliced crumble cake composed of predominantly dark brown flakes mottled with tan flecks and lighter brown and black streaks. What is assumed to be sugar bloom can be found on older examples.

The tin nose is strong, yet inviting; dominated by a pungent, musty, slightly sweet and smoky aroma which translates largely intact into the bowl.

Although quite moist in the tin, being of a delicate sort the crumble cake presentation requires due diligence in handling. In those cases when the extraction of a slice or two has not already resulted in the production of small chunks which can be dropped into the pipe straight away, a very gentle rubbing does the trick. In most instances a simple gravity feed followed by a light tamp or two is more than enough to prepare a bowl, although one should pay close attention going in as strips and chunks can quickly swell and seize up after lighting should the initial pack be too ambitious. Properly prepared, however, one is sure to be rewarded with a lovely smolder. When possible, this reviewer prefers to load a mix of strips, chunks, and odd bits together into the same bowl. However prepared, topping the bowl with a bit of kindling is strongly recommended for a quick and even light.

In the pipe Penzance presents a savory Oriental-forward smoke. Rich with a marked creaminess, on the high side it offers sweet wood smoke, dried fruit, and camphor, while its lower register harbors notes of aged Assam tea, salted meat, and peat. Clearly the dominant player in the blend, the Oriental components are truly sublime: musty, just a tad sour, with a dark, savory quality reminiscent of morel mushrooms. Not to be outdone, the Virginia(s) are soft and sweet and the Latakia neither heavy nor cloying. There is a depth here which in this reviewer's experience is as apt to inspire as it is to confound, with each bowl revealing yet another layer. Towards the heavy side of medium bodied, the finish is dry, musty, and deliciously pungent. As one might expect, tongue bite is never an issue. While it can leave behind a rather tenacious ghost, and while it will do reasonably well just about anywhere, for those who wish to really explore its depths it is well worth the time and effort to audition a number of pipes until just the right one is found. When this happens, all cannot but be right with the world.

As savory an English/Balkan cake as one is likely to get, there is nothing quite like Penzance, and there is good reason that it has attracted so much attention over the years. Although it is probably not an everyday smoke for most (I like it best late at night, particularly when there is a full moon), barring glitches in availability there is little reason that at least a few tins should not be found in the cellar of every serious piper. While quite moist in the tin, in this reviewer's experience Penzance has a tendency to dry rather quickly when left alone, so unless one favors crumbs and dust, the foil pack version should be tightly sealed or jarred soon after opening and the contents of the rectangular 2oz. tin consumed within a reasonable amount of time after popping, even when insulated with a baggy or such like.

10 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2008-10-06		Medium	Medium	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

So much has been said by clearly discerning pipe smokers about the marvelous qualities of Penzance that I must resist redundancy. The only thing I can add is to emphasize the subtlety of this magical blend. When, after reading so many glowing reviews of it, I tried my first bowl in an old Barling that could make straw taste good I was a little disappointed. I had been used to more robust English blends and Penzance seemed altogether too mild, even a bit flat. But, by the time I was smoking my fourth bowl, I was hooked by this blend's sophisticated, delicate and subtly changing taste and exquisite smoothness. I still smoke other blends, including some Virginias for a change of pace, but Penzance is my first and best choice. Surely, this is the king of tobacco blends! An added note to this review is that, since I posted it, I have continued to search for an English blend that might surpass Penzance, but have failed, even though I have come across some very fine near-equivalents, like Krumble Kake.

9 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	TSchiraldi (5)	2016-04-14		Mild	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Tolerable

I just don't get the hype. I found Penzance to lack flavor, depth, complexity, strength... just about everything I look for in a tobacco. It was so bland that I gave the second half of the tin away to my tobacconist. I really enjoy other Esoterica blends. Margate is fantastic! If you like full, flavorful blends, stay away from this one! If you prefer milder blends or are just experimenting with Latakia blends, then you might like this.

Pipe Used: Stanwell Flame Grain 212, Comoy's Tradition pot.

Age When Smoked: Fresh / New to 2 months

Purchased From: Tinder Box

Similar Blends: Nothing I've tried. Air, maybe?.

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-04-23		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable to Strong

Preface: I have been smoking Dunhill Standard Mixture Medium for near-on 30 years, believing that it has no equal anywhere on earth. But it is gone now, and so I begin a quest for my Holy Grail: A substitute to replace the standard on which all English tobaccos are based:

Penzance & Nightcap are the number 1 and number 2 most-reviewed tobaccos on this board. Not the highest rated, mind you (that would be #1 Full Virginia Flake, #2 Westminster, & Hal O The Wind at #3), but the most reviewed.

Uhmmm...

What do these two Tobaccos have in common that could account for this? Well, I know what youre thinking,: Latakia right? Incorrect.

It can't be the Latakia, because as we see above, of the top 3 rated tobaccos two haven't any Latakia at all, and the other hasn't enough to write home about. In fact not until #7 do we encounter a tobacco with a notable Latakia presence. So if Latakia isn't that popular why are so many smokers purchasing and reviewing Penzance & Nightcap?

Hype.

These tobaccos (the hype tells us) are the biggest, badest, most overwhelming tobaccos of all time. Opening a tin will cause your dog to howl, your wife to leave you, and in the end it might likely kill you. And knowing all this, like a car wreck, we've got to go out and see for our selves. Several reviewers wrote that these are the most overrated tobaccos in history. I dont know about that, but I'll bet they take the award for the highest ratio of tobacco sold to tobacco left unsmoked!

Given all this, we've first got to cut through the hype in order to give a proper review. It seems to me that all kinds of people pick up a can of one of these two tobaccos that wouldn't otherwise get near a good English or Balkan if it flew into their cellar. And (surprise?) these folks find these two blends overwhelmingly strong! But, compared to your average medium - full English or Balkan, are they?

Nope.

Filled with Latakia, they are very much medium-bodied tobaccos. To put a finer point on it they are almost delicate, and would be, were it not for the touches of Perique. I am reminded of the Dunhill brand Aperitif. Not for the similarity, but for the slogan that Aperitif was perfect for a before-dinner smoke. Well, Penzanze could well utilize the same motto. It's subtleties are lost on the after-dinner pallet, and this I fear has been its downfall. For it cannot stand up to its own hype. Try it instead as an Apertif, or in the middle of the morning, where its gentle intricacies may be appreciated.

But never after dark. Never after a meal, and never with Scotch.

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Noorrmm (192)	2002-01-16		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

Aroma: Seems to be predominantly Cyprian Latakia, with a small percentage of Turkish. The background is Virginias, but I could not differentiate any particular vaieties.

Packing: Since it crumbles so well, it packs by gravity into any size pipe.

Lighting: Takes to burning easily, but does need a tamp or two before it settles down.

Initial flavor: The Latakia jumps right up and grabs me, a slightly sweet but very smokey flavor. There is a spicy, musty Turkish flavor in the background, and way down there is the Virginia. It mosly serves to hold the blend together, rather than to add much flavor. Could I be that there is some Burley in the blend? Craig Tarler?s Pirate Kake uses Burley, but I haven?t tried it yet.

Mid-bowl: Burns cool, yet stays lit well. I guess this is the result of the cut. The flavor is still heavy Latakia, lighter Turkish and not a not much else. No significant layering, but tasty enough not to be boring.

Finish: Does not get harsher at the bottom, smokes quite dry, and leaves a nice white ash.

Summary: A nice enough English blend, but lacking the complexities and subtleties I enjoy. There are many other blends I prefer to this one, but that?s just my tase. It is certainly of the highest quality, and is worth try if you like lots of Latakia

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Eddie (11)	2019-11-23		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant

This blend has forever ruined everything I've ever loved in my top 5 tobacco blends. 1oz arrived in a ziplock bag from a B&M store, (kingsmoking...). How much aging do they put this poor thing through before sending it out to vendors? This thing had sugar crystals already. No wonder there isn't enough of it to go around. I'll skip the details. Let's just say I was left speechless from the start. Freak'n ay. It's the most sublime smoke to ever enter my mouth. It made my other long time favorite English tobacco taste like used socks. It's like drinking gas station gin all year with joy and happiness and contentment and suddenly someone hands you a glass of blue label Johnny Walker. This poor peasant had no business taking that glass. The problem is, I only got 1 ounce. I also got an ounce of Margate. Now, margate quickly claimed #2 spot on my list. It is very different from penzance yet both display age like no other. Do you like your humble, simple easy to obtain english? do you? Do yourself a big favor, stay in your humble ignorance and steer clear from this home wrecker. I warn you.

Age When Smoked: it must be aged. I didn't age it

Similar Blends: Ppshh, similar!!!.

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	twaksak (54)	2015-04-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

I bought 2 or 3 parcels of this tobacco from a friend, all of them over 5 years old. Due to the hype, maybe my expectations were higher than it would've been upon opening any other tobacco. But I can safely say - Penzance didn't disappoint. Too bad its so scarce.

In the tin, a wonderful full Latakia smokiness, reminiscent of sitting next to a camp fire with a spicy undertone somewhere between those nostalgia. Also some earthiness coming through. A while ago I even got a whiff of menthol.

Taste: On first lite, that same wonderful Latakia / camp fire smokiness was clear. As you progress through the bowl, a sweetness just shows itself every know and then, which reminds you of some roasted cocoa beans or dark chocolate. Right down to the bare ashes at the end, it was a constant interplay of a well-balanced tobacco, with that chocolaty after taste.

Good tobacco!

Pipe Used: Bari, Savinelli

Age When Smoked: 5 years

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Ivanhoe (36)	2005-12-19		Extremely Mild	Medium	Medium to Full	Very Strong

It was inevitable that I would need to try Penzance after seeing the long list of reviews here. I was not disappointed; it is a terrifically satisfying smoke. The only surprise in this department was the lack of nicotine. This is a very mild smoke.

I had heard about the flavor fading if the tobacco dried, so I took my 8 oz tray of flakes and put them all in a Mason jar when I first opened it. The flakes are very fragile, and crumble away to nothing if you are not very careful with them. It remains in good condition, but it is disappearing quickly because I like it.

The burning characteristics of this blend make me suspect that it has been treated with something. First, the flavor disappears if the tobacco is dried before smoking. This is not normal. Second, the flakes are quite damp in their normal state, but do not require any extraordinary measures to ignite and burn cleanly to a dry, white ash. It's a very dry smoke for me, and this makes me suspicious that there is more than just tobacco in here.

One more characteristic I did not see in other reviews is that this blend burns for a long time. Pipes that normally give me a 45 min smoke with other blends last for well over an hour with Penzance.

Everyone should try this. Suspicions aside, this has become a regular smoke for me.

2013 Update

I am finishing a half-pound of this and have changed my mind. Several factors have caused this change.

The texture of the damp crumbly flakes is unsatisfying. I like smoking flakes, and these fall apart before they can be pushed into the pipe.

The dampness is disturbing. The stuff lights easily and never goes out. And, the flavor fades if the tobacco is allowed to dry. This all suggests to me that this stuff is chemically enhanced to an unacceptable degree. Some smokers like this (a la Frog Morton?) but I do not.

The almost total lack of Vitamin N makes this an unsatisfying smoke for me. After I smoke a pipe for 45 min, I would like to have a little buzz. There is none here.

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	HabaneroHardy (401)	2019-12-15		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Around August of this year our pipe and cigar store that houses our weekly pipe club got some of this in bulk and limited it to one ounce per customer at the regular retail rate. Over the next three weeks I managed to get a hold of three ounces of this Holiest of Holy Grails pipe tobacco and get to include my name in this revered club of those who have got to try the Penzance Legendary Pipe Tobacco. It is a thick broken flake and took some time in getting properly lit as I did not really rub this one out. It smokes velvet smooth with a sweetness and taste that makes one believe this is really high-grade leaf. I am smoking some more today and this is really good and can see why it has over 450 reviews. With that being said, I do believe the scarcity of this blend also lends a tremendous amount of the desire for pipe tobacco smokers to seek out this blend. Is the hype worth it? You will have to be the judge but as good, smooth and pleasant smoking as this blend is for me, I would never pay over retail for it but that goes just about for any blend. Maybe if I was awash in money, who knows but even then, I am not so sure. Upon closing here is an analogy I would like to share. Back when I was around 18 or 19 one could legally buy beer. West of the Mississippi River Coors and Olympia were sold in Louisiana but not distributed on the east side. I had never really been out of my hometown much other than going with my Dad to our fishing camp which also was in Louisiana. I decided to make a beer run, loaded up my ice chest in my old Chevy, got on Interstate 20 and started on my adventure alone heading into the unknown. It is funny now how a 60 something mile one-way trip back then was exciting, daring and risky, hoping I would not break down. I can’t remember what town I bought the Coors and Olympia from but it was a small Mom and Pop store. When I got back that was the best tasting beer, I had ever tasted among me and a few friends of mine. Why? Because it was rare and hard to get at the time. Some years later Coors was distributed east of the Mississippi River in Mississippi and to me became just another beer sold on the shelf.

Pipe Used: Savinelli Autograph #4 Free Style (Scallop Shaped)

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2019-04-21		Extremely Mild	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Tolerable

First off... what a foul concoction! Sampled from a 2008 vintage tin. The aroma is of a smoky Latakia presence combined with Oriental essence. I didn't detect any flavoring from the sniff or while smoking. I don't know but the majority of reviewers say it contains an extremely mild flavoring. I'll just go along with the majority on that one. The flakes are packed upright & sideways & occupy the full length of the tin. They are tender flakes that crumble more than seperate but the end result provides easy packing and a fantastic burn rate.

The main differences I found between this and quality English/ Balkan mixtures is: Penzance isn't as sweet or as flavorful & packs very minimal Vitamin N. However, I can see why so many pipers are attracted to this particular blend... because most pipers seem to prefer the mild, wimpy blends. It smokes cool & mild without any harshness or bite. Very comfortable on the palate but is almost like stoking your pipe with plain air... what happened to the nicotine? It seemed to have lost its flavor & became rather bland after about 1/3 of the bowl is smoked down. To my way of thinking, it's like drinking decaffeinated coffee. What's the use? Since I don't inhale, I prefer a stronger blend & Penzance was simply too wimpy to suit me... hence the lower rating.

I am perplexed by the varied opinions & differences in defining the quality, or lack thereof about Penzance & after reading most all of the reviews, I've reached a conclusion... there's simply a lack of "Quality Control" as each batch gets totally opposing reviews on taste, flavoring & strength declarations. Lately, I've been sampling Latakia and Orientals, or a combination of such. I thought my tin of Penzance was a real dud & trashed it & this... one of the most reviewed blends on this site. However, I prefer a blend of this genre that provides more flavor & strength... not one that offers a bland taste & a Latakia dominance. It would seem that purchasing Penzance is, "Like eating a box of chocolates." You never know what you might get. Some may be very good & some must be spit out!

I won't be trying Penzance, ever again... from a fresh or aged tin or pouch! IMHO, Penzance is very much overrated. Mississippi Mud &/or HH Balkan Blend, Stokkebye's Balkan Supreme, Crystal Palace, Arango Balkan Supreme, Plum Pudding Special Reserve, HH Syrian, D & S Levant, Trafalgar, Blairgowrie & many others are smokier, stronger & tasted so much better to me right from a new tin & better than that, I could buy more than a pound of each for less than one wee tin of wimpy Penzance. What's wrong with these people?... I can't imagine! I'm not trying to be funny here but I believe one might catch a better buzz by going outside & just breathing some of our good, old polluted air.

I think the name should be changed to Nonzance or maybe Flatulzance. Road Apple or Pomagranite Vine would be a better choice. I sorely disliked this "blend." It's really a foul concoction & barely rates one star. Kudos to those who like this & have $$ to waste on denicotined tobacco. After all, nicotine is what it's all about, right? Strange how pipers taste preferences differ, is it not?

Pipe Used: Peterson 11S Deluxe, Peterson 9S Deluxe

Age When Smoked: 4 Years Old in 2011

Purchased From: eBay

Similar Blends: Many English/Balkan Mixtures but the nicotine seems to be missing... a very wimpy, dull mixture..

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bonneville (52)	2015-05-19		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Very Strong

How many piper-poets have quipped about the heavenly qualities of this ever in-demand pipe blend? Far too many. This is not a tobacco that merits such poetic prose. It's good, not great. If this were as readily available as other blends, it would not be receiving the praise it gets.

It's heavy on the Latakia and Orientals. There are some fine Virginia tobaccos in this blend. Unfortunately, they do not shine through as I think they should. This tobacco tastes of incense with a slight Indian soap flavor. Not a fan boy. If it's a good Latakia blend you're looking for, opt for the Frog Morton series by McClelland.

Pipe Used: Rattray's, Peterson

Age When Smoked: 6 months from purchase

Purchased From: Beehive Cigars

Similar Blends: ???.

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2015-05-13		Very Mild	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Very Strong

I cannot for the life of me understand the demand for this blend. It just conjures up images of moderators with Dunhill Billiards packed to the brim while censoring forums... While not horrible, I am a Burley guy for the most part and do not like getting beaten with camel dung aroma... The Cyprian Latakia turns me into a Smokeasaurus with dragon breath! Ugh

"May my last breath be drawn through a pipe, and exhaled in a jest." - Charles Lamb

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	thefoolish (10)	2014-02-10		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Before I begin, a little about me as a tobacco taster. I do not claim to be one of those people who can inhale the faintest wisp of smoke and taste cherries, almonds, leather, and every other conceivable flavor known to man. I know those people who can do that (or at least make me believe that they can do that) and I envy them. But that’s me. I’m an everyman type of tobacco taster: if I taste it, you probably will too.

Then again, taste is so fallible. It depends on so much, including obvious factors, like what else you’ve eaten that day and your health, but can also depend on temperature, humidity, and even your mood, which is why I note those things in my review. So, remember, this is one man’s experience.

What I’ll be sampling today is Esoterica’s Penzance. I’ll admit, I feel a little guilty writing about this tobacco. For most people, especially in the States, it’s nearly impossible to find without near compulsive obsession. Every website you go to will likely read Out of Stock. Through a lot of work and the generosity of friends, I was able to put away well over a pound before I’d ever even tasted it. So, like I said, I feel guilty; it seems a little rude to say, “Hey, you know that tobacco you can’t get right now? It’s amazing!” And it is…

Sample Description: Mason Jarred fresh out of an 8oz bag in October, 2011. Never opened since.

Sample Pipe: Radice Rubens Rhodesian, dedicated to English blends.

Weather: 68 degrees Fahrenheit, low humidity

Accompanying Drink: Kettle One Vodka (oh, yeah).

Appearance: Mine has started to develop some bloom (or plume) from aging. Even after two years, it’s still quite high in moisture content, meaning it will continue to age well in my other jars. The flakes themselves are extremely dark, with occasional veins of light brown and tan running through them.

Aroma: In the jar, a combination of sweet and smoky, like a barbeque sauce with a healthy dose of brown sugar. It almost has the smell of farmland: earthy, damp, but sweet hints. If you’ve ever been inside of an old tack room in a stable, you know what I mean.

Preparation: The flakes practically fall apart in my hand, despite still being damp. I crumble them gently and allow them to dry for 30 minutes. See you in half an hour… And we’re back. I didn’t quite crumble up enough for a full bowl, so I did a modified three-step gravity fill.

Lighting took a few more lights that I would have liked, mostly due to the high moisture content. Also, I’ve noticed Latakia tends to take a little more cajoling to get fully lit than most types of leaf, and Cyprian Latakia is definitely one of the key players in this blend. Once I got it started, though, it smoked like a champ.

Taste: The oiliness of the flake comes through on the smoke. It is a full, creamy smoke with a Latakia dominant flavor. Upon first starting to puff, I was surprised at the sweet nuances to be found from the Orientals. Much like the aroma in the jar: dominant smoky and earthy flavors with hints of sweet. A couple puffs in, I was hit with something, only momentarily, that reminded me of caramel pecans: it hate the bitter, oiliness of the pecan, but the sweet, caramelized sugar with it. When doing reviews, I like to inhale and exhale in different ways to try to force out whatever additional flavors I can. With soft puffs, as tends to be, you get a more delicate, nuanced flavor, while deeper inhales reveal the bold earthiness and smokiness. With such a small sampling of only one bowl, I can tell that there is an enormous amount of complexity in this blend that will take many, many revisits to appreciate. Luckily, the blend is delicious and I will be happy to try it many times in the future.

Highly recommended to anyone experienced with Englishes. If you’re just starting to enjoy the smoky stuff, I would wait until you’ve got a few more blends under your belt so that you can fully appreciate this blend.

Smoke on.

Pipe Used: Radice Rubens Rhodesian

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrumsAndBeer (217)	2013-11-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This is a very good English blend with some marvelous attributes. It is nothing short of high quality, and it is beautifully presented. The flakes are as delicate as moth wings and crumble apart at the slightest touch. The sweet smoky tin-note is nothing short of captivating. And aside from being fairly moist, it is relatively user friendly.

When lit, it releases a gentle sweetness amidst a hearty flavor that tastes full and incredibly unified. From the onset, the pungency of the latakia and the sweetness of the Virginias stand out, but in short time the Orientals do perk up a bit and subtle flavors redolent of sour cream and ripe blue cheese appear. Occasionally on the nose I'll get a top note that hints of strong cigar. Penzance has a relatively warm tone, a soft spiciness & what I can only define as a sooty mouthfeel. It burns cool and it's exceptionally smooth. Altogether it's quite tame and sophisticated.

I have always loved the unique flavor and incense like quality of Germain's Latakia, but there are other Germain mixtures where I feel this special leaf is better highlighted. But that's okay because I don't find Latakia to be the main point of this blend. To me it's all about the one beautiful flavor created by the sum of its parts. Penzance is a full English but unlike other blends in its class, it doesn't hammer you with Latakia. Overall the flavor of Penzance is both exotic & strong but very much in balance.

I purposely save this blend for those particular ”me-time” moments when I want a contemplative pipe smoke and I am in the mood to search for flavors, otherwise I feel as though I have wasted something rare.

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Theodore Moore (14)	2013-11-06		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

A TWIN REVIEW BY COMPARISON:

Margate is a maiden while Penzance is a matriarch. "Margate is to the morning, what Penzance is to the evening." These two are exotic, loving, sister-wives to be sure, but only "just." Both are lady-like in that neither will reward you with their secret dainties unless treated with dignity and respect. However, approached with gentle hands and patience, they will both yield their hidden delights and favor you with their mysterious and oriental treasures. I love both of these, my Macedonian wives. Esoterica has a harem of these ladies, and Penzance and Margate are the most favored women among them. Once you have been seduced by both, you cannot do without either. All others pale in comparison.

Upon opening, both have a fragrance that tantalize the senses with veiled promises of things to come. Upon lighting, wait for them to warm until they unfold with that soft, unique, slipstream fragrance that you long for. The lingering, haunting, room aroma is uniquely "Esoterica". From there, and until the end of the experience, there is nothing else that compares. It is Beulah Land!

So what then is the difference? Well it is subtle but real. Margate is a tad crisper, tangier, while Penzance is softer, more mature and deeper. The first is a tease, while the latter is a lover. Again, "Margate is to the morning, what Penzance is to the twilight, the evening, and the black and dark night." Like virtuous women, they are hard to come by, but well worth the wait. If you find them, keep them. They are faithful to their man. Four heavenly stars! Enjoli' !!!

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2004-05-07		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Strong

Penzance should be the very best tobacco in the world, but it isn't. On taste alone, it has few peers. One of my favorite thrills is the first bowl of a freshly popped tin. The wax wrapper oozes more oil the my old Triumph (shift with the right foot, thank you), and the first taste makes me utter "Oh, momma!" I can't think of another English blend that has such a strong underpinning of delicious Virginias. It's incredibly smokey and lush, and completely unique in the world of pipe tobacco.

The troubles arise from the cut. The crumble cake format, though novel and, at first, nifty, proves problematic. I know of no other blend that seems to lose its essential oils as quickly as Penzance. Even in tin form, I'll take the first few bowls, and you can have the rest. Bulk is far worse. Werner Heisenberg could have offered Penzance as proof of his uncertainty principle- just LOOKING at this stuff makes it fall apart. The lightest of hands are required to handle it, lest it crumble into oblivion. The ensuing increase in surface area only serves to accelerate the decline.

Penzance is like a flower that must be appreciated before it withers and dies. But what a flower it is.

An absolute must try.

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	nkulk8r (90)	2018-12-23		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I am going to write this review in plain English (no pun intended), such that any pipe tobacco beginner can understand what I am about to say about Penzance.

First, my own experience with Esoterica Tobacco.

I transitioned to pipes (from cigars) back in 2013. It was a very steep learning curve – I knew absolutely nothing about pipes or pipe tobacco – I just woke up one morning with a yearning (longing, hunger, craving) for the nostalgic smell of that stuff Mr. Lundy used to smoke in his pipes back in 1965-66 (when I was 4 & 5 years old).

After starting with aromatics (I pre-ambled this by stating I knew absolutely nothing about pipes or pipe tobacco), I began researching, sampling and comparing every different type and blend of pipe tobacco I could lay my hands on.

I quickly came to understand that Penzance (and Stonehaven) were two tobaccos that I really needed a good supply of in my cellar (without having tried either). Trouble was, it was simply unavailable, and I couldn’t find it for sale (I had no inkling at the time as to the real reasons why these tobaccos were so very scarce).

I called everyone (Smokingpipes, Pipes&Cigars), I called random tobacco shops in New York, Chicago, LA, Boston, San Francisco (I live in Santa Clara, CA) – and nobody had the stuff.

I was told to try ebay. So I did. I was aghast at the markup on these tobaccos from those who were scalping the stuff at greatly inflated prices. I was angry that both Penzance and Stonehaven were readily available on ebay (at $400 per pound), but nobody, no tobacconist anywhere had this stuff stocked. I even managed to get Josh Weiser on the phone over at Arango in Illinois to find out what the deal was with availability and distribution. (Josh was exceptionally good at answering questions without actually answering any of the questions).

After a year of fruitless searches, I finally broke down and purchased an 8-ounce bag of Penzance via e-bay (at about a 300% markup). At the time, I really didn’t care about the cost – I rationalized that “it was only money” – and in the end, I finally had Penzance in my possession.

Then, two very funny things happened.

THE VERY NEXT DAY AFTER I BOUGHT ON e-bay – before I even got the Esoterica products in the mail -- I got a call (an actual phone call) from Windy City Cigars in Chicago. The gal on the other end said “Yeah, so, I’ve got a two-ounce tin of Penzance here – are you interested”? I said “Absolutely”. The cost? $11.99 (total cost was $16 with shipping). I asked her how it was that she came into this one tin of Penzance, and she told me that some guy had actually ordered it, and when he came in to pick it up, he was not even 18-years-old yet (I swear on a stack of bibles, that is what she told me).

The second funny was when I got a call from my local tobacconist at Mission Pipe in downtown San Jose. The clerk (he was the new guy) said “Hey, just wanted to let you know we got a shipment of Esoterica tobaccos in, and we have a pound of Penzance and a pound of Stonehaven if you’re interested.” The car drive that usually takes 20-minutes probably took me about 7-minutes on that day. They had two 8-ounce bags of Penzance, along with two 8-ounce bags of Stonehaven, and I bought both for a total cost of $260. (That’s right: A pound of Penzance, AND a pound of Stonehaven -- $260 total).

For the most part, my stock of Penzance (and Stonehaven) have been resting quietly in mason jars, in the darkness of my hall closet for the past couple of years. On rare occasions, during the holidays, mostly, I will indulge myself.

I just finished a bowl of Penzance (dated February, 2012, purchased-and-jarred in August 2015).

Penzance is absolutely, undeniably, categorically, unquestionably and unequivocally sublime.

Is Penzance the best pipe tobacco I have ever smoked? Probably not.

Is there any other pipe tobacco anywhere in the world that tastes exactly like Penzance? No, there is not.

Is Penzance worth the outrageous prices that are being charged on ebay? That is a normative, value-laden judgement call, based upon one’s opinions, tastes, preferences – and disposable income.

Are there pipe tobaccos that I enjoy smoking more than I do Penzance? Yes – two or three – but then, only one of those tobaccos is a Balkan.

The bottom line: If you want to experience Penzance, you are going to have to acquire it. There is quite simply no other tobacco like it in the world, except perhaps for %$#$@%*&!, which is widely available, and at very reasonable prices. But there is nothing else that looks like Penzance, crumbles like Penzance, smokes like Penzance or tastes like Penzance.

Update, January 9, 2019

Was just gifted 15 grams of 20-year-old Penzance (1998), by way of an ebay transaction. Have no way to verify the veracity of the date or how it was cellared -- all I have to compare this with is my own stash of Penzance from 2018 and 2012. What . . . An . . . Amazing . . . Mind-Altering Affair. The only way I can possibly put this into words is: WOW! I've only been piping for 6 years now, so I don't have a lot of experience with well-aged, well-cellared tobacco -- but the difference here was readily and distinctly discernible -- what a difference a few years (14) make. A blissful, near spiritual experience.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Cor Lee (1)	2016-07-03		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I finally got a 2oz tin of it by chance. But honestly, this is not like what I thought in mind. It taste nearly none or mighty when I lighting it. At the very beginning, I even doubt I mess up something when I fill in it, because I can not taste anything. As a smoker for 8 years(of course not pipe just cigarettes, yes it's still not much), I don't think this kind of nicotine can satisfied me. At the middle of bowl is has very mild taste of smoke all the way until reach 2/5 or 1/5 bowl. Like other blends, the strength of smoke getting stronger till the end. The process is very smooth and linear change. But that's it ! I REALLY REALLY expect more after watching a lot of review of it and a lot of recommendation. Considering it is extremely hard to get it with regular price and just have a smooth taste like this as its' feature. I mean of course it's a good blend, but there are a lot of blends can reach it after you aging them, not to mention the price and rarity.

Also, sorry I'm not a native speaker, forgive my terms.

Pipe Used: Dublin Briar, 3 MM

Age When Smoked: 26

Purchased From: .com

Similar Blends: Rattray's Black Mallory.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Gripsholm (43)	2016-06-27		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

I finally acquired a tin of Penzance! I traded one of my tins of Balkan Sobranie for it.

I acquired a tin of Penzance because I wanted to compare it with two other blends. I’ve seen many reviews claiming that Hearth & Home’s Ten to Midnight and GL Pease’s Quiet Nights were both very similar to Penzance. In my opinion Ten to Midnight and Quiet Nights are not at all similar to each other. This made me curious about Penzance. In short, Ten to Midnight is the odd man out.

How do Quiet Nights and Penzance compare? Both tin notes have a sweetness indicative of fermentation or decay. When placed side by side Quiet Nights appeared darker whereas Penzance actually had a kind of very subtle scattered whiteness about it. Upon closer inspection with a magnifying glass I believe that the whiteness is actually some type of very delicate mold. I did not see anything that looked like mold on Quiet Nights. Penzance is a very delicate flake and falls apart very easily to the touch. Quiet Nights is very pliable and soft but does not fall apart as easily as Penzance.

How about the flavor profile? For me Penzance is milder, mellower, and more refined. Quiet Nights is more full flavored and raw. What I mean by raw is that the flavors of the various tobaccos are more distinct and identifiable. I resist calling either Penzance or Quiet Nights an English or Balkan style tobacco. I would rather refer to them as fermented tobaccos, or tobaccos that underwent a special aging or decaying process. The special aging process brings a lot to the flavor profile. It mellows and melds the tobacco flavors so that they are less distinguishable. It also adds sweetness.

Taking into consideration the very mellow sweet flavor and how structurally delicate Penzance is I might assume that Penzance has been specially aged or decayed for a longer period of time than Quiet Nights.

This aging process is not the same as cellaring. This special aging process is probably done in the open air with lots of humidity or dampness to keep the tobacco moist while allowing bacteria and other organisms to thrive and do their decaying thing. Cellaring is done in a vacuum sealed tin where there is a lot less air available. Although cellaring will provide some mellowing and melding, the lack of air won’t allow for organism activity which provides the sweetness and structural delicacy.

Quiet Nights does have the sweetness component brought about by decay. I would suspect if you cellared Quiet Nights for five or ten years you might get something with a flavor profile that could be a little more similar to Penzance.

In conclusion, Penzance is a five star tobacco on a four star scale. The mild flavor is creamy, sweet, and a tad bit fruity… think a very mild raisins or prunes. The smoky Latakia is just enough to accent the sweet creamy flavor of this expertly fermented tobacco.

UPDATE: >>> 01/20/2018 After a few more tins and a closer inspection, the whiteness on this tobacco may actually be a crystalization and not a delicate mold, I saw sparkling in the sunlight. Although I must say I have had other flakes where I could see crystalization and they didn't have the same subtle whiteness all over the entire flake as Penzance, nor were they as structurally delicate. Perhaps it's both crystalization and a whispy delicate white mold.

Pipe Used: Caked Briar

Age When Smoked: One year old tin

Purchased From: Traded with a friend

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	guitar2mw (92)	2016-01-28		Mild	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I was gifted some of this from a forum member. I wanted to try it, but not badly enough to wait around my phone or inbox to spend $40+ per bag. With the waiting lists that some of these retailers have these days, I figured I would save myself a lot of time and trouble by just laying low.

So this is the "holy grail" of English blends. I opened the Ziplock bag that my sample came in and trembled with humility. Was I worthy enough to partake of this holy mixture? Was my heart pure enough? This is what the gods and goddesses smoked the day the world was conceived? I was overcome with emotion and cried uncontrollably at the honor that I had bestowed before me.

With that being said, I packed it into a 1947 Parker billiard. It smelled nice and smokey in the bag, and I was beginning to think I had a Lat bomb on my hands. After lighting (which it readily took and held for the remainder of the smoke), I realized that this was indeed a damn good smoke. I was afraid it would be musty or spicy with the oriental content, but these orientals are of the sweeter variety. They add an exotic spice to the amazing tobacco flavor. I was able to pick out several flavor profiles as the bowl burned: wood, earth (albeit not bitter in any sense), leather, spiced cream (think eggnog). The flavor never once got bitter or overly smokey. It burned to a fine white ash and left no burnt aftertaste in my mouth. I was impressed.

I can see how this would be a hyped tobacco to many. However, I personally don't see how this blend commands the prices or popularity that it does. I would like to keep some on hand, but I didn't find it miraculous enough to scour the deepest ends of the Earth just to pay $50 for an 8 oz. bag. My 3 Oaks is readily available and scratches the same itch that this blend would satiate. I recommend that anyone who likes English mixtures should try this at some point in their lives. Maybe I WASN'T worthy after all...

Pipe Used: Parker

Age When Smoked: Unknown

Purchased From: Gift

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	point9 (114)	2015-08-05		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

The tin aroma is unforgettable, but not the smoke. Clean, subtle, latakia predominant flavor does not compensate the relatively weak body in the taste. Not saying it lacks strength, but somewhat monotone to me. I definitely expect more due to the hype. It is one of the most overrated blends on the market in my opinion.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	grinny (2)	2015-04-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

Tip-of-tongue sweetness throughout, more honey-like than sugar. Huge creaminess, hints of peppermint, Promite on dark-bread. Cloves perhaps. Cocoa. Virginias drifts in from time to time with suggestions of the greener ages of hay. Perhaps a little fruitiness here and there, but overall more towards the bread-like... the savoury-sweet pastriness of nuts and salt and honey and malt and yeast .

As suggested it may be the Virginias here that give this blend so much to age towards. Smokiness deepening towards the bottom of the bowl, becoming more savoury and salty, sweetness still present and delicious, further suggestions of axe-ire and intentional lens-shake, trending bokeh shots... [sorry, wrong review], finishing up with nicotine contentment -just slightly stronger than not.

Presentation is rich and velvety. Smoke is rich and velvety. Rich and velvety.

Does not develop much down the bowl as other blends might, but this is not a bad thing. Similar dimension throughout, but a very very good one. A unified and distinct flavour in the genre. Don't be too furious or you might get burnt rubber... sip, and you might get truly sublime.

Overall, a simply gorgeous blend.

Note: I smoked this blend long before the hipsters took to it and must say I'm disappointed that's it's harder to be had these days. It's a remarkable blend, but surely not as venerable as the nu-tweedsters might have us believe. Whatevle.

Pipe Used: Most of them.

Age When Smoked: 5+ Years

Purchased From: 4Noggins

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	FiremanMick (12)	2015-01-29		Medium to Strong	Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Gifted 100gms of this baccy when buying an estate pipe off Ebay. Mmmmm....secret blending recipe....if I were to carry out a blind tasting of Penzance I would immediately state that the blend was in fact Revor plug rubbed out fine.Black oily flakes(I know Revor is a block) crumbles readily. This Penzance is a very fine old school no nonsense smoke but I think Revor just pips it to the post.I am aware tobacco tasting is a purely subjective thing so other reviewers will no doubt have their own take on this tobacco but for me it is almost exactly like good old Revor plug with a slightly oriental aspect.Good stuff though! 4 Stars.

Pipe Used: Peterson 9s Falcon,Comoys Bulldog

Age When Smoked: Months?

Purchased From: Gifted to me

Similar Blends: Revor plug.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	ShipRect (2)	2015-01-17		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

My first bowl has proved to be quite an extraordinary journey.

Fully rubbed out; dried for 5-10 minutes (per my tobacconist's advice), it lit quite easily. At first, the taste reminiscent of corn flakes, I was put off. That opened up a bit. I find the pleasant sour tang that appears now, a welcome development. The strength remains light-mild for the first quarter-bowl. The Latakia builds to fill it out to a stern medium. Just so. Then come the Orientals; a bit of mustiness; some earthiness. This blends into the Virginias. A bit grassy, but not too sweet. The smokiness never disappears, but does pop in enough to remind you of It's presence. All of the aforementioned components are still here; a swirling melange of the symphony that, I am now seeing, is Penzance. The deftness of this blend really shows halfway into the bowl. The balance, currently showing, is where I usually prefer to start, in a bowl. Earthy, musty, nutty, leather; they're all suitable adjectives, but underwhelmingly so.

It smokes wonderfully. I only had to relight due to the extremely restricted sipping which I attempted. Even then, a minimum effort was required to produce a clean, even burn to termination.

I can see what the hype is about. Not an all day smoke; maybe not an every day indulgence. Definitely one to keep in the cellar. I'll buy what's available, but not necessarily at the premium I've seen it go for... Neophytes, wait on this one. Better yet, buy it if available, and then wait. Get a variety under your belt before attempting to tame this one. A bit of age will reward your patience. -SR

Pipe Used: Meerschaum

Age When Smoked: Fresh, bulk

Purchased From: The Tinder Box, Costa Mesa

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bluesmoke (75)	2014-11-23		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

Penzance is definitely worth all the positive reviews. This krumble kake is one of the best Oriental forward latakia blends I've had the pleasure of overpaying to smoke...grin. Seriously, though hard to find, it was worth the chase. Lighting this up and closing ones eyes while sipping a tea and listening to most any of the classic rock groups from the 60s or 70s and I'm in heaven. This packs very easily and takes to light easily after a little drying time. The aroma is fantastic and my palate felt clean upon finishing. All the components of this blend merry together so well that you would think another bowl is called for, surprisingly you may not need a second bowl since this really satisfies your smoky, spicy, sweet tooth. This is not a powerhouse for nicotine, but that seldom drives my desire for any given tobacco. Highly recommended!! MGBWYA

Pipe Used: Stanwell

Age When Smoked: Fresh Tin

Purchased From: BATB

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	crrbassman (12)	2014-11-13		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

It's true, it's true, it's all true. I didn't want it to be, but it is. I've read a bunch of the reviews of this tobacco and was recently walking through the local pipe and tobacco shop, when I noticed the golden glint in my periphery...I stopped and looked to the left. Lo-and-behold, there was an 8-oz. bag of Penzance in their pipe tobacco humidor.

I stared at it for a few minutes, having the internal debate with myself. I then walked up front and asked the store's 'pipe guru' what he thought of it. His response - 'I have 2 lb. cellared and if they let us buy more than one bag out of every shipment we get in, I'd have a lot more.'

I bought it, took it home, and debated ripping it open right away so as to try it immediately. In the end, common sense won out and I decided to wait until that night when the kids were in bed and asleep (the wife was out-of-town) so I could take my time and enjoy it.

Holy cow, did I ever! This is one of the most perfect tobaccos I've ever smoked. Fullness and richness but without any overpowering elements. I won't repeat what so many others have said about this phenomenal tobacco, because it's all true.

I smoked two flakes that night and cellared/jarred the rest. This will be a once-in-awhile celebratory tobacco, at least until I have about 5 lb. or so cellared and can enjoy it a little more often. If you like English blends and can find this, buy it.

Incredible stuff.

Pipe Used: il ceppo Bulldog (nicknamed 'The Cannon')

Age When Smoked: First two flakes <1 day, the rest is cellared

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Geronimo Von Klaus (76)	2014-09-04		Strong	Medium to Strong	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

Unfortunately, it is worth the hype. It is worth hunting this down, scouring B&M's and websites, its worth all the superlatives, all the praise, all the mystique.

This will become this generation's 759. I'm almost sure of it. When this goes OOP, watch out, it will be gouged to heck, there will be silent auctions for the tiniest amount of it, there will be blends and competitions dedicated to mimicking it and trying to match it with what's available. College kids will ask us what was it like to smoke, what compares to it now, was it really THAT good?

Yes.

I didn't want this to be the case. I really wanted this to be like a Tulip craze, a complete bubble of speculation with no substance, but then I got some, smelled it, packed and smoked it. There is nothing like it. The orientals are a one-off hit. I don't know what they are called, where else you find them, but there is an oriental in this which unmistakable and just such an enchanting taste and smell that it cannot be described.

Sadly, the scarcity goes on. I have 2oz in a mason jar, and a sealed 8oz bag that I dare not open until I can secure some more. You may hate me for my hoarding, but once you smoke some, you will join the herd. I almost guarantee it.

Pipe Used: XXL Custom Poker

Age When Smoked: Unknown

Purchased From: Shhhhhhhh!!

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	WillBrown (137)	2013-12-01		Medium to Strong	Medium to Strong	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Penzance is a classic, there's no doubt about it. It's a truly amazing smoke—smooth, smokey, bacony, not your usual English blend, that's for sure. My bowl lasted nearly an hour—an hour of pure bliss. This blend is a true credit to the art of blending tobacco (God knows what's in it, though). Now I know why it's so hard to hunt down, it's good, really good. If you have a chance to buy it at a reasonable price, do so. I'd like to thank Bobby G at Pipes & Cigars for the 8 oz. bag he sold me (at retail, no less, thanks much!). Because of its scarcity, I will enjoy it only on occasion. Highly recommended.

Cheers!

Pipe Used: Molina bent

Age When Smoked: ?

Purchased From: Pipes & Cigars

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	TallPuffO'Burley (633)	2013-11-21		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

ORIGINAL REVIEW 11/21/13 Well it feels weird for me to review a blend off of two bowls, but I figure that this is review 358 and since I have nothing bad to say, why not.

A fellow Forum buddy sent me the leftovers in a tin that had dried out with several other samples. I rehydrated it while up north hunting and packed my Large Altinok Canadian. My hunting buddy who I recently reintroduced to pipe smoking also had a bowl. We both agreed it was an incredible smoke. I smoked the last bowl of it in the tree during a cold morning hunt.

I usually don't like full English blends although there are a few that really hit the spot once in awhile and I can see this one sharing that trait. It was smoky and smooth and burnt cool. I wish I had more.

Anyway, I have likely already said too much as there is a reason this is extremely hard to obtain. It is that good. Highly recommended.

EDIT 12/15/14 After finishing 8 ounces of this recently I will say that it maintains a four-star rating IMO. As I now move into my fourth year of smoking, I find my tastes now moving more into the fuller bodied Lats and the lighter ones no longer really do it for me. This is a great tobacco and I think it fitting of its demand.

That said there are some that I favor over this blend. To start with there is Smoker's Haven Krumble Kake which is even harder to obtain than this as it has not been available for a few years. I was fortunate enough to find a forum member willing to trade me for some.

I would also put HU's Fayyum kake above this, but not by much. Being that it is in Germany and needs to be shipped overseas this is a costly alternative, but it is available and I would recommend that to overpaying for some Penzance.

There are two I have had that are highly available and I think are better than Penzance and they are both by McClelland. One is Blue Mountain and the other is Three Oaks Syrian. I do prefer these to Penzance and the thought came to me that this should lower Penzance to three stars, but the differences are minor and all of these blends are worthy of four stars. Since I think this a blend everyone should try, I will keep it at four stars and I will rebuy it any opportunity I get.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-07-08		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Well, I have to tell it like it is read so much about this tobacco I had to have it so I went to the sharks on ebay and bought 5 bags of 8 ounces each at 100.00 per bag have been working on a bag now for 2 months nice tobacco just not for me I prefer Dunhill navy rolls and S.G. Full virginia flake if anyone wants them I would just like to get my money back if not they are going to age for a long time.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-03-31		Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

After reading nothing but good things about Penzance I really wanted to try it. Not an easy blend to find but I was fortunate to locate some in bulk. I could smell this blend through the packaging. I wonder if the mail lady was picking this up while it was riding along with her. My first impression was that this stuff smells great! Reminded my of a woodsy smokehouse beef jerky kinda aroma with a hint of latakia hanging around. I looked at the clock and it was no where near 5:30, it would have to wait till I got home. Penzance requires little if any rubbing out. It does rub out very nicely though. I let it dry for about 20 minutes to let it "breathe" a bit. I loaded it up, got my Makers Mark Bourbon and I was good to go. The initial light and the first draw was freaking incredible! This was going to be good.... Two relights later, I settled into what was going to be one of if not the BEST bowls I ever enjoyed. I did'nt even touch the bourbon because I wanted a one on one with this fantastic blend. Incredibly smooth and flavorful from start to finish. Towards the end of the bowl I was picking up a sweetness almost as if I was tasting the briar along with with the tobacco. It was like they got married and was getting along extremely well. Remember when you were a kid and your mom gave you a pudding cup and your were enjoying that pudding cup but after you was finished you were kinda sad cause you had no more pudding and you wanted more? Thats the way I felt. I looked in my briar and all I saw was a fine ash. I smiled real big because I'm in control of the pudding now. Smooth, flavorful, pure bliss in one very hard to fine tobacco. I did finish my bourbon afterwards reflecting on the incredible bowl I just smoked and how lucky I was to find it. Definitely purchase some if you can find it.

Makin' my wife rich one bowl at a time.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JustinCarcerated (99)	2013-01-27		Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Tolerable

So I scored a pound in April-2 eight oz bags, looked to be a year old or so when I recd them. Canned 1/2 under heat immediately, left one bag sealed. I am finishing first "tin-full" of that bag-10 months later. I've smoked several English and Lat prevalent blends, of which NightCap, Legends, Maltese Falcon rule, but this stuff can't be fit into a strict category.

To start with, this baccy crumbles with a grimacing look, no force needed. It crumbles perfectly though, I mean that, perfect every time.

It burns thoroughly, burns with little effort, is forgiving to relights and generates smooth buttery smoke, easy on the nose with retro-haling.

The lats and orientals stand out over any Virginias, and the taste profile has some flavoring I cannot-with the 10+ bowls I have consumed, attach a description except to say its slightly medicinal....? It's tasty, can become somewhat sweet for a puff or two, then return to profile just as quickly.

My only beef-minor though it may be, is that the taste coats the tongue and stays there for quite some time-to the point where it limits what other tobaccos can be properly enjoyed for hours after sampling Penzance.

It is fantastic, it's in a class by itself. I will be on the lookout for more this year, I bet it ages gracefully :)

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SteelCowboy (685)	2011-10-17		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

There is reason why this is the 322nd review of this classic blend. I do not find it to be a “Latakia Bomb” as it has been described by a few. (In a world filled with so many Straight Virginia's how come they are never called “Virginia Bombs?”) There are many more dominate Latakia blends out there, think Ten Russians, a true heavy Latakia blend. Penzance is not a “beginners” blend either. While not my favorite Krumble Kake, there is a nice interplay between the Orientals and the Latakia. It arrives too moist to smoke out of the tin and I find it smokes best fully rubbed out and dried. Like many Krumble Kakes one has to be careful not to “over-rub” it or it can turn to dust when dried. I do agree with some other reviews that while this is a very good blend, it is IMHO not worth paying the internet auction price. Recommended.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-07-26		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

one of the best pipe tobaccos I've ever tried. Room note and taste are unique and strong, but in a good way, though I'm not sure how this would fare with a significant other.

No artificial flavoring detected, but it definitely tastes like a full bodied, smokey grade A tobacco!

Opening my tin I definitely noticed the almost smokey.. beef jerky smell.. not in a bad, store-bought kind of way, but the kind of smokey goodness you'd find at your local farm, or out up in the mountains to the west.

Almost takes you back to simpler times.. and it is, so far, one of the most "tasty" tobaccos I've ever had, after smoking it, I don't feel like brushing my teeth, instead I want to savor how good it is!

Highly recommended!

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-03-30		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

One of the downsides of having found your One True Blend is missing out on treats like this. Spurred out into the tobacco wilderness by my beloved Balkan Sobranie getting low, I thought I had discovered an acceptable replacement in Bengal Slices, only to discover that it too is no more. After trying a variety of blends that varied from disappointing (Pelican) to actually awful, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this blend, it is much spicier than Bengal Slices, although not as spicy as Sobranie, but definitely something that has moved to the top of the list of Blends I Could Be Happy With.

Opening the tin revealed a waxed paper lining dotted with oil from the leaves. The flakes appear to be mostly Latakia with a bit of virginia, as well as a moderate amount of orientals. They rub out easier than Bengal Slices while still offering the tunability of the slice form, so you can rub it more coarsely for smoking outdoors for example. This tobacco can be rubbed directly into the bowl instead of having to make multiple rubbing passes into the lid as with most Virginia flakes (and Bengal Slices). Upon rubbing, it appears that the "slices" are more of a crumble cake than a virginia-style slice, in that the fully rubbed-out form is more of a cube cut than ribbon cut. So you probably don't want to rub this stuff out all the way.

I crumbled two slices into a trusty Ashton XX Bent Bulldog, the first one extremely coarsely, and the second one increasingly fine as I reached the top. The tobacco lit up quickly, instantly showing its flavor and wonderful aroma. Within a few seconds of the second light it had settled down into a creamy smokiness similar to Bengal Slices. After a few minutes, the spicy flavor gradually intensified and the flavor stabilized into a nice balance of spicy, creamy smokiness that lasted all the way to the bottom. I found this to be a fairly dry-tasting tobacco, with a hint of saltiness, so I suspect at least some of the oriental is Yenidje. I found Penzance a slow-smoking tobacco, it lasted two hours while my other favorite blends generally last only about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours. The first half of the bowl was a bit moist (although typical for slices imo), but it dried out during the second half.

According to the wife, the room aroma reminded her of vanilla.

Wonderful stuff.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Old Shoe (25)	2020-06-21		Medium to Strong	Mild to Medium	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Smoked this wonderful Balkan on and off again for some years now but had a kind of prejudice in that we had two guys in our pipe club who never ceased gushing on and on how great a Balkan it was. These two also only smoked Bangs and Jess pipes..... This is a VERY well done tobacco to be sure, but I don’t get all the hype (and HIGH price) this one gets. There are many other Balkans of this caliber that come to mind, Durbar and Bill Bailey‘s as an example. A great smoke to be sure, but dents the credit card pretty hard........

Pipe Used: Georg Jensen Billiard

Age When Smoked: Fresh at the time.

Purchased From: Internet

Similar Blends: Durbar, Star of the East..

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	HauntedMyst (22)	2019-11-08		Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Tolerable

As of this writing, there are 448 reviews with an average of 3.5 for Penzance. Do you really need another review?

This is the Mona Lisa of English blends. If all Esoterica did was make this, it would be enough. Penzance is proof God loves pipe smokers.

Pipe Used: Dunhill, Upshall

Age When Smoked: Both New and Aged 5 years

Purchased From: Upshall Tobacco Shop

Similar Blends: There are none..

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	PuffPuffLive (32)	2019-11-08		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Smooth, mellow-sweet and smokey Latakia rounded by age. A prominent oriental character without the rough spots. Virginia undertones to balance it out. An elegant flake presentation. This is a great tobacco, worthy of praise. I’ve been a pipe smoker for over a decade, and I finally had a pipeful of this celebrated blend. Unfortunately, I had to rely on the kindness of a fellow briar brother for the experience. It’s a great smoke, but there are a lot of English blends out there that are great smokes. Pease has some amazing stuff, Dunhill (Peterson), the folks from the Lakeland region, C&D, PS...lots of great English and Balkan blends on the market. I really enjoyed this, but finally getting to try it brought me back to reality. Buy the blends you enjoy now, because they may not be around tomorrow. Don’t spend so much time and money seeking the stuff you can’t find... The golden age of our hobby is probably over. Our enjoyment has been vilified. Gather what you can, don’t spend time and money on a holy grail that can’t fill your cellar. I have nothing bad to say about this tobacco. It’s a great one. I wouldn’t spend above market price for it though. I will no longer spend so much of time trying to get my hands on it either. It’s amazing, but there are too many blends I can horde without so much effort. 4 stars, because it’s great, but my time is better spent on the things I can enjoy without so much effort.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Chrome in FLA (2)	2016-12-18		Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

This tobacco is good. It's smoky with the Latakia being present, but not overwhelming. It's strong for my tastebuds, but I do enjoy it. Like others have said, the tobacco itself is superb quality and is in a crumble flake that easily fills your pipe.

The one thing you will find is that it's difficult to find. I've stocked up on a bunch to cellar or sell/trade at a later date, but will most likely keep it. Buy some if you can find it.

Pipe Used: Moonshine Signature Devil Anse

Age When Smoked: 1 year

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Virginia lover (218)	2016-05-28		Mild	Medium	Medium	Tolerable

I finally opened my aged tin after hesitating as I don't see myself getting another one with the hype and all. The presentation is nice, plume ridden thick flakes that crumble to the touch, a Balkan like smell with the mandatory stained wax paper.

My first smoke off the tin was a disaster, horrid taste, hard to light, you should have seen the disbelief on my face. After a few days, I tried it again and this time it was much better. Still, I could not help but notice a sweet, refreshing, menthol like flavor that was very present especially by mid bowl. The Latakia is smoky, there's creaminess and an incense like flavor that permeates through the entire bowl, it also mingles with the sweet mentholated flavor. It smokes abnormally slow, leaves a heavy mouth and your breath...well!

I suspect that the ''Old School'' feel of this tobacco is obtained thru the savant use of chemicals, ( the secret recipe) and this alone disqualifies it from the favored list.

Virginia lover

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Gentleman Zombie (729)	2016-03-04		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

This is a blend for those who really love Latakia. The quality of this Latakia is second to none, but I've evolved as a pipe smoker and I find myself seeking English blends that apply Lat with a slightly lighter touch than I used to. A couple of years ago I would have easily given this four stars. Now though, it seems a bit heavy handed. I much prefer Margate and ASTB to this flake. The Virginias here are nearly hidden and well.....I like to taste the Virginias. Just can't get enough vitamin V from this to suit my taste. In fact, I have to add some to truly enjoy Penzance. Having said all that, it is top quality tobacco and I have no trouble giving it my full recommendation. It's just a matter of personal preference. Oh yeah....the Oriental component is very evident and top notch.....but I want some damn Virginia flavor in here. Same results in briar, cob, and clay.

Medium in body. Medium to full in Latakia smokiness. Burns perfectly. Smokes cool and smooth.

Pipe Used: Tsuge tankard, MM Country Gentleman, MF #9

Age When Smoked: 4 months

Purchased From: smokingpipes.com

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Rogala (4)	2016-01-28		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This brand has been reviewed to death here, so I am going to keep this short.

The tin note is heavenly....just gorgeous...but the crumble cake style is a bit challenging to handle, so extra care must be taken in packing the pipe, as many before me have noted.

Overall, there is a pleasing mocha / coffee taste throughout the bowl, with high notes of spice and sweetness here and there (especially in the middle third of the bowl) but many of the subtleties which I was expecting, based on the uber-hype, were simply not present.

This is because the smoking taste is, IMHO, fundamentally a bit too heavy on Latakia...arguably to the point of being unbalanced versus the orientals. Likewise, I feel that, even though there are doubtlessly some superb Virginias in this blend, they somehow are not allowed to shine forth with their full potential.

To put it another way: I was hoping for flavors of sandalwood, dark tea and exotic fruits bathed in smoky sweetness, but what I got (mostly) was fresh peat and coffee grounds punched-up with fleeting bursts of sugar & spice. Not a bad thing when judged in a vacuum...and probably great with an Islay malt...but not the finely layered and sophisticated flavor palette which I was led to expect.

Note: I am a Latakia fan, BTW, but I prefer it to be in some sort of harmony (or perhaps a counterpoint) with the other elements of a given blend.

I simply cannot call this one of the top 10% of tobaccos which I have ever smoked....which is what it takes to get 4 stars in my book It's good stuff, even memorable in some ways, but it is not, IMO, one of THE all-time greats. Buy it to see what all the hype is about...buy it because you like a peat-forward blend...but don't get sucked in by the "buzz" or the artificial scarcity. That's my 2 cents.

Three stars.

Pipe Used: Chacom Billiard (Military Mount)

Age When Smoked: 1 year in the tin

Purchased From: The Briar Shoppe

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Lyle (32)	2015-12-26		Medium	None Detected	Full	Strong

I've smoked this blend off and on since 2007, so this review is based on a combination of these experiences.

In the tin, this is dark and oily. The aroma is smoky and slightly phenolic. When I first smelled it, I remember thinking, "this is not beginner stuff." On more aged samples, the tin had an almost rotten sweetness to it.

It's a little moist in the package for my taste, but that's easily fixed by drying it down a little. The crumbly flakes make packing simple. I got best results with a loose, gravity-fed bowl with very little packing/tamping.

While smoking, Penzance is very complex. The Latakia dominates, especially in the beginning of the bowl, but there are many Virginia and Turkish flavors that come and go. There's a definite, natural sweetness to this blend, along with a Scotch whisky-like peaty aroma. Other smells and tastes are reminiscent of creosote, leather, and rubber. However complex, this is not a subtle blend!

A note regarding aging: I've never had one of these little square tins fail, but I have found rust in them after a few years. Another guy in my pipe club has been unlucky enough to have had at least one tin lose its seal. If you're going to cellar this blend, I'd recommend buying it in larger quantities and breaking it down into two ounce portions stored in little mason jars.

Pipe Used: Sasieni pot, Castello large billiard, others

Age When Smoked: From zero to six years old

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	gladi8tor96 (143)	2015-12-15		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Update (6 Months later...) So, either it's my tastebuds or perhaps the age of of the tobacco sitting in a jar. This is an amazing blend. Very creamy and rich. I would describe it simply as sweet, sour, woodsy, with a hint of pungent (in a good way). The smokey latakia is perfectly balanced by the orientals that are savory and incense like, both supported by a dark mellow sweetness. Similar to westminster but more round and fuller with more sweetness. Similar to Gaslight, but much more balanced, smoother, and not as strong in the nic or latakia (campfire smokiness).

Very tasty and satisfying smoke. I do have a couple of tins cellared.

Original Review

Been after this tobacco for a long time. Hard to get a hold of....but you all know this....I digress.

I saved the tin until a few of my buddies and myself could sample this fine tobacco together. I figured it had been 10+ years for me to get the tobacco, might as well make it a special occasion.

The tobacco was nicely wrapped in paper that was oil stained from the tobacco...awesome! It looked like a big dark, with bright specs here and there, brick in the tin to me, not flakes. It broke apart easily enough though and was perfect for packing into our pipes. Took a bit to get it lit, but once it was lit the flavor was wonderful. The backbone seemed to consist of the sweet virginias perfectly balanced with the orientals. A hint of spice and incense. On top of the base was the smokey latakia. A great creamy smoke that had a nice kick to it. It was definitely as good, if not better, than any of my other favorite English blends.

Overall this tobacco was worth the wait and was enjoyable...however, there are other blends that are right up there that are easier to obtain. I'll try to snag a tin or two the next time they come around though to cellar and share with my other briar brothers.

Pipe Used: Cob & Billard, HawkBill

Age When Smoked: 3 Months after receiving tin

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: Esoterica Tobacciana - Margate, G. L. Pease - Westminster (Heirloom Collection), G. L. Pease - Gaslight (Old London Series).

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DeathMetal.org (231)	2015-12-07		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable to Strong

Summary: a smooth Latakia-oriented English using matured Virginias for more of a grain-like flavor than the usual sweet tangy taste.

Like its cousin "Margate," Esoterica "Penzance" takes the medium English formula to new levels of smoothness by tempering the extremes of its ingredients. In particular, the Virginias used here appear aged or pressed or otherwise reduced in acidity, and the Latakia has been restrained from its pine-smoke extremes. Together, these ingredients give this tobacco a solid middle band presence and allow the Orientals to crest to the top, creating a delightfully mellow smoke. If you ever wanted Dunhill "Standard Mixture" to have less zing and more cream, this is the blend to do it.

Thanks to Pipes Magazine forum member "shikano53" for this generous sample.

Similar Blends: Dunhill - Standard Mixture, Esoterica Tobacciana - Margate.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	bojangle (7)	2015-08-18		Very Strong	None Detected	Medium	Unnoticeable

Equal to plum pudding. If you've had pp, you've had this. The only thing different about penzance to pp is that penzance's orientals are more obvious at times. Other than that, same taste. More balkan than oriental. Orientals dance on lat and va base.

It's an earthy balkan/English and in no way are the orientals nor the VAs at the forefront. It'a not fruity, not sour, no citrusy, not hay-like. It is a mouth full of dirt kind of tobacco. I personally enjoy that type, though it's not an everyday smoke for me.

Not eye opening like mississippi river

I've now had both aged penzance and new penzance and the aged one is just more mellow. Not more sweet, not tastier - just more mellow. Though plume was visible, It did not improve with age. Latakia is the main ingredient in this and it has faded a lot over time. The orientals have also become less sharp and intriguing.

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Similar Blends: Seattle Pipe Club - Plum Pudding.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	idbowman (26)	2015-02-23		Medium	None Detected	Very Full	Strong

Ah, Penzance - maybe the most-hyped blend currently in production. It's hard to light this puppy up for the first time without having high expectations, given how much buzz it gets. All the same, I smoked through a few ounces before deciding to weigh-in:

There isn't a whole heck of a lot to add to the nearly 400 reviews of this, so for the sake of expediency: --Cut is a chunky crumble kake, very black and oily --Aroma is the quintessential "English" blend - creamy, sweet/smoky, earthy --Might take just a bit of work to get lit, but once it's burning it puffs away without too much maintenance, burning to the bottom of the pipe with little-to-know dottle.

So is it as good as it's reputation? To my tastes, no. This is not to say it isn't an excellent blend, well worth smoking (if you can get your hands on it). It is a damn fine smoke that delivers what it should - a long, cool, creamy, smoky, nougatty, Latakia/Oriental smoking experience.

Still, my preference in this category goes to McClelland's British Woods, particularly if you can find some with a few years on it. Given availability and cost, I'd go that route and feel like I've still won in the taste department. Still - Penzance is a blend that anyone who enjoys a good English ought to try at least once. I can understand why it's so loved and obsessed over, and I'm very glad to have had the chance to smoke it. Call it a 3.5/4 from me.

Pipe Used: Briars, Cobs, Meers

Age When Smoked: 1-2 years

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bigdadz (39)	2014-03-31		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

I got my hand on several tins of this stuff before it got overrated and sold out on every continent. It is a quality english mixture, with oily flakes that quickly crumble into fine pieces. I enjoyed a few tins, but I found the flavour a little too tarry and I am simply not a fan of this type of cut. I actually gave a tin to a friend, and sent back some tins to Richard in order to exchange them for other english blends I enjoy more. As far as Esoterica goes, I prefer "And so to bed".

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SmoothingIt (5)	2012-12-08		Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

At this moment, there are already 342 other reviews of the much sought after Penzance. There is little on its intricacies that I can write so I will simply offer an opinion of this gift from above.

To me, Penzance is the perfect blend. It smokes well, tastes incredible, and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. It truly is the holy grail of pipe tobaccos.

I rarely get to enjoy this as an all day smoke due to the lack of quantity available. I typically smoke Squadron Leader as an all- day smoke and keep my Penzance for special occasions and moments when I feel that I deserve a special treat.

I have found two bits of information helpful when it comes to Penzance that will aid you in your smoking bliss. 1. It seems that tinned Penzance smokes and tastes better than the larger bags. 2. It is too moist when first opened. Allow it to dry to your liking prior to your planned time for smoking.

There is a reason that people buy it out as soon as a shop gets any on its shelves. There is a reason that it has been talked about so much for so long. Simply put, it is the best smoke on the market.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	PipeLover (16)	2012-07-21		Medium	Medium	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Been smoking pipes for about 2 years. Never smoked before that. And since about 2 years ago I've been wanting to try this, but was not able to get any. So finally I got a tin last month.

Opened the tin, took some out and let it dry for about 30 minutes before smoking it. Tin aroma is latakia, like any other, great but nothing special.

Packed the bowl and lit up... BAMMMM! The best latakia blend I have ever smoked in my pipe career, so far. And I have smoked all the highest reviewed lat blends. Not the heavenly experience I was expecting, but VERY VERY GOOD.

No too strong, not too weak, just right for me. Bowl aroma is that of a freshly baked cake. Room not is pleasant to me. Taste is just right, with no lat smoked ham aftertaste. Burns well, with few relights. The tobacco texture in the tin is unlike any I have encountered before. Black flakes, that are quite brittle.

If you can get some, DO IT. I love Penzance. Sadly can not be a daily smoke because of its hard to find status.

Update: I was able to find a pound recently. Happy camper! : )

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jallen49 (25)	2012-02-11		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

So far I've gone through about 2 to 3 oz of this stuff.

Smoke notes... Oily, bitter-sweet, rich, creamy, peaty, and nutty (sometimes). Base switches from lat to or/va. Matured Latakia, which is darker, slightly less sweet and peaty.

Don't smoke too fast... Taste will turn to a burnt taste. Don't smoke too slow. Light streams of smoke will not produce adequate taste.

Most of the sweetness comes from an undivided note from the mix of virginias and orientals.

Cannot pick out the virginias by themselves. Very rich, thick tasting. Not heavy strength. Taste remains fairly consistent. Highly recommended.

Drink pairing... Unfiltered dark coffee. Peaty blended or single malt with little to no water.

There really isn't anything bad to say about. If you're an English man, this is a MUST.

Update -- 9/12/15

I wrote this review about 3 years ago, and I'm finishing off the same 8oz bulk package I bought 3 years ago (been hoarding and only smoking on those rarest of occasions), and I gotta say, if I had to choose one latakia blend to smoke for the rest of my life: Penzance hands down. There's something magical about this blend. I know I'm only adding fuel to the fire here, as this stuff is near impossible to get a hold of.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-11-01		Medium to Strong	Extremely Mild	Full	Tolerable to Strong

07.30 am on a weekly day. Beepbeepbeep I awake startled, set off the alarm and smack a few times with my mouth. Jeepers! What a flavor, what did I do yesterday? My sleepy brain sits down to work. What did I ate last night.. Noodles with chicken. No it's not that. What have I been drinking? Water from the tap, it's not that. Did I do certain things with my girlfriend? Nope, she's not here on weekly days. Oh wait! I remember! Yesterday I smoked Esoterica Tobacciana Penzance! The tobacco that you enjoy extra long no matter what you eat and how well you brush your teeth.

Package: The by JF Germain and Son on the British Channel Islands made Penzance comes in two packages. 1. A tiny gold tin of 2 oz. with a label that could be printed on a standard house, garden and kitchen printer. 2. An airtight bag in which the loose tobacco occupies 8 oz. Personally, I use a tin which I fill up with Penzance from the bigger bag when it is empty.

Contents/composition: "Finest English mottled flake" says the tin. It is a wonderful complex secret recipe of the finest Virginia, choice Turkish, Orientals and Cyprian Latakia. All hand blended together, hard pressed and broad cut into thick flakes. This is what they call a crumble cake (no not THE Krumble Kake) and it is a rightful name. The tobacco already crumbles when you shout too hard at it: Clan (from Theodorus Niemeyer) is the best tobacco ever!!

Smell from the tin: Wow, uhm .. Fierce, penetrating, leathery, earthy. If you know the smell of a freshly plowed field when it has just rained just know what I mean. Seasoned pipe smokers who can not smoke in the vicinity of their girlfriend / wife, you simply have to smell it to get a kick out of it. I think that when you leave it half open on the ground it would make a fine ant-exterminator.

Roomnote: Too bad the tin is so small. Otherwise they could have added: This tobacco scares away mosquitoes, birds, rats, nagging wives and door-to-door salesmen.

Taste: The first time I lit it, I just thought: Whoa! Greasy smoke and flavor! Latakia! You can say that other tobaccos are coffee but this is espresso. I also tasted an aftertaste that I could not place untill a number of pipes later: salty licorice (a candy in Holland)! Not that that dominates in a nasty way, it actually belongs to the whole experience. The pipe tobacco remains remarkably similar tasting through the bowl with hints of Orientals and Virginia but this is not boring. A class act from the creators! Disadvantage, oh well, disadvantage, depending on how you look at it, the taste lingers in your mouth for a loooong time. As described above, you have fun of it the next morning and afternoon. Avoid actions and intimate conversations with family and colleagues.

Combustibility: The flakes are very moist / oily. It is recommended that you let them dry out a while before smoking. The flakes from the large 8 oz. bag are even more wet / oily. Once you've lit the pipe they burn a looooong time. I lit a pipe at the beginning of a soccer match. At the end of the match I was not through yet..

Varia: The tobacco crumbles easy so filling the pipe is even for folks who are not used to flakes not too difficult. If the pipe is filled you need to gently treat the tobacco and when smoking don't tamp too hard. If you are too heavy handed with the tobacco, you get a wet lump at the bottom of the bowl. Talking about the bowl, I discovered that this tobacco tasted the best in a somewhat larger, relatively shallow bowl. In a Peterson 317 the tobacco tasted the most intense. In a slightly larger Peterson 303 it was a little more mellow. I liked Penzance best in a Prince model pipe. That is when you give the tobacco the opportunity to really shine. As for the vitamin N, I found this tobacco to be spot on. It makes me nice and relaxed but without any side effects.

Price: Penzance is very difficult to obtain, and that is going on for years now. Occasionally a small shipment is sold in a (online) tobacco shop but when the great crowd of Penzance enthusiasts discovers that, it is sold out in no time. If you have the luck to be there on time than you pay for a tin ± $ 10.79 and a bag ± $ 28.95. Of course you can often buy Penzance on ebay, but those prices.. pheww And as it takes longer for a new shipment to arrive, the prices only get higher..

Conclusion: Because of the scarcity of the tobacco people begin to make comparisons with Balkan Sobranie and Bengal Slices. There is great fear that Penzance also disappears (Ok, Balkan Sobranie is back now..). Although that is not true and there is no evidence for it. The thing is that there are so many fans that JF Germain and Son can not keep up with the production. But the equations and large fan base do point out one thing: this is a good tobacco! The first times with a too small, narrow bowl I liked moderately. In a somewhat larger, relatively shallow bowl I was heading towards the same heaven as when I smoke Balkan Sobranie. This is good stuff of great quality! Not for everyday use, but if you're sitting on your own in the evening in your living room or porch without having to do anything, Penzance is your best friend.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Darth Vader (110)	2011-10-28		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Penzance is this finest English style tobacco i have ever tasted and it's easy to see why so many people rave about this stuff. There's certainly Latakia in this but i wouldnt call it a lat bomb. Way to well balanced for that. On lighting, the Lat is up front, but within just a few puffs the slightly sweet orientals come racing up to save the day and the ever present but not forward Va supports it all. Spades of complexity and tangy hues due to the tobacco conditioning process.

Some may note that it has mold or has an iodine taste/smell (its ammonia actually) but its this special aging and conditioning that sets it apart from other English's. If you dont get into delicacies and think they are a waste of money then this tobacco is probably not for you. For the more adventurous soul's.... nirvana awaits.

Update. To be more specific regarding the iodine smell. It is an ammonia byproduct of the mold process. Different molds will smell slightly different but it is ammonia being released, which in this case smells rather like good old fashioned, scrape your knee, iodine (as othere have noted).

Whether the molding is deliberate or up to sloppy climate control i do not know (i'm guessing the former). Love it or hate it, it sure gets some interest.

In testament that this blend is unusual and can take some getting used to and that perseverance reaps rewards. I'm so glad that Mr Big (below) now likes this blend. When others share your passions it doubles your pleasure. A true gentleman.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Milan (1)	2011-10-19		Medium	Extremely Mild	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Penzance has been a hard to come by blend here in the U.S. most of 2011. I recently found tins available at a very affordable price. So finally... I have tried the legendary blend.

Upon first smoke I believed the blend to be hype, but a number of bowls later came to understand why this blend has become so popular with so many pipe smokers. This truly is a complex blend.

I carefully tried to maintain the flake when pulling it from the tin, folded it twice and stuffed it into a bent brandy egg. I went back to the tin for a half flake, repeated, and finished with a sprinkle of shake to top the bowl off. The tobacco smells slightly smokey, is moist, and wants to crumble naturally.

The initial light brought an immediate leathery earth, semi-sweet, and smokey flavor to the palate. It was an easy light and stayed lit following the initial tamp. The depth of earthy flavors faded and were exchanged for flavors of nut and chocolate. This surprised me for the blend does not knowingly have burley present. The flavors melded and were constantly held by a subtle presence of latakia throughout.

A relight was in order about half way down the bowl at which time the flavors began to take on a very forward floral undertone, both in taste and in scent. The chocolate, nut, earth, and smokey flavors carried through until the final relight. The turkish became heady and ever present prior to the last relight.

The main flavor present following the final relight was caramel. It remained until the end of the bowl and was accompanied by a wisp of leather and earth while holding on to the ever subtle presence of latakia.

One of the most complex blends I have smoked to date. I would recommend it to any pipe smoker looking for a thought provoking experience that will leave you wanting more.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Cochon74 (29)	2011-04-12		Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

I've been hearing about Penzance as long as I've been smoking a pipe - which is not very long... but long enough to hear how great it is. When I saw a couple of tins on the shelf of my local tobacconist, I grabbed them without thinking.

I am thoroughly impressed with this blend. It is a great balance of latakia and Orientals with just enough Virginia for my taste... little whiffs of sweetness that punctuate the pungent smoke and spice. Easily one of the finest tobaccoes I've smoked.

This is my first experience with a "krumble kake" but I found it very easy to load and light. I didn't rub it out too much, basically letting my light tamping break up the flakes, and got a long cool smoke.

It is a shame that this stuff is so scarce... I could easily make it my "regular" smoke. Would life go on without it? Absolutely, but it sure does make smoking that much more enjoyable.

It's like Zeppelin. It's like Guinness. It's like a Mediterranean sunset. Nothing difficult to understand or appreciate, but a perfect expression of what it is

SOLID QUALITY STUFF. 4 stars.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	quantumboy (130)	2009-02-07		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Difficult to add much to what's already been said, except that I find this excellent tobacco to provide two smokes for the price of one. Try this experiment: during the first two-thirds of the bowl puff gently like you would with any quality Virginia and you're rewarded with a very high quality VA sweetness. Then amp it up and get some clouds forming and the VA sweet gives way to delicious Latakia and Oriental complexity that expertly blends all the flavors together into a unique, delicious, relaxing experience.

As the bowl progresses, it gets richer, toastier and stronger. I have to slow down a bit near the end to keep it cool and to keep the flavors balanced. I get a tiny bit of gurgle but that's inconsequential to me because the reward is a powerful, creamy, and memorable grand finale.

I call this a complex smoke, I call it wonderful, I ordered a bunch in bulk for aging, and I can't wait to try some after it's been resting a year or two. I can't imagine that it can get better than it is, but other reviewers assure me it will!

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Oldguy (9)	2007-12-04		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

This is my first review in this forum, tho I have been visiting here for a couple of years now. I have vastly enriched my smoking pleasure from the reviews I've read here. I am a huge fan of Balkan and English blends in particular, and have a few pipes dedicated to them. Acting on tips in this forum, I immediately transferred the contents of my new tin to a tightly sealed jar to keep it from drying out. I have smoked this weed in several of my pipes now, and in 43 years I have never found a tobacco that varied so much in taste and smoking pleasure from one pipe to another! Has anyone else experienced this with Penzance? "When she was good, she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid". I have found a couple of pipes that give me sublime pleasure from this tobacco, and will stick to them from now on. I actually dumped out half a pipeful from one of my favorite meerschaums, a 43-year old dublin which has experience with all kinds of tobaccos, but it couldn't give me any pleasure from Penzance. But it can be wonderfully satisfying in the right circumstances. I roll it out fairly fine, and pack it so there is just the slightest resistance to the draw. It then burns evenly and completely to a fine ash, often without any relight. In short, I heartily recommend Penzance. Just don't give up if the first pipeful puts you off -- try a different pipe until you hit the magic button.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Beer (345)	2004-08-31		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

A nice latakia-dark pressed and sliced typical English tobacco. Anyway, let me disagree with the raving reviews here. It IS a very good and pleasant tobacco: it has a nice, clean, licorice-like taste. It crumbles great, burns cool and even, and leaves an incredibly white and pure ash. Nothing really to complain about: my rating of "Might try it again but won't keep it on hand" comes just from a simple reason... There are not many alternatives if you want a Latakia-laden pressed blend, the main ones being Old Ironsides and Pirate Kake. Well, I think that these two are vastly superior. Not because Penzance tastes badly (no real bad notes in it!), but because in comparison it is a bit empty, not as mouth-filling. Old Ironsides is a monster of strength and taste, and Pirate Kake is very thick and full thanks to the burley. So, if you want a lighter pressed Latakia blend, Penzance is great: to me, it is good, but won't fall in my "best of" category.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Albion1956 (42)	2002-09-26		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Not to belabor this tobacco's properties, I,like others, have been looking about for a Krumble Kake, since the demise of Bengal Slices. Yes there is another, which I won't mention here, however, that is a bit dry for my taste. Dry, would not be the packaging description of this tobacco, like others from the Channel Islands, Jersey in fact, it comes a bit moist, so some air would help in the lighting process, not to mention the wet/hot smoke one may encounter. As the description reads, a typical English on the surface as far as the contents are concern, but like most tobaccos, the secret is in the blending. A full smoke, that will satisfy all who enjoy Latakia, with just the perfect accompaniment of Virginia's, Orientals, and Turkish. There are, but a few, that go to the top shelf, and this is certainly one. One word of caution however, unless your familiar with a Krumble Kake type of tobacco, take heed as to the method of loading your bowl, simular to DBE, in that the bowl can be over packed! In conclusion, a great tobacco, that will only get better with aging. Stock up! Cheers, Larry

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-04-19		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Very Full	Strong

I believe that this is my favorite full English blend from Esoterica. The burning properties are excellent and the flavor is better than either Margate or And So to Bed; if those two were standard lagers, this one would be Guinness Stout. As a deep, relaxing blend after a big meal, it has few equals; it's especially good in a very large pipe. The smell in the bag is strong Latakia, a musty, rich smell obvious even through a sealed bag. The sample came as mostly crumbled cake, broken into many different fragment sizes, and the moisture level was rather low. It packs easily and lights quickly, burning through a bowl with a below-average number of relights required. In the first third of the bowl, the taste is that of strong, rich, and very full Latakia. This is obviously a strong English blend, and the deep, leathery flavor reflects that. On first light and subsequent relights, there is also a sourish background note whose origin I can't quite place. The smoke is not overly smooth, but it certainly isn't harsh or biting. Moving into the second third, the taste is becoming even darker, maturing into a remarkably full and satisfying flavor. There is good complexity present as well, several layers of flavor being noticeable under the dense Latakia richness. There is a bit of a moisture problem at this point, but it is quickly taken care of with a single pipe cleaner. In the final third, the flavor remains dark and full. I believe that this is what Webster had in mind when he defined the word "rich"; it is truly a satisfying smoke. The sourness upon relighting has mostly faded, and the Latakia mingles well with the lesser tobaccos also present. There were no more moisture problems after mid-bowl, and no bite at any time. Overall, this is one of the few English blends I would call truly outstanding. It is full and rich enough to satisfy just about any English blend smoker, and the burning properties are excellent. The Latakia flavor is almost overwhelming, but in a good way! I strongly recommend this tobacco to anyone looking for that dark, complex after dinner blend. I already have more of it on order!

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-02-27		Strong	None Detected	Extra Full	Very Strong

How did I get through twenty five some odd years of not trying Penzance? I know, smartass, it hasn't been around for twenty five years, it was rhetorical, sheesh! I've got plenty of Latakia blends laying around, some pretty good, some, like G.L.Pease's Renaissance, so good that Beelzebub himself must have been involved. I need another Latakia blend like I need more scalp line..... But a pal (Michael Peebles) sent me some, and "what the Hell".... Packaging: Small Tin suggesting, if nothing else, that something "precious" was inside. Appearance and Aroma: Nice oil pooled on the paper in which the weed was stored. Pretty, well made strips that rubbed out astonishingly easily. Aroma was typical Latakia/ English with maybe a hint of earthiness. Test Drive: When fire hit weed, it was apparent that Penzance was indeed a well made English. Well made, but I wouldn't displace any of My Pease English for it. As I smoked it, however, like most good English, it developed, and HOW it developed. Like most of you I've had it up to here (insert hand held high) with lame music analogies with regard to tobacco. Sometimes, it's all a poor writer with no imagination has to explain critical differences. Since I fit the above description, screw it, I'll use one. If my "Grail", Renaissance, is a lavish symphony, with many diverse elements pulling together to create a memorable piece of art. Penzance is the opening of Beethoven's Ninth, fourth movement, Vocal leads. With a Tenor, Baritone, Soprano, and Contralto forming simple and yet heavenly sounds that somehow both soothe and excite at the same time. For those of you living in Gila Bend. Penzance is not as complex as some, but decidedly forthright, honest and delicious on it's own terms. Indeed, I think any tinkering to add extra contrived nuance would diminish it. Conclusion: Penzance, indeed richly deserves a place in the Pantheon of fine English Blends 8 out of 10 Bear Claws.

Bear

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mijnnif (130)	2022-12-29		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

Bag note is musty Laticia a bit sweet and sour. More of a crumble flake than others mine was 5 years aged. Packs easily. The Latakia is defiantly forward but its smoother than any other Laticia blend I have ever tried. This might be partially due to my bag being 5 years old (not sure). The Virginias/Orientals and Turkish's are all almost even with the Latakia. This is by far one of the best Laticia blends I have ever had. Creamy smooth just a bit of natural sweetness. All tobacco flavors at their finest. Super consistent all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Nic hit is just a bit below medium but the flavor is full. Burns quite cool and stays lit, no bite at all. 4 solid stars. If you like Balkan blends this is it.

Pipe Used: large Morta long stem

Age When Smoked: 5 years

Purchased From: friend

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	FilipPruncu (89)	2021-06-25		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

The Holy Grail of English Blends, the Quintessence of Latakia, the Uncrowned King of Pipe Tobacco... Is it? Truly?? Lets see!

After the crazy hunt and spending of a good amount of money, I managed to get my hands on a tin of Penzance which, according to the code on it (860C042) is from 2nd of April 2018, today being 25th of June 2021.

So, it is important to remember and take into consideration the age of this tin, because time does change the tobacco, more or less.

Alright, so first things first, lets talk about the tin note. When my package arrived, it was put in a cardboard box, and the tin itself was wrapped in a plastic wrap. Even so, when I opened the cardboard, I could smell the latakia with the tin sealed and wrapped in plastic wrap. That would give you quite an impression, huh? At first, I was worried it was no longer vacuum sealed, but when I got home I opened it and it hissed, so it was all safe.

After removing the lid, a scent of smoky, incense, woody, earth, leathery and a bit of fermented tobacco hit me. I was quite pronounced and still is.

The tobacco was and still is very, very moist, even after all this time. Presents itself as jet black with just a few dark brown leaves. To say it’s a flake it’s an overstatement. Even if it looks like flakes, the tobacco is so moist and sticky that it will crumble fast. So I’d call this a “crumble flake”, not a flake.

And the problem with the moisture is very important with this blend, even crucial. It is important that you dry it enough, because it burns very, very bad.

First smoke had no taste, and was too moist. After about 5 relights, I was able to keep it lit and delivered a cool smoke, very smooth, with smoky notes, leather and some wood. As I smoked, the orientals started to appear with some spice but just a bit, completing the taste. The latakia and the oriental are wel balanced, sometimes giving the impression that there’s some black cavendish in there, but it’s not, it’s the creamy latakia. Creamy but also smoky, unlike Margate, which is creamy and sweet. It is indeed smooth, but I find Margate smoother and more complex. It’s more similar to Dunhill’s London Mixture or Standard Mixture than it is to Margate, however I find London Mixture much better than Penzance, since it’s more full bodied.

I’ve seen someone talking about a process of fermentation which would give this blend it’s “spark” and I believe it to be true. It does have a fermented taste, only a bit sour. This is a blend that needs attention, it’s not one that is straight in your face. It’s not very complex, since it doesn’t change its taste much during the smoke, but the flavors it delivers are top quality. The only thing that changes is that sometimes it turns sour, other times a bit sweeter, yet keeps the leathery and smoky profile.

There’s incence, creaminess, leather, just a bit of spice. Very well balanced, but not full bodided. I’d say medium, probably because it is aged. Strenght is mild to medium. As I said, it’s a blend that requires some attention in order to find true enjoyment. As I stated, a real problem is with the moisture. I’ve tried this blend in different pipes, with and without filter, straight out of the tin or very dry, packed loose or tight. After all these, I’d recommend to smoke it dry (as dry as you can) with filter and packed medium (not loose nor tight). As odd as it sounds, I prefer using a filter at this one. It gives it a dryer and fuller smoker. I used ceramic and meerschaum filters (no basma filters yet) and the meer filters apparently are best. It lights up quite difficult, and doesn’t burn well.. It requires lots of relights but it will always deliver a cool smoke. However, it is good that you need to relight it, and I actually encourage you to light it, smoke a few times, and then leave it in the pipe for about 5-10-15 minutes. After you relight it, you will get a note higher in taste, and with every relight it gets better, smokier, fuller.

It has a easy but pleasant aftertaste, but it doesn’t last long. Room note is that of incense latakia, but not very powerful.

In conclusion: A good to almost very good blend, but it’s definitely not the greatest of english or balkan blends. If you happen to find it at a decent price, take it, but don’t throw lots of money on a tin on the estate market. It’s a lot of fuss around it probably because it is so scarce, but don’t think that if you manage to smoke it you’ll have an orgasm or reach Heaven. I believe that this should be made more available, so that more people can enjoy it and demystify all that is around this blend.

A good tobacco, definitely top quality, but not ambrosia (food of the gods).

Age When Smoked: 3 years

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	boc777 (39)	2020-10-09		Medium to Strong	Mild to Medium	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I was recently very lucky to bumble into my local B&M and grab an 8 oz bag of this illustrious blend. After more than 20 years, I finally was able to get my hands on the holy grail. I am not disappointed. It truly lives up to the hype. The presentation of the tobacco is second to none. Its a dark rich, stringy crumbly somewhat moist baccy with an incredible aroma. Its steeped in fig and plum with an indescribable topping. I am in the camp that Esoterica has a special and proprietary topping. The aroma that I get from Penzance as well as several of their other blends (yes I am lucky to have put my hand on about six of their blends) is something truly special. The smoke is creamy, thick and smooth. Its like nothing I have found in any other products. The room note, I believe is divine. Some may take exception, but I find it to be exceptional. I have not been corrupted by the cost and the scarcity of the blend, this is as unbiased of a review as I can muster. This is a truly superb smoke, and there is nothing else that I can find that comes close. As heretical as this might sound I do not think Penzance is the best Estoterica blend. I am having a hard time deciding which is their best offering. This review is for Penzance, but I cannot understate how good Pembroke, And so to Bed, Margate, Dorchester ect. are are incredible blends. I will be updating this review as I explore this blend and this line up in several different pipes. All I can say in summary is that this is a truly unique and exceptional smoke and I was fully ready to be disappointed and willing to say that this was an over hyped product. It is not. It is special, delicious, and worth every penny.

Pipe Used: Large billiards

Age When Smoked: new

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pipe Wizard (18)	2019-02-20		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Ah the legend that is Penzance... A blend more mysterious than a black hole. More elusive than the end of a rainbow. But is it worthy of the hype? In a word: yes. Penzance is an exceptionally good blend! I was gifted a sample back in 2013 and it took me the next 5 years to acquire more of it and I have to say it was worth the wait! This is a truly magnificent tobacco. Not what I would consider an 'all day' smoke. Penzance is better suited to those special occasions when you have time to contemplate and really enjoy a pipe. The orientals are the star of the show. The Virginia and Latakia work in harmony to create a wonderful creamy sweetness that is the canvas for this incredible blend. Highly recommended if you can get your hands on it.

Pipe Used: Savinelli Ginger's Favorite & Balkovec ROF

Age When Smoked: Fresh, 2 years & 5 years.

Purchased From: SmokingPipes.com

Similar Blends: Brebbia - Latakia Flake Mixture No. 9.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DenizBeck (323)	2018-04-04		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

This mystified blend is not only virtually, but practically never available here in Germany... and even when it's available in the US, it's faster sold-out than you can say "YUMMY"... so I was very excited when a fellow pipe-friend passed me a generous sample for about 5-6 bowls worth of this glorified gem. Up to date I loved anything that Germain's had manufactured and Penzance isn't an exception to this.

I received my sample as cube-cutted-ish, so I can't comment on the flakes, but the unburnt aroma is delicious! Very etheral, with the Orientals in the forefront, closely followed by the, meaty, peaty and smoky Latakia scent. The absence of sweetness in the scent was promising to me.

When you light it up you instantly notice the creamy, slightly sweet and richly smoky Latakias, which also sport a fair amount of earthiness. They are the base on which the dominating and full-bodied aroma of some very fine Orientals can shine. Very etheral, woodsy, slightly sour with some hint of floral notes to it. The Orientals really have some sweet depth to 'em and shine on the foundation of the smooth Latakia and rather mild presence of sweet Virginias.

The Orientals are the stars, and are very pleasing to my palate, definetly the most complex and rich Orientals I got to enjoy so far - love 'em and would love to now which varietal(s) were used, yet I suspect a mild casing/topping being present. Something Lakeland-ish.. The Latakia, albeit not dominating is very rich in flavors as well. Excellent blend that I'm excited to get a tin (or two...or thousands...) of someday! Really the only downside with this is that it's practically never available... what's the thing with Germain's blend being nearly never in-stock anywhere?! But this is about the tobacco, not politics, so 4-stars and favorited!

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pryhosm (248)	2018-03-21		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

UPDATE Nov. 2021. Not much to add to the review, a one of a kind classic. My update to the review is more commentary on what I have read online and even in some of the reviews here. This blend seems to have turned into a "class warfare" type of blend. Much of the talk online and in some reviews here point to the aftermarket price and the many positive reviews this blend has received for all the right reasons. It is not limited to this blend online, it is also any classic pipe makers like Dunhill, Castello or Ser Jacapo, It seems that there is a desire to put down things that are either scarce or valued by some that drive up the price. As if the price of the pipe or the tobacco has any bearing on the quality. Dunhill make great pipes and Germain makes great tobacco. The market drives the price and not all of us can afford things that drive up the price. Disclaimer: I have bought all of my Penzance at a mom and pop shop and paid no more than retail for a bag or tin. This is a top quality tobacco and is among the best in the genre. Nothing can or should detract from that. Is it "worth it" ? Well that is an individual call. No matter what you pay for it it is a great blend by any measure and should be recognized as such.

This will be a short review...much has been written and not much to add. This is a masterpiece in pipe tobacco. From the presentation to the process this is everything pipe tobacco should be from one of the best blending houses in the business. Tin note is Oriental forward, woody spicy with Latakia bringing up the rear but present in the nose. Smokey and sweet. The Virginia's are first class and the sweetness is also there in the tin note. This is one of those tobacco's that you just open the jar for a whiff even when you don't want to smoke it. It ages beautifully with sugar forming on the flakes getting whiter with every 3 months of age on it The smoke is sweet and woody, subtly spicy and creamy. It is complex and reveals different subtleties with every bowl you smoke. Put this in a meer and you get one wonderful experience, in your favorite briar you get another. I prefer briar pipes as it seems to have more nutty flavors in the briar. Sweeter in cob. I do not know what Germain does to process their Virginia's and Latakia (yes their Latakia as a sweeter more complex character than any other I have tasted). This was a blend I hoped was all hype, as it is hart to come by but it is as good as they say, perhaps better. I like this dried out for at least an hour but your mileage may vary... as they say. Fantastic stuff.

Pipe Used: briar's, cob's and meerschaum

Age When Smoked: 1 year +

Purchased From: B&M

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	The Sunday Evening Pipe Smoker (54)	2017-09-23		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

So I was finally given a chance to try the blend that seems to be the most legendary of any.

My assessment?

It tastes exactly like Seattle Pipe Club's Plum Pudding. In fact, so similar, I actually had to double check that I hadn't accidentally misread the labelling on the bag of it I was given. I hadn't.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice blend with a touch of that incense like flavour that is to typical of many oriental or Scottish blends. I'm also convinced it would age very well.

So, is it a good blend? Sure. Is it worth all the hype around it? Probably not. It's legend status is probably derived by its relative rarity, something we see in all areas of life. It's a kind of collector's mentality where we enjoy the idea of having "rare" things and we over-infate their relative merits accordingly. I think it's also because that's the common script around this blend, so it becomes easy to just join in and be part of "the club" that way.

So my recommendation? Don't stress over finding it. If you do find a tin or two at your local B&M or online, absolutely go ahead and pick it up, probably for aging purposes, but otherwise, try SPC Plum Pudding and if you like it, just order that as your regular staple and enjoy.

The grass isn't always greener and the rare is not always better than what is easy to get.

Similar Blends: Seattle Pipe Club's Plum Pudding.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Stefanos (222)	2017-03-19		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

This is indeed one of the tastiest Latakia blends available! I have my turns with Latakia, during some periods I am not particularly fond of smoking it, and it was at such a time when I first smoked Penzance. My first thought was that if one enjoys Latakia he will really love Penzance and if not, smoking Penzance will make him love …Latakia.

Latakia is undoubtedly the star of Penzance but it does not perform alone. There’s ample earthy Virginia to add flesh while the Turkish tobaccos add to the complexity of the blend and are surely discernible. However calling Penzance an Oriental blend is misleading, it is a Latakia forward English blend. And as such it is quite unique for several reasons. First, Latakia is smoky but exceptionally smooth, then the Virginias are dark, fermented, aged and yeasty. The type of Virginias used produces a flavor profile which is quite different from the archetypal English blends (i.e. Dunhill’s or Squadron Leader). Overall Penzance strikes a nice balance between savoury and sweet flavors. It burns and smokes with ease.

Having said it is a unique blend, I would still like to compare it with two other blends which although dissimilar, share some qualities with it. The First is Skiff Mixture with which I find that it shares the deep smoky but smooth and mellow Latakia flavor, although Penzance is fleshier due to the type of Virginias used. The other is Special Latakia Flake with which I find that it shares the Virginia flavor but while Special Latakia is indeed Oriental (Turkish) forward – this one in my mind is the true Oriental blend- Penzance is more about the Latakia.

Two blends I have smoked that could serve as an alternative to Penzance if none can be found are Old Ironsides and Lancer's Slices - both very good and quite similar to Penzance but Penzance is surely a level above both.

Definitely four stars.

Similar Blends: Old Ironsides, Lancer's Slices.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Rob73 (77)	2016-10-06		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

A rare and rightly celebrated tobacco, Penzance is the result of a wise mixture of abundant Latakia with Balkanic shades. Rich, intense and creamy, this blend is one of my top picks. 5/5 in my personal rating system.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Planet Scott (66)	2016-02-11		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

This is a nice Oriental blend. Full of character and smokey latakia. I do think the hype behind it has made this somewhat over rated......But just barely. The difficulty in obtaining this blend has elevated it to cult status. Again, it is very nice. If you can find it, try it, but please do not over pay. If you never can find it, I promise you have not missed out as there are many other blends equal to this.

3.7 stars

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	wags888 (11)	2015-11-22		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

For me, both a little sweet and oddly salty, with a creamy texture. I like my campfire latakia and Penzance isn't a big campfire bomb, but has enough to keep that toasty woodsy flavor. One of the best tobaccos I've tried in my mere two years of pipe smoking.

Pipe Used: Jason Cochey Devil Anse

Age When Smoked: 1 Year

Purchased From: Cup 'O Joes

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2015-10-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Update - 11 Nov 2015: Meh. A disappointing sequel after a few weeks. The good stuff takes too long to kick in, it's almost insipid. I am not impressed with this tobacco and deem it's not worth chasing it, or paying stupid prices for it. I will stick with Gaslight, the Dunhills and my other classics and will not bother with Penzance no more. Not worth it, chaps. Original review - 21 Oct 2015: Because of its limited availibility, I have chased Penzance for almost 5 years. In the meanwhile, I had chased around for some Wessex's Dark Flake, Hamborger Veermaster and Germain's Balkan Sobranie. Having been disappointed by these, I had decided to stop chasing Penzance, out of concern of ending up also disapointed by it. It's when I stopped chasing it that I was offered an opportunity - ironic, isn't it?- and decided to seize it. Penzance is a very dark Mottled Flake - I suppose it's the British equivalent to Crumble Kake- that is all about the Latakia. From what I can appreciate in the tin, Latakia rules. I cannot say I perceive the Virginias or Oriental because all I can smell is Latakia. The tobacco breaks easily for packing: a finger stirring it suffices in order to gather a pipeful. Very easy and practical, I must say. As the tobacco is very dark, it requires some effort to light properly and des burn slowly. At first, not much happens, as latakia is not a multi-flavour leaf. But progressively, the Latakia starts affirming itself, in a creamy, smoky and just a bit sweet way. I can barely make out, on my tastebuds, the Virginias an Orientals. There are some hay and spicy notes, by very attenuated, just to bring a little extra to the Latakia. As the pipeful progresses, the Latakia makes itself richer and richer while keeping its creaminess, smokiness and slight sweetness; and the Virginias and Oriental affirm themselves a bit more. At mid-point and until the end, Penzance is a very smooth but still stout smoke that is medium in strength in the nicotine department. Germain's latakia, like their Oriental (I'm thinking about their Special Latakia Flake) has a personnality and taste like no other. It is, simply put, sublime, and is what makes Penzance unique. I am extremely glad, for a change, to have been able to get one of the most seeked after tobaccos on the market. I will not start chasing after it again, but, if given the opportunity to get more, I shall not hesitate and will purchase more. Penzance is a great Latakia, distinctive and comparable to no other. It's akin to Special Latakia Flake, but with a greater latakia presence.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SpeedyPete (29)	2014-11-24		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

This is the king of all latakia blends! Sweet, smooth, soft on the tongue. It is so full of flavour that it demands your attention all the time. Nuances change and change again as you progress down the bowl. This is such a well balanced tobacco that none of the ingredients pushes itself to the front. It's a melody of flavours pouring out.

Pipe Used: GBD and Davidoff

Age When Smoked: 2 years

Purchased From: 4noggins

Similar Blends: Unique.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BTGreenwald (13)	2014-04-24		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

It is good... a panacea for tobacco hunger. The essential oils that give the blend its sheen will dry fast. Try to avoid keeping that tin or bag open for too long. I suspect that much of the velvety, almost oily mouth feel is due to the very oily composition of the blend.

Pipe Used: PETERSON XL SHERLOCK

Age When Smoked: 1 year cellared

Purchased From: Briar Shop, Houston

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-02-15		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

This wonderful crumble cake typically comes moist. This is just fine with me since drying is not a problem and overly wet is better than overly dry. With that said, I have found that many, including myself, enjoy English blends on the dryer side, so after letting this dry for about 8 hours it loaded very easily, lit well and smoked superbly. I very much enjoyed the moderate to heavy volume of cool smoke and the taste/aroma was wonderful. The blended components joined very well with each other and this is and has been my favorite blend for some time. Though it is hard to find sometimes, I am fortunate that I know of a local B&M which often has the 8oz bags in stock. The little 2oz tins are great too for holding a few bowls worth to carry around on oneself, though they seem considerably harder to find. Highly Recommended.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	halpuff (11)	2012-11-26		Strong	None Detected	Extra Full	Tolerable

Being fairly new to the English blends I found myself falling in love with Latakia and have found a few blends containing it that I really enjoy. However, with the idea that more is better I began my quest for what many believe to be the epitome of the Latakia blends and was quickly directed toward Penzance being described by many as the graile of Latakia.

Quickly discovering that there was none to be purchased, I began my search for a sample or partial tin that an owner might be willing to trade and was lucky enough to acquire a good amount by networking through many people.

After acquiring some Penzance, then came the wait...the anticipation...the wonderment of what I was about to experience. And finally it began to arrive.

Upon opening a tin I was greeted with the visual and aroma of a mysterious and exotic experience that surrounds this highly cherished and coveted prize. Delicatly thin slices neatly stacked on edge and tightly compact with an addition of fine crumbs piled on top before the closing of the lid. The tin aroma was undescribably pleasant. The tobacco, mostly dark, speckled and rich.

So delicate, it was impossible to remove a single flake without it breaking apart so I simply began removing crumbled sections of several flakes from one end of the tin and spread the the array of various pieces out on paper to dry overnight.

Next morning, I found my favorite bench in the park on a gorgeous Saturday fall morning. No wind at all made it perfect for my rendevous with Penzance.

That day, over the course of three hours in the park I had two bowls of Penzance spaced apart by an hour or so and in two different pipes and concluded the following:

First bowl was in a medium size GBD Billiard that has always been my dedicated English tobacco pipe. The second bowl was in my fairly large three quarter bent. I gravity fed larger chunks first and then topped these off with finer crumbs with one very light tamp. I found that drying the tobacco out overnight helped in the lighting and it only took two matches to start and keep the bowl going along with periodic and butterfly soft tamps which only required one additional relight to take it to the bottom of the bowl. I found this to be the case with both pipes.

I finally concluded at the end of my day with Penzance that there is truth to the saying that more is not necessarilly better. I believe that Penzance will one day be for me as it is with many of the conniseurs of the pipe. However, for me right now I found that my tolerance for Latakia is much lower than I had thought it to be. Even though I sipped slowly this tobacco experience, I found Penzance to still be too much on the strong side for my liking. So strong in fact that I had difficulty concentrating on discovering any of the other nuances or complexities of the blend. I felt the Latakia over powered these other qualities.

I do not plan on giving up on Penzance and perhaps it will one day be as exciting to me as it is to many others and I will in time and with experience understand why.

I still however very much recommend this blend.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-04-14		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

When I first tried this one, it was far far too much for me. My wife told me that I smelled like I had just lit, and smoked, 100 cigarettes at once. I didn't like it very much, then, due to the fact that my few encounters with tobacco had been of the Walgreens variety...I'll say no more on that. To me, at the time, it tasted like smoke...just smoke with a smoky aroma.

I started to "get" it around the last two bowlfuls of that tin...and I missed it. How I missed it.

A few years down the road, and a more than a few tins of different tobaccos later, I encountered a local shop that regularly stocked Penzance. Having tried more than a few different tobaccos since, and knowing how rare it was to find Penzance, I decided to pick up a tin.

A few months later I smoked it. I tasted a wonderful blend! I could detect all the flavors. ALL THE FLAVORS! I lack some of the vocabulary necessary to properly describe it, not because I'm that enamored with this tobacco (which I am) but because I simply am unable to make the words happen...it tastes earthy compared to some other similar blends that I have tried. A balanced earthy, SOMETIMES suprisingly sweet, solid balkan. I almost feel that the word "solid" does this blend the most justice.

This is indeed one of the best tobaccos I have smoked to date. If it ever runs out, I will miss it sorely but I will probably move on. I do recommend this to every pipe-smoker to try at least once...the whole tin. And then every pipe-smoker should go out and find some more, because it really is that good.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-03-29		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

I was pleasantly surprised when I happened upon this blend at a tobacconist, since a tin of Penzance is about as common as a solar eclipse these days due to huge demand, astronomical hype and hoarding. The end result of this for someone who has never tried it before is they are either disappointed, never meet your heroes, or they jump on the Penzance is the epitome of tobacco bandwagon.

I was expecting some paradigm altering tobacco, an end all be all, everything pipe smoking can and should be. When something is built up to be this great you can only be let down.

Needless to say a zenith of perfection is not what I found, what I did find was balance, a balance of flavor between sweetness, smoke, and spice.

I think this balance in different tastes is what a good deal of these blends are about, and in that regard I get it. I don't think it lives up to all the hype that surrounds it but it is definitely a very good tobacco, try it if you enjoy English blends and when you first light up, pretend it is just another tobacco, not some holy grail of smoking and you won't be disappointed.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Capt (339)	2011-08-12		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

The less available this becomes, the more people are going to seek it. Kinda like the forbidden-fruit.

I like this blend. As a matter of fact, if my fellow pipers stay on the ball, you can find this if you get on certain etailers email list. That is how I came upon a pound of this. But do not hesitate, because once they advise this is in stock it goes in a matter of minutes.

I really cannot add to the hundreds of reviews here, but this is a solid, complex blend that delivers the perfect strength and balance of what a great Enlish flake should. Only thing that I do not like about this flake is how small the pieces of tobacco are cut. Almost impossible not to suck up pieces upon light up.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BrSpiritus (18)	2009-07-31		Mild	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Added 12/15/09: Another star to 4. Opened my second tin after it had been napping for a year and the smell was amazing with a definate scent of lemongrass. Upon smoking the lemongrass comes through, must be that wonderful oriental tobacco. Moisture was perfect on opening. This has become an everyday smoke for me still dedicated to my brigham pipe.

Added 8/3/09: I'm bumping this one up a star, sometimes its the pipe that makes the difference. I had been smoking this in a Peterson Aran Bent Apple with the P-Lip system (of which I am not a fan). Switched up to a Brigham Poker and wow what a difference! All the flavours now hit me in the right place and I can slowly puff on a bowl of this for an hour and not get bored. I guess I'm still learning the ins and outs of pipe smoking.

Original Review: I decided to try this one out because of the almost universal praise in the reviews here. I must say I was dissapointed. Not that it's a bad tobacco, but first foray into English balkan blends was Squadron Leader and I am quite taken by that tobacco.

My tin of Penzance arrived unbearably wet, like it was salvaged from the Titanic. I dried it for 3 days in my cigar box and it was closer to smokable. Tin aroma is predominantly Latakia with an oriental undertone. Lighting takes 3-4 matches before I can get a good burn, and I have frequent relights because I try not to overpuff this tobacco. It really needs to be sipped to bring out the flavour nuances. The taste is light to medium... a bit to light for my enjoyment. I really wanted to enjoy this tobacco as much a SL but the flavour just never really developed for me. Penzance has a place in my cellar but as a diversion not one for my daily rotation.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	beaupipe (102)	2008-11-23		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I held off trying this for so long because, well, she's been around with an awful lot of other boyz and girlz. They talk about how cool she is, how nice she smells, how you just fold her up and stick it in, how she takes to the load like a champ, how when you suck on her, she billows like an old train engine.... You get the picture.

But tonight, swamped under a pile of work so big I can't even dream my way through, I reached to the back of the drawer looking for the drug I needed to help me through. And I found her and rescued her from the darkness. She's tiny for one who's been with so many.

The upshot?

Ladies and Gentlemen...I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Penzance Beaupipe.

Exquisite.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Stacey (40)	2008-01-03		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

Updated 1/2/08 - I've been smoking a tin of this for a couple of weeks now and there is a big difference. The bulk tobacco was a lot drier than the tin. I don't know if this is why the taste was so different but the bulk I would have called an English blend, the tin I would classify as a Balkan since for some reason I could taste the Orientals much more. I've been smoking some Balkan Sobranie in the rotation and I would say that they smoke pretty closely due to this. The tin is a big plus in my opinion. I throw a humidifier in the jar since this tends to dry quickly.

Original Review - Well there isn't much to be said that hasn't been said but I'll still put in my two cents. This is a very easy smoke. I didn't have to dry or otherwise mess with it to get a perfect burn. This smoke is right on the cusp of my taste buds so sometimes I think it's mild and other times I think it has great taste. It seems to be better of late, so either my taste buds have perked up or this is better after sitting a while. I will definitely keep some on hand and will try the tin next time to see if that is better since I got this batch in a foil bag. Still this stuff is excellent!

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2006-07-12		Mild	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

This has become my #1 favorite tobacco. I've never had it around long enough so see if it really loses its flavor over time. The smoke is thick and delicious, and yet this is a tobacco that I could likely smoke all day long. I am seriously contemplating dedicating one of my pipes exclusively to this tobacco, though I'm not well-versed enough in piping to know what this will really accomplish, if it will be a noticeable effect or not.

If you haven't tried this, go out now and do so. May this always be in production. People have said the room note isn't good... I tend to smoke alone and happen to love it. I love everything about this tobacco, the crumble cake it comes in, the smell before and after lighting, the flavor, the strength... amazing.

edit: this is still, by far, my favorite latakia. I don't take to Frog Morton very well after this stuff - it's like its watered-down brother that sort of approaches the wonderful goodness that is Penanze but falls far short.

I'm going to buy a 20oz bag soon-ish and keep it in a Mason jar. I imagine this will help the problem I'm about to describe. In the tin, after two or three weeks, this stuff dries out quite a bit. In my first tin, I didn't like it at all after this, in my second, the dull, musty flavor wasn't as evident but I was able to finish it off and enjoy it as well. But this is a tobacco that shines just after opening... after a week or two it does get a little iffy. This doesn't effect my rating as I don't usually have a tin around long enough to worry about it, or it's relegated to the last two bowls of the tin. I imagine keeping it in a Mason jar will keep it from drying out as quickly.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	tacoeatingzebra (37)	2006-07-10		Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I could eat this stuff. Upon opening the tin, one is greeted with the pungent aroma of wonderfully fragrant latakia. that initial scent reminds me of the more pleasant scents of smoked meat. The crumble cake is a joy to feel in the hand and I tend to load haphazardly into a Peterson Donegal Rocky B10 P-Lip, which I've devoted to Penzance.

The smoke is full bodied and delicious. It's very easy on the palate, always a cool & dry smoke that burns beautifully into a very tidy, fine grey ash. This also seems to lend itself to a smooth break-in of a pipe. Being a member of a very high Episcopal church, the aroma is reminiscent of church incense. Despite it's strong scent, it doesn't seem to linger, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view.

For latakia fanatics, such as myself, this is a fabulous all day smoke too. Aside from the Donegal Rocky, I find that this blend smokes well in pipes generally devoted to Dunhill's Nightcap.

Update 2/16/13: Took an almost five year hiatus from the pipe and have two unopened tins and a mostly full dried out tin that I rehydrated by placing a cap with a dab of Evian in it and then putting the tin in a ziploc bag. Better than I remembered. Spent my sunny Alabama afternoon with an Ashton full of this, a Guinness and Lawrence Durrell's novel Justine. Having been to Amsterdam not too long ago, I fell for Dutch salty licorice and there's a similarity somewhere in Penzance's flavor profile.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Fife&Drum (34)	2006-04-26		Medium	None Detected	Full	Strong

This is the finest Latakia/Balkan style blend in the business with Margate running a very close second. I've discovered that I like Esoterica blends the most. They are extremely consistent in their blending process. Penzance starts out nicely packed in wax paper in thin slices. I love the way the oils soak into the paper and is a joy to bring up to the nose for a long, slow wiff of it's deeply rich, dark and smokey aroma. It crumbles easy into small pieces and packs effortlessly. No need to rub it out much, if at all. I've read of the complaints that this crumbles too small and one ends up drawing in a piece or two. No big smash to me. It's very easy to forget about. It lights easily as it has just the right moisture. At the start it tastes exactly like the tin aroma. Just superb. Rich, slightly sweet. I taste the Virginia elements that bolster the richness of the Balkans and Latakia. It gets a bit more spicy mid bowl, and yet more spicy and richer at the finish. Nice chocolate like hints. Few relights here. Fine powder ash. I find Penzance excels in the colder months and is excellent smoked outdoors, too. It even does well in a clay pipe. It has a comforting room note that's smokey with Latakia, and with a slight sweetness. Just a fantastic smoke I can't get enough of. It tops my list.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Satc001 (67)	2006-04-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

What a smooth latakia mixture! Penzance is without a doubt one of my favorite tobaccos. I love the flakes. They make it easy to load your pipe. Then you light up and wow! A fairly full latakia blend that smokes extremely smooth. I smoked this one all the way down to the ashes. It has a mild bite, but if smoked slowly it is not noticeable. The aroma is intriguing but enjoyable. Probably not for those who are not big fans of English blends. But if you are looking for the smoothest English blend around, buy a tin of Penzance.

UPDATE: I am now into my second tin, and only one word can describe this blend: transcendent. Penzance produces a rich, velvety smoke in large volumes. It is filled with creamy spice and nuances, it cannot be compared. I have performed an exhaustive search to find something even close, I believe it doesn't exist. This is simply the smooth epic English blend that all of us are looking for. It is so good I cannot smoke it everyday, it's like a fine cigar, it requires a special occasion and the right mood.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2005-10-16		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Strong

Cut to the chase - highest recommendation for an oriental/latakia/virginia smoke. If I had to choose a desert island smoke, this would be it. It is the only tobacco that I have pipes (3) dedicated to.

If packed and smoked slowly and carefully, Penzance has a wonderful and subtle complexity of sweet Virginias and orientals that weave in and out with the deep background of the latakia. This is an outstanding contemplative blend. Sweet, smokey, & spicy. Rush your smoking and you are left with merely a wonderful creamy and sweet latakia powerhouse.

This review is based on smoking pounds of this wonderful weed over 8 years. I really enjoy Virginia blends, VA/P blends as well as oriental and latakia blends.

Why another Penzance review? I think I can offer a few suggestions to really enjoying this tobacco. Just because I may be arrogant, doesn't mean that I'm not right (big grin). Also, because it is just that good.

Basically, there are two important factors that make this blend sing for me.

1. Pack it loosely and don't tamp it down much at all. When tamping, do it with a very light hand. I refer the reader to Mephisto's prior recommendations on packing. I still find that breaking it up into crumbles and gravity filling the bowl works best. I've also gently inserted the "slices" into the bowl and twisted lightly, rubbed up the top a bit and smoked.

I also like to let it air out for about 10 minutes max. This slight drying seems to help keep the tobacco from clumping in the bowl and I find I relight less often. Caution: the essential oils seem to evaporate quickly past 10 minutes and such will reduce the flavor.

2. Smoke this like a bitey Virginia, i.e., slowly. Enjoy the sidestream smoke as well. Pay attention to Penzance, and she will reward you with riches.

3. Penzance works best in a dedicated briar pipe of medium or smaller size. Billiards and slightly bent billiard/calabashes seems to work best for me. Pots and shallow bowled pipes don't do as well. Meers work well with it, conforming to these rough dimensions. Penzance, and other latakia or blends with a subtle complexity to them just suck in a corn cob IMO.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BostonPipe (84)	2004-03-30		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

Mesmerizing, Meditative, One of those blends that lets you know "Life" is O.K.

The other reviewers have stated the case for this blend beautifully and succinctly. I prefer to just add that this is one of those blends that confirms why I am a Pipe Smoker.

Wishing All, Happy Smoke Rings :)

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mephisto (32)	2004-01-12		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

One reviewer said dont walk, run to the tobacco store and get some Penzance. Well....I say #@&$ that get in your car get a cab just get there fast! This and Squadron Leader are with out a doubt the Best two Engish blends I have ever had and each in a category of its own within the english. Soft smooth and cool a pensive experience. Simply briliant! ============================================= Ok as an update I have noticed many people have trouble packing and lighting this particular blend and that keeps them from fully enjoying it. First remember each pipe is unique in size and smoking personality. That said I will try to give some tips that work for me with this blend.

1. Try to keep the flakes intact as they crumble easily and will dry out as well as not smoke or keep fire as well.

2. Start by very jently breakig a small quantity suficient to fill about 1/3 of the pipe (big chunks but not just a folded flake.)Level it off but do not pack down just tap it level with care.

3. The flake when rubbed out will occupy greater volume so take a bit less than before and break it up just a little bit more than the first bit. Once again fill and level dont pack down.

4. Now a lesser amount will probably get you to the top of the bowl as you take the final bit and rub it out well. It will be flufy and take to fire quite well. This part fills the rest of the bowl and just tap flat with the top of the bowl.

5. Light and it should puff up over the top of the bowl. Light well and eavenly and pack flat w/ the bowl and relight. A nice slow and long relight getting everything lit and deep should hold you to at least the bottom third of the bowl without a relight.

6. enjoy for an hour or so and then tap flat never pack this stuff and religt for a surprisinly long lasting and slow burning last third with great soft and plentifull smoke.

I hope this helps someone to enjoy this great blend. And remember it can be had in large flat bricklike bulks and if stored in say one of those porcelain seal jars with a latch and rubber gasket it will keep quite well for extended periods of time. As to the potting soil someone made reference to...well I think its earthy tones and feel are part of its charm. I guess there is no accounting for tastes right. Good luck and many relaxing moments w/ Penzance.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	RCUSElder (244)	2003-12-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This unique crumble cake is what I like to take to work with me. The small tin makes it very convenient and is also a good conversation piece. The tobacco itself is very delicious. It is not as spicy or sweet as McClelland's British Woods but is on the good-bitter end of the spectrum. I never found it a "hot" smoke which my tongue appreciates very much. The slices are at the perfect moisture and I usually stuff two and crumble the third before lighting. I rarely have to relight after the initial re-light. Highly recommended... Update: Since I have discovered so many other good blends lately, I have neglected this one for a while. Today I took my trusty tin to work and was reminded of the delicious flavor of this high quality blend. You must really try this one.It is also a good "deal" in spite of the cost per tin, because it smokes slow and usually lasts an hour and a half in my group 6 poker. (2-1/2 slices) Update 12-11-03 I have not been able to locate tins of this blend locally so I broke down and purchased a 8 oz. bulk package. The package is uniquely filled with overwhelming amounts of slices (but they won't last, heh, heh, heh...) About the only difference that I noticed is that in the bulk package the slices are a lot more moist and needed airing out before packing into your pipe. I air out a few slices at a time in order to keep the rest fresh. This is still one of my favorite tobacs. It is highly recommended. Rating 5 out of 5 points. A true Reformer Blend. Enjoy...

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-02-25		Very Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

I'll likely get burned at the stake for ranking this below 4 stars, but I've just never been as impressed with it as popular opinion holds. It's a delicious tobacco, no doubt, and combines pungency with a delicate balance of ingredients for an excellent strong smoke. I do find it to smoke a little hot for me, as well as wet, and this counterbalances my enjoyment of the taste enough to keep me from reaching for it commonly. It's very, very good, but the best of the F&P blends combine equal flavor with superior smoking characteristics, IMO.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	WorkingClassChap (197)	2022-06-22		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Tolerable to Strong

Jar from 2019, smoking now:

The aroma from the jar is unique. It’s mild, not pungent, however it is very musty like old books. Also cocoa. Like a chocolate brownie. Rather unique.

update After a year in the jar I went back and it smells like a fermented ketchup smell more than cocoa. Reminds me of the McClellands blends

After 2 years it had crystals on it that reflect light. I suspect this is aged for years before it reaches retailers.

Soft crumbly brownie like mixture of broken pieces.

So what immediately becomes apparent is how mild and mellow this is to me. It’s not a full bodied Latakia bomb of thick pungent flavor. The Latakia is velvety, smooth, easy, no harshness. It has as creamy and thick of a mouth feel as any tobacco I have ever smoked. Latakia obviously is the main flavor; those of a floral, herbal, musty, leather, and vegetative nature. There are also a lot of soft, buttery, floral, woody, slight sour qualities to this that come from the oriental tobaccos. That’s the real star of this blend! The oriental/Turkish tobaccos.

There is almost no after taste, no harshness, mouth tingle, bite, and the retrohale has absolutely no tingle and just amplifies the flavor. The best behaved and easiest English tobacco I’ve ever smoked. A very oriental forward, smooth English blend. It is as congealed and harmonized on taste and flavor of a tobacco as any I have smoked. Hard to really pick apart individual tobaccos.

I think why this is so sought after is because it is so easy and wonderful to smoke. It stays lite, the moisture is perfect, it rubs out flawlessly. The smoking experience is as smooth as buttered velvet.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	KingDuncan83 (25)	2021-09-27		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable to Strong

I tried this over hyped baccy back in early 2020 before covid hit at my local pipe club meeting. With so many widely available better tasting English blends available i just dont get the hype. Also yall should ashamed for driving the price of this blend into the 300 plus range. Old Ironsides is better and 12 bucks. Seriously.

Pipe Used: briar

Age When Smoked: unknown

Purchased From: didnt

Similar Blends: Dan Tobacco - Old Ironsides (American History Mixtures).

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Tomcat (221)	2021-08-27		Medium	Extremely Mild	Full	Pleasant

Esoterica Penzance - Smoking a five yr old tin . The wax paper covering the tobacco is soaked in oil . Moisture is perfect . There are some sugar crystals of the mottled flakes . I am excited! This is a balkan style English with Turkish tobaccos front and center . Latakia is right behind and tasty . The Virginias are steadily backing up the Oriental varietals. In other words , a very balanced blend . Creamy and floral with incense in the air . Very delicious indeed . It is a very good blend . Is it the best English ever ? Not really . I just have to honest and say it is in my top 5 English blends . Bengal slices white , Peretti’s Cambridge Flake are very similiar IMO . Also great are Margate and Quiet nights , both a wee bit different . So top 5 English blend for me but worth 5 - 10 times original price ? Not for my dollar . Having said all that , It is a great blend and if you can get it by all means at least to try one tin . I don’t think most of it makes it to the general public . The shop boys and insiders probably snatch up the lions share . Then it goes to a guy who knows a guy who knows a another guy . B&M stores i have gotten loads of other Esoterica blends always say we didn’t get any Penzance this shipment . It’s always worth a try though , sometimes if you look hard you can find things you want . I don’t think it’s worth all the effort but it is a four star blend all the way ! 4

Age When Smoked: 5 yr tin

Similar Blends: Bengal slices white - Cambridge Flake.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	porshcigar (44)	2020-11-04		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

Great blend that loads well, lights easily, burns cool and dry to the bottom of the bowl. Taste is superb. No bite or Nicotine hit, The blend is complex and is not dominated by Latakia. Smoking a 2000 vintage stored in a Ball jar. I am enjoying this blend in an XL bent billiard and tempted to smoke it all day, but I do not have enough to do that. Want to buy more when available again.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dr. Dunhill 23 (39)	2019-12-03		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable

It is clear to even the inexperienced that this blend is comprised of the finest blending tobaccos available to man. This is not just Balkan, it's Balkan in a tuxedo.

Penzance is Smoky and creamy, Earthy and woodsy. It's got some great Orientals and maybe a bit of cavendish. MAYBE just a hint of a topping that is reminiscent of dare I say it? lakeland (please note I used a small "L"). It might just be the fermentation process.

I love this blend. Period. I do not, however believe is above all other blends in the world. There are many other Balkan/English blends out there i enjoy as much and a couple I actually enjoy more.

This is nearly "UnObtainium" and is something every English lover should try.

4 Stars from me!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BrokenRecord (124)	2019-09-04		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Penzance: A tasty but not divine Balkan

The Virginia varietals are very sweet with some flavor notes of decaying grass and earthy-richness. They smell exactly like other Esoterica Virginias with whatever casing they use to process their leaf. The Latakia is quite nicely applied—offering an assertive cedar smokiness that melds well with the sweetness from the Virginias. The Turkish leaf adds a bit of complexity but not an over-abundance of floral or sour notes.

This is one blend/flake that I prefer smoking young without added age, as the flavors of the Latakia decrease dramatically after a few years.

Overall, Penzance is good, but G.L. Pease’s Quiet Nights is perfection.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	runswithdogs (41)	2019-05-12		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I’ll try not to be repetitive. I think most of the reviews capture the essence of this superb blend. While I have a preference for well-aged Virginias, and the sweetness they provide, Penzance offers me a wonderful diversion from my standard fare. It’s creamy, soft, mild and delightful on the palate. The older the better for this blend, as the Virginias develop their tell tale sugar crystals. A wonderful Oriental forward blend, and worth keeping a number of tins cellared.

Age When Smoked: 2010 tin

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Briar Piper (89)	2018-12-05		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Full	Very Pleasant

I have never tried this blend from a tin, but only from the 8 ounce bags.

It comes in little squarish flakes side by side in rows, inside the plastic insert trays in the half pound bags. Clearly made from ribbon cut tobacco which has been pressed. Tastes like a rich English. But where this tobacco differs from the rest is in the strong incense like latakia, and in the amazing room note, which bystanders say contains vanilla! There is no vanilla in the taste, only a strange interplay between the orientals and latakia. The virginias used are of a substantially better quality than you will find in most other blends, having absolutely no cigarettish taste nor aroma.

This blend used to be much more easily obtainable. What happened, I have no idea.

A solid 4 stars. Only a very few English blends rate higher in my book. But none of them smell this good to bystanders.

Pipe Used: Various

Purchased From: marscigars

Similar Blends: London mixture, 965/old dublin, black mallory.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jamdangler (9)	2018-08-29		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Many people have waxed poetic about this stuff. I, for the most part, agree with them. I find it delightful in the morning with a cup of coffee with cream, and as long as it is cool outside a bowl on the porch in the evening is about as relaxing as it can get. The Orientals provide an experience that is sure not to disappoint. Too bad it is so hard to get a hold of.

Age When Smoked: 3+ years

Purchased From: Edward's Pipe and Tobacco Englewood, CO

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pip (80)	2018-03-28		Medium to Strong	Medium to Strong	Full	Strong

This is your classic old school English. What a delight. The tin note is captivating. Smokey, dense, tangy, leathery, peaty, beef jerky..Everything a English blend should be. This is from a 9yr old tin and time has been very kind to this tobacco. The flakes are all in tack but, the crumble cake however is a bit too crumbly for me. I wish it was a bit more together. The moisture content was spot on. The tobacco lit right up and the smoke was thick and voluminous. A delicious chewy smoke. Great flavor. Full flavored yet gentle. No bite. I think it best enjoyed outdoors and dedicate at least an hour to smoke a bowl to savor all the goodness. If you could smoke an Islay malt it would taste like Penzance. Luck for me I have one tin left!!!

Pipe Used: Peterson Spigot

Age When Smoked: 9 yrs

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Ocelot79 (32)	2018-03-12		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

Just a quick observation about the soapy taste sometimes reported. I looked through some old notes and discovered that the only time I ever noticed that horrible taste was on a very hot and humid day in Queensland Australia. That smoke would have been from one of a pack of six tins presumably manufactured at the same time, and all the rest of which were bloody excellent. I'm guessing that the weather CAN have a bad effect on this stuff - and that the effect is to pump moisture into it. At all other times, the fullness and basic satisfaction you get from Penzance is equalled nowhere else, IME.

Pipe Used: Various Ashtons

Age When Smoked: unknown

Purchased From: Rees, Chicago

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Matsutake Slayer (11)	2017-12-05		Medium	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant

After waiting some years to acquire a portion of this much-fabled blend, I finally came upon a tin in trade. With a collection of thirty-some English, Balkan and Oriental blends in my current rotation, I had much material for comparison. Yet, upon this first light it was instantly apparent that this blend has earned its devotion quite deservedly. If I tried to describe and characterize it by reference to its taste, mouthfeel or strength I would fall woefully short. It seems to me that the essential alchemy of Penzance is perceived not so much on the tongue or in the nose as deep in the far reaches of the sinuses, at the back of the head. You do not sample its goodness so much as it colonizes you, unlocking a sense that both blends and transcends taste and smell -- welcome to olfactory Valhalla.

And yet, as magical as this blend is, I do not find it to be the superlative blend for this experience. To my senses, the deep rapture experience of Penzance is had in even more ready abundance with another Esoterica blend: And So To Bed, which to my great delight can be found occasionally for a fraction of the price.

For those who seek truly superlative tobacco blends on their pilgrimages in the briar, neither of these should be missed.

Edit: Five years later, my aged tin of And So To Bed has lost whatever magic ot once held, while the tin of Penzance has intensified its majesty!

Pipe Used: Large rusticated author

Age When Smoked: fresh

Purchased From: trade amidst the interpixels

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	wildrage (6)	2017-11-20		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

I'm one of those people that have notifications set all around the web for when Penzance goes on sale. I probably have more of it squirled away than I could ever smoke, but perhaps my tastes of changed?

The presentation is sublime. A crumble cake / flake hybrid that just looks like a lot of time and thought was put in to it. Plume is present even on fresh tins.

Latakia and Orientals scream at you through the smoke. For me, it's almost tastebud overload. I think as my tastes have matured, I've been been moving towards virginias, and more subtle English blends. Subtle is not a word I'd describe Penzance as.

It's high quality stuff, but I just don't think it's worth the effort you have to put into aquiring it. Personally, I like Balkan Sobranie much better. In my hunt for Penzance, I also became obsessed with finding a similar alternative. As others have stated, Quiet Nights and Start of the East are the closest. They are by no means identical, but in my honest opinion, have the same flavor profile. I'd say the difference is similar to say - a 10 year vs. 20 year Scotch. Sure, one is better than the other, but the returns are diminishing. That being said, before dropping $50 on an ebay tin, or spending hours hunting it down on line, try Quiet Nights. If you really like it, you'll love Penzance. If it isn't for you, you may want to save your time/money.

Pipe Used: 1962 Dunhill Group 5 Bulldog

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Purchased From: Milan Tobaconist

Similar Blends: G. L. Pease - Quiet Nights (Old London Series), Cornell & Diehl - Star of the East Flake.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Fshrman (1)	2016-02-14		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Simply the FINEST tobacco bar none on the American market today. Hard to get but so is anything that is rated with this quality..The feeling of this smoke on your palate can only be described as Heavenly Great Smoke.

Pipe Used: Peterson Rosslare Royal Irish Natural 03

Age When Smoked: less than year

Purchased From: Palm Desert Tobacco

Similar Blends: Balkan Sobranie, Syrian Latakia, Lebanese Blends.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	tommyboy1749 (27)	2015-10-18		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

J.F. Germain has been in the tobacco business for 195 years. Such longevity does not happen by accident. I love the crumble cake, which makes packing, lighting, and smoking a breeze. Penzance possesses a peaty undertone, a spicy-sour tinge from the Orientals, campfire smokiness from the Latakia, and the leather and mahogany notes of a fully matured Virginia. To me, it's a darker, more-latakia forward version of Germain's Special Latakia Flake, which has a slightly brighter Virginia component. I'm not sure which one I prefer. But what difference does it make? Both tobaccos are well-nigh impossible to find. (Sigh!)

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SiChange (45)	2015-10-10		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Penzance has few if any equals as a medium-full English smoke even among the most vaunted historic blends that I recall smoking. All praise for its subtle palette of tastes and creamy mouth feel. A local cigar merchant with a pipe side line for years has stocked Penzance, Margate, and Stonehaven in bulk jars, without many noticing. He had emptied 8 oz bags into the jars long ago. Penzance alone is now down to zero, though to my good luck I socked away a bit.

Pipe Used: Straight and bent pots

Age When Smoked: 5-7 years

Purchased From: Local merchant

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Liquid360 (10)	2015-10-06		Mild to Medium	Medium	Medium	Tolerable

My first encounter was, as with many it seems, as a gift. A complete stranger sent me an 8oz bag of 2001 Penzance in the old cream colored bag. This was one of the first tobaccos I'd had. I'd read the reviews, others using words like sublime and creamy. I didn't even understand what that even meant... till my first puff. It truly is creamy!! That first puff was then and still is now the best pipe moment I've ever had. What's been said is all that's needed in other reviews. There will be detractors. Some will claim to not be impressed, but I don't buy it. Some, of course, will genuinely not care for it, but many others will dislike it because it's revered, subconsciously or not. It's truly a hall of fame tobacco.

Pipe Used: Dunhill #5 Billiard

Age When Smoked: 14yrs

Purchased From: Stranger

Similar Blends: Nothing.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	beercritic (33)	2014-09-03		Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable

I traded some cigars for this (and other baccy). I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this. I'd prefer some Mixture No. 79 & I hate Mixture No. 79. Not much Latakia or N, here, move along.

Pipe Used: meer

Age When Smoked: dunno

Purchased From: traded

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Palermo09 (23)	2014-08-18		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

After wanting to try this tobacco for a long time I finally had the opportunity last night when I went to a party and the host had a fantastic assortment of tobaccos for the party guests. There were several there that I had been dying to try, and Penzance was the choice for the evening.

I would normally not want to review a tobacco after only one bowl, but I do not know when I will get another chance to smoke this renowned flake. The main thing I took from this late night rendezvous was that I was surprised to learn that Penzance is not a latakia bomb, which for some reason I always thought it was. An easy smoking Virginia and oriental blend with latakia in the background. It was delicious but not what I was expecting. I can see why this blend is so popular as it has a little bit for everyone and in perfect balance. A great example of a complex blend that does not have to hit you over the head to get it's point across. It actually reminded me of Seattle Pipe Club Mississippi River without perique, perhaps made with higher quality leaf.

Pipe Used: Amphora Dublin

Age When Smoked: Fresh?

Purchased From: Party gift

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	pDzine (12)	2014-03-09		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Not much to add that someone hasn't already said. Clearly a four star blend with no detractors. The taste starts out with the sour salty tang that softens into creamy sweet with hints of dark fruit and a smoky if not peaty finish. Then as you continue to work your way down the bowl that symphony plays out on your tongue.

The room note is of a very strong rich tobacco. Very savory never acrid, but sure to be appreciated only by connoisseurs.

This is not an everyday smoke for me only because I prefer not to taste my pipe the entire next day - a latakia problem for me nothing against the tobacco.

Pipe Used: various

Age When Smoked: 2 years

Similar Blends: Uhles Bishops Move.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mudguts (14)	2013-12-30		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Tolerable

Open the tin, and you are hit with an intoxicating rich smell of fuel-oil. There you will find wax paper that appears to be stained with that oil. You know you are in for a treat. The meaty slices are found nicely stacked in their wrapper. Upon closer inspection, crystalline sugar specks may be found. The flavor is smoky latakia laced with oriental spice. There is a subtle background of incense. Not sweet or sour, just musty-smoky-smooth, with the oriental spiciness more pronounced when fresh. Smoked summer sausage also comes to mind. The smoke is not thick. Retrohale comes with only a hint of harshness when fresh. Right out of the tin this tobacco stays lit. First 2/3 of smoke is very nice and satisfying. Make sure you cash in on the last 1/3 of remaining tobacco, because it gains a little more incense and body to finish the session. Easily burns to grey ash and starts leaving remains attached to bowl, so it will cake the bowl quickly. Aging knocks the edge off the orientals and adds a bit of sweetness. Medium-strong, but no detectable nicotine.

Pipe Used: Savinelli dry system #2622

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	CubanPiper (13)	2013-06-07		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable

This is an update, aging won't do any good, once it dies a little, it's not so good any more. In my opinion, it tastes better wet and fresh. This stuff is unique. You have to understand it. I should not be too wet or too dry. Its not a regular flake, so dont treat it as one. One more thing, It burns so cool, like never I have ever smoke

Pipe Used: many

Similar Blends: none.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Smoking Sam (20)	2013-04-24		Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This has been my most enjoyable smoke to date.

I had almost given up on trying this tobacco blend, due to its unavailability. I also REFUSE to pay the high price of eBay scalpers. So, it was with much surprise and pleasure, when I found four ounces of bulk at my local tobacconist. Did I buy it all? You betcha.

First impressions? Wow! An interesting, jet black, cut flake. Taste? Sweetness. Latakia. Mellowness. The Perique and Orientals harmonizing perfectly. A super pleasant lingering aftertaste. Wonderful nose exhale. Good even burn. This stuff is nice! I can see why it is so highly regarded. Frankly, the mild but complex taste, of all the perfectly blended tobacco varietals, just blew me away.

During my next visit to the local tobacco shop, I expressed my pleasure at my initial bowl. None in stock - anywhere. I asked the owner to put me down on the waiting list for an eight oz. bag or two - not to sell, but to smoke and enjoy. Two days later, on a Sunday, I get a phone call. My tobacconist had located two, eight ounce bags, and wanted to know if I was still interested. I found it hard not to break the speed limit getting to the shop. Price? $32 for each eight oz. bag. My recommendation - it pays to buy locally.

This tobacco has set the bar for me - I absolutely love it. I may stumble across a Virginia or English blend that I like as well or better, but for now, this is my favorite. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Hottgunn (19)	2013-02-13		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

I finally obtained an 8 oz bag. I find it smooth and mild to my tastes, almost a little on the bland side. Light aroma - almost like perfume. I love the cut of this flake and the texture when it is crumbled. Smells a great deal like mince meat pie filling right out of the bag. A bit too moist initially so a little drying out helps. The second half of the bowl is where this tobacco comes into its own with a very nice woody, toasty flavor. Smells a great deal like leather. There are MANY great smokes out there today so it's hard to choose who is the greatest pro QB of all time. This is very good but I personally prefer Quiet Nights, Blue Mountain, Meridian or Nightcap. I highly recommend trying this blend. Although it's not MY number one tobacco, I am sure it will be to many. Is it worthy of all the hype, mystery and over the top high prices? Definitely not! Just one of many, many good tobaccos. It is NOT tobacco of the gods.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mr. Big (321)	2011-10-15		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

WARNING, IF YOU LIKE PENZANCE , DO NOT READ !!! ............................. PLEASE READ TO END WITH UPDATE of 4/20/12 !!

It has been a hard time obtaining a tin of this well reviewed and highly sort after blend and I was ready for a treat. Upon opening the tin I was hit by a familiar scent that I couldn't put my finger on, it was hidden behind the nice smoky latakia. I proceeded to smoke a bowl and noticed the scent stayed with the entire bowl and added to the flavor, I wasn't sure if I really liked it??? What was it??? A few more bowls and I was sure I tasted and smelled that hidden aroma. Then it came to me, but first I asked my wife to smell the tin and asked her opinion. She sniffed and sniffed and said it was on the tip of her tongue, then I told her, "IODINE" , she exclaimed ," yes". I can't even open the tin anymore. Sorry to anyone who loves this blend and read this review, Please tell me I'm wrong.

Clarification : I can see from some of the comments about my review, that some reviewers never had the pleasure of having your Mom apply some povidone-IODINE to your cut. I guess you need to be at least 55 years old to remember, as they replaced Iodine with less painful over the counter antiseptics, although you can probably still buy it. You only needed to experience the sting once and the smell would be etched. Today, if you go for any major surgery they "slather you up" with a reddish solution called BETADINE, this contains 10% povidone-iodine but the smell is there. FYI, it is NOT an Ammonia smell, as some reviewers have claimed, which I am all too familiar with. That would be the Ammonia smell found in most tins of snuff tobaccos.

I know, who cares, well I wouldn't be surprised if Esoterica was using a top coating of Betadine as an anti mold inhibitor in part of their " secret recipe". If I was a lover of this blend, I would personally try a misting of "Betadine" on some "Pirate Kake" and see if I didn't have a new cheap way of obtaining Penzance!!!.

Oh, and thank you reviewer "Kokinhenik" for your homework on the other reviews calling out Iodine, I did not know that.

I told you not to read my review!!!!! ...............................................................

UPDATED -4/20/12 YOU REALLY HAVE TO READ " THE REST OF THE STORY" !!!!!

First I wanted to fill in the gaps from my original review: Upon originally opening the tin and noticing the "Iodine" smell and taste( see original review above ), I proceeded to spread the tobacco out on the table to see if I could air the Iodine out of the tobacco. After three days there was no difference in the intensity , when you walked into the room, you were hit by a scent from eight feet away. Now the tobacco was bone dry. My wife told me to either throw out the "science experiment " or she would! I collected the tobacco , stuffed it back in the tin, this was no small task as the tobacco flakes turned to dust at even a slight touch. I placed a small humidifying puck in the tin for a few days and upon opening the tin, the tobacco was at a perfect humidity but the "damn Iodine" scent wafted from the tin. I closed the tin and sealed it with a hot glue gun and threw it in the cellar.

Now, fast forward to the present time almost 6 months later.

I kept reading the great reviews and said to myself," I'm going to try this again" . I unsealed the tin and upon opening , Iodine smell wafted from the tin. I didn't care, I was going to try another pipe, same result, the scent translated to the taste. Overall, I would say that the strength of the scent was about 50% of what I remembered when I first opened the tin 6 months earlier . Still not smokable. I covered the tin and left it on the table for a week.

I then reread some of the reviews from this site and in particular, reviewer "Darth Vader" 10/28/11, who has claimed that the scent was caused by a mold problem, my only disagreement was this was not an ammonia scent. So I went back to the tin to see if I could detect any mold. Upon opening the tin again, I was ready for my blast of Iodine, but IT WAS GONE, not just reduced, but 100% GONE, without a trace of Iodine scent????? I'm smoking a great big bowl of it right now and it is wonderful and totally without Iodine scent or taste.

I did look for mold with a magnifying glass and couldn't see anything obvious but there were a few suspicious flakes. I can see why this is rated 4 stars but I will never be able to give it 4 , just on my bad experience. I especially want to thank reviewer , "Darth Vader" for being so persuasive, and causing me to check and recheck.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Susanna Hoffs (74)	2011-08-27		Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

As a Brit, getting hold of this stuff is impossible, same goes for all of Esoterica's 'British made' tobacco. (Made here in the British Isles but we redcoats cant get it?!?!)

Luckily Pipes and Pleasures of Columbus Ohio had this in stock, and I managed to order 'some' which a friend who lives in Ohio collected for me and sent over to the UK. He managed this strategically by 'repackaging' tins and sending them over as fishing tackle!

Anyway onto Penzance the weed;

Never been one for hype, it's always disappointing. However this on the other hand really is something else. I can totally see why people will sell their kids/cars/& wives to try and get this stuff.

Exceptionally smooth oriental and latakia blend with those two weeds being the main players. Lovely plumes of white smoke to boot! I personally taste the orientals over the latakia. Hints of a sweetness are there but what elevates this from all the other English's I have tried is its totally silky smooth and creamy pure effortless smoke. It has zero bite and zero heat.

"I am not a man" - (tobacco)....."I am Cantona!" - (Penzance)

It looks and smells as if it's been prepared in a large wood shed in some dark deep earthy damp forest. Yum Yum!

The best English I've tried to date. The smoothness and flavour are sublime, and it is to date my favourite smoke.

Am concerned though that I may now not smoke anything else!!

Bugger...

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	cakeanddottle (105)	2011-06-28		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable

First of all, no tobacco can live up to the hype that surrounds this one. Not tobacco from Esoterica, nor the offerings of Samuel Gawith. If you have been chasing these hard to get tobaccos and haven't tried them yet, I'll tell you right now, they're all good, but there is even better tobacco to be had that you won't have to stalk or pay mercenary prices for.

That said, Penzance is good. It's kind of got the whole package. Sour notes, leather, smoke. It burns well. I find it appealing that this is such a well rounded tobacco, but at the same time, none of these elements shines in a way that compels me to want it the way some of my blends do.

I will also mention that this tobacco seems very pipe dependent. I have had bowls of this that I thought provided a near transcendent experience, but more of my time with this I thought to myself that it wasn't as good as 3 Oaks Syrian or Peretti's Omega.

One of the better latakia blends out there, but somehow almost disappointing. Three stars for sure, but I can't say it deserves a fourth when my relationship with it has been as inconsistent as it has.

Edit 7/10/2011 Ok, I get it. This is a big picture vs incredible attribute thing. Penzance is better at big picture than any other lat blend. 4 stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrDyson (148)	2010-12-27		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

A personal irony: I was born in the town of Penzance in Cornwall, and the specialist tobacconist there (the excellent West Cornwall Cigar Co., in Chapel Street) has never even heard of this blend, which is not available in the UK. I can't imagine why it's not, given that it's made in Jersey by J.F. Germain & Son. I've tried for years to get a sample, and at last succeeded, thanks to a friend from the USA.

This certainly is magnificent stuff. Tin aroma: superb; packing and lighting qualities: superb; smoking characteristics: superb. There's probably no point in adding to what previous reviewers have said about this exemplary English flake, other than to say that, if it were available here, I'd probably smoke it pretty regularly, even though I'm not usually a great Latakia fan.

But - and it's a mighty big but: scarcity virtually amounting to non-availability - not just in the UK - has created a ridiculous situation. There seems no point in enthusing about a tobacco that one can hardly ever get one's hands on. J. F. Germain tell me that they have no plans to sell Penzance, or any of the other Esoterica blends, in the UK and suggest that I try their Latakia Flake instead. I have done this. The Latakia Flake is comparable and all right, I suppose, but that's about all you can say.

J.F. Germain have produced an excellent tobacco and simply won't market it fairly even in the USA. I have to admit that the kind of thing we are now seeing - price hikes created by hype and the deliberate creation of scarcity - makes me rather angry. When all is said and done, Penzance, though very good, isn't THAT good; nothing is so good that you just about have to beg on your knees and sell your kidneys to get a tin of it it. I expect I'll be able to live without it.

Similar Blends: Germain's Latakia Flake is comparable, but not as as good; Germain's 1820 flake is supposed to be identical..

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-11-15		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

A caveat to those who actually read my following review: I am not a English fiend....the majority of what gets burned in my bowls are Virginias. That said, rating an English isn't easy for me...I don't smoke them often enough, and I find most (Cyprian)Latakia blends so similar to each other that separating them out is nigh impossible.

Penzance is different. Taste on the palate may well still be 'just another English'(definetely good, though...) to me(my apologies to it's many fans), but that's not where Penzance shines. It's the smell. Opening the tin was a revelation of sorts...I remember the first time I smelled Latakia, and the second, the third....wonderfully unique stuff. This here just bumped the expectation up a notch. There is a decadent creaminess to it's Lat base aroma...a church incense/holy attar type scent that just blows me away! I even tend to open the jar daily, or more, just to get re-aquainted with it...doesn't matter if I have plans to smoke it, or not. Damn!

That smell also shines in the after smoke, of all places. (I would love the room note as well, I suspect, but I can't tell that for sure). The aroma lingers in my beard and clothes...making me look like a 4 year old, his nose stuffed into his sleeve. Normally I could care less, but this one...

The fact it's a flake garners it brownie points with me...as does the small, pocketable tin. Now if only Penzance, and Squadron Leader, would make regular stops on the B&M railroad, I could rest assured of always having some on hand. Alas, I must conserve...(and luckily, prefer my daily VA's).

As a final note, the generous forum friend who sent me this tin, suggested making an after shave of it...just kidding, no doubt, but I'm starting to wonder...Hmm.

4 stars for when it's available.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-08-12		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable to Strong

At first simply delicious in an understated way; then sweet and a bit sour; then earthy ("cow turd's?l I never smoked a turd, though :) ") Penzance is greatly enhanced by sips of coffee. So far it is flying right up there for me. In my own crude vernacular: smoky tobacco, with oriental overtones, the ingredients not so well blended as to obscure the jagged edges which sometimes interestingly break through on the palette. I cannot understand yet why people say it is perfumed - unless, by perfume they mean the smell of cow crap and hay after a light rain?

By the way, I have recently started grabbing the tins without looking at their labels. I rub as needed, and load the pipe without looking. Very interesting, when you then look at the label. It's a very good discipline as it cuts out some of the hype. Try it!!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	juanocp (11)	2009-07-31		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Well BrSpiritus seems like you had bad luck with it, try to dry it a little more. I got it in almost perfect humidity level, still let it dry for about 1hr. Boy what a complex smoke, after trying mi first bowl i went to order 6 more tins to age.

Update Aug 24 2017 - It occurred to me that metal tins may rust and the seal might fail so i took a peek at my 8 year old tins and sure enough, one of the tins just opened with almost no effort, fortunately tobacco was still moist and 2 more tins showed some metal damage on the outside, so I play it safe and transfer all the tobacco to mason jars. The smell that came from the sealed tobacco was just out of this world.

So any of you have tins on your cellar word of caution, there packaging system sucks, opening all tins there was tobacco residues on the cap seal. So its a matter of time till tins loose there seal and you'll find perfect dust.

Purchased From: pipesandcigars.com

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-07-23		Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

This is the for me the benchmark for the English blends. Very well blended latakia and VA,you can even see the natural sugar grains on the flakes. The flakes come beautifully arranged in the tin and when I opened it for the first time I got a whaft of hickory smoke and bacon and pine campfire. Wow. Delightful... Burns cool and is very flavourful. Puff it slowly and enjoy the medium to full taste of smoked spices. The VA in it provides enough body and sweetnes so the latakia does not get monotone.

Awesome blend gentlemen puff friends.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-07-22		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable

I've only been pipe smoking about ten weeks now, but I've tried thirty or so blends, mostly based on reputations here - how Penzance isn't 4* I don't know, but each to their own and where more so than this arena? Penzance has become my yardstick and I can't see, so far any reason pack anything else when I travel.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-07-15		Mild to Medium	Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

If you like a really good English blend than you're going to enjoy this. It's very complex, full flavored and very well blended. One of my favorite English blends. Has an expensive taste to it. High quality tobacco. Just the right amount of everything.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pipe4ever (204)	2009-01-31		Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Tolerable

Penzance is a high quality English blend, well balanced, easy to pack and light, semi sweet with soft and smooth Latakia, elegant with enough body and complexity to keep the smoker interested. Actually I am smoking this blend from a 2 year?s old jarred pound; it tastes truly fantastic, very mellow and tasty.

Overall, this is a very respectable English Tobacco, Highly recommended for English smokers.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BingCrosby (162)	2009-01-20		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Strong

This is a classic for me.. absolutely spicy and interesting.. the flavor lingers and opens up your senses.. the room note is terrible so you might want to take this one outside.. but i promise that it is worth the price.. far creamier than most blends i have smoked.. this delivers latakia but in the most tasty way you could imagine..

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jaybee (77)	2007-12-22		Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable

Undoubtedly a home run for the latakia lover, I have a love-hate relationship with this tobacco. Overall it has excellent taste and provides some much needed private time (everyone else leaves the room). I find this one difficult to smoke without crumbling it up, but when I do the result is a mouthful of dust. Nonetheless, it is a quality product, somewhat novel, and I do enjoy it from time to time........

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dubinthedam (133)	2007-11-04		Strong	Medium	Full	Pleasant

Fours stars, it has all been said. For me the creaminess is amazing, the aftertaste, the sweetness that jump out now and then. The crumble cake texture can be a bit of hassle, it can have an odd burnt rubber taste coming through at inappropriate times. I will miss the two tins I traded for because they don't sell it here in Holland...shame.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	tabaco (112)	2007-09-19		Mild	None Detected	Extra Full	Pleasant

Greetings, I must say that for me unquestionably this is the best Latakia infused English I have ever put a match to. The smoke is headily rich and hangs heavy in the air; qualities I really enjoy. Also, I like that it is a pressed slice, which I do not rub-out. Slices are enhanced by the pressing they receive. I prefer a simple fold and light, or maybe a fold, twist, and light depending on the shape of the bowl. If you love Latakia then please do yourself the pleasure. If you do not, then please be careful and have an open mind. It simply might not be for you. Peaceable puffing.

- Tabaco

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Xeneize (275)	2007-06-25		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Enough has been said about this blend. All I can add is: the best smoke on the planet. Stop reading right here, go get as much as you can, and then go back and get some more.

5 starts out of 4.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	dualkarnain (75)	2006-09-26		Medium	Very Mild	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

The latakia/oriental crumble fusion has a depth of character completely unique and delicious. 4 stars!

Images evoked include a psoriasis-stricken woman unexpectedly meeting a vampire with a red bloodcell affliction forcing him to solely dine on flakes of shedding skin.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	A. Morley (97)	2006-03-11		Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Oh my, oh me. I'm going to review Penzance. I almost wonder why I bother. This is among the most popular premium tobaccos in history and I suppose that there is good reason. It is among the best English blends ever made, though (gasp) I don't think it perfect. It is very good and tastes just as an English should and the crumbling flake is indeed interesting. The stuff has little to no strength, however. With a good, full flavored English such as this, I look for the presence of Nicotine to really put me into a state of relaxation, or stimulation, as the case may be. With Penzance I was always left waiting. Perhaps I miss the point.

An interesting note is how the cakes are pressed together with a mildly floral sauce. I like this. Few and far between are mixtures that attempt any sort of fusion between Latakia and the classic Lakeland aromatics. I have attempted to produce such a blend a few times myself. Be assured, they were nowhere as good as Penzance.

Regards, A. Morley Jaques

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	zulujerk (146)	2005-09-27		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Tolerable

It was a miracle to find an 8 ounce sample, and unheard of to find two, but they're mine, and I've been sampling the wares for a few days now. I had several years ago picked up a bag, when the stuff wasn't so rare, and found myself captivated by the cut--this crumbly, soil like texture. It was simply unlike anything I had seen. But then a massive manic attack hit, and in a fit of oddity, I tossed all of my tobacco in the trash, before barely a taste. And that was it. I hadn't touched Penzance until now. It was a triumph, and I was so full of expectations and excitement, having lost from my earlier trial.

Sadly, in my experience, the blend doesn't live up to the hype. It's weak, very weak, the Oriental component is muted. And having acquired some experience now with Latakia blends, I know that the crumble characteristic is a consequence of pressing the small leaf Latakia, which tends to break up the press, not some product of grand design. I may hurt some feelings here, and receive a few threats, but Penzance simply does not deserve the status of Godly tobacco. When compared against its peers, Penzance is very much on par with Samuel Gawith's Balkan Flake, and certainly not as tasty as Old Ironsides, both flakes of a similar genre.

Latakia blends in flake form are a rarity, and welcome. But people are going nuts over Penzance not for its attributes, but for its lack of availability. If given a choice by those stingy tobacco Gods, I'd much have a pound of Full Virginia Flake than this stuff--another blend which I discounted over the years until it became more valuable than gold. It's symptomatic of the habit. Rich old men fearing prohibition buy everything. Then they get on the internet and try to convey some semblance of civility. They are wolves.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jakob Kiilerich (120)	2005-07-28		Very Mild	None Detected	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

I received a tin of Penzance from a friend and fellow reviewer on this site. I do not think i would have bought it because Bengal Slices scared the heck out of me, and I swore that I would never buy a Latakia flake again. I am grateful he opened my eyes.

Penzance is a slice of heaven! This is, along with Legends, Durbar, Nightcap and Aperitif, the best Latakia offering I have ever tried in my 15 years as a pipe smoker. It is complex deep, sweet and heavy: well-rounded and spicy as fine Australian red wine. Penzance will never burn your tongue no matter how hard you puff.

The only downside -which really isn't a downside, is the lack of nicotine. I normally smoke potent blends such as St. Bruno and Marlin Flake, but the taste of Penzance is so heavenly refined, that the (absent) nicotine-level is not all important here.

Stout and delicate at the same time; Thoroughly recommended!

Jakob kiilerich, Denmark

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2005-02-14		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Tin Opening: I had the pleasure of opening a 5 year old tin of this tobacco and was greeted by the familiar wax paper, but the tobacco has turned darker than a new tin, though still mottled with flecks of bright here and there. The smoky, musty Latakia aroma is still there though mellowed compared to an unaged tin.

Packing: This tobacco crumbles easily and packs easily into any size pipe.

Lighting: Lights easily.

First Impression: Where as this used to bowl me over with a Latakia punch, the first puffs are mellower and softer with the Latakia still present, just sitting in the background.

Mid Bowl: After a about 3 minutes into the bowl, it?s complexity shows with nutty and chocolate flavors merging with the lightly spicy Orientals coming through followed by the occasional slight smoky flavor of the Latakias. Over all, it remains restrained and smooth and creamy.

Finish: Finishes more heavily without being overwhelming. The flavors continue to mingle though more slowly and with less emphasis.

Over all: I thought Penzance was good when new, and it is, but it is absolutely wonderful when aged. In my 25 years of pipe smoking, I?ve only found 3 perfect blends, and they are all Esoterica and consider Penzance to be one of them!

Recommendation: Highly recommend it! I also recommend aging it.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2004-05-05		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Penzance is in my rotation to stay.

The dark flakes break up easily, and being a flake, if it doesn't pack well, you goofed when you broke it up!

There isn't much to add to the many things that have already been said about this tobacco. Very stout, generous portions of Latakia. A dry smoke, leaves nothing but a fine ash in the pipe.

As strong as the Latakia is, I didn't expect it to change much, but it did. Latakia dominates, but the background interplay of the Oriental and Virginia hold my interest with no problem at all.

This is real pipe tobacco!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2004-03-23		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

The Penzance tobacco blend is a full English mottled flake tobacco that has seemingly achieved the status of being a classic pipe tobacco.

Penzance tobacco is tinned in a charming golden colored rectangular tin. Upon opening and pulling back the oil stained wax paper lining, a tobacco in a dark pressed block form is revealed. The tobacco block itself measures about 3.5? x 2? x .75?, and is sliced widthwise. The aroma is distinctly full, musty, and smoky. Penzance is a very well matured mixture of Virginia, Turkish, Cyprian Latakia, and other Oriental Tobaccos.

This English tobacco is presented in a crumble cake form. Each slice literally crumbles effortlessly. The slices can be rubbed out from a rough consistency to a near powder. The moisture level is conducive to a great, smooth smoke and the tobacco tends to retain this moisture level due to its pressed flake cut. Packing of Penzance is very simple and three slices will fill a medium sized pipe.

This tobacco blend takes to lighting quickly. Penzance tobacco burns clean and completely without any dottle. The room note is full and musty and may not be overly appreciated by the nonsmoker.

At first, the flavor of Penzance is full in Latakia with a very slightly sweet background creating a well-rounded taste. A very enjoyable characteristic emerges about midway through the smoke that is probably due to the interplay between the sweet Virginias and the slightly bitter Oriental tobaccos. With all characteristics being considered, this tobacco blend?s flavor can be summarized as a rich leathery English taste with interplaying between sweet and bitter/nutty tastes. Penzance smokes cool and dry with an easy draw. A slight presence of gurgling emerges about halfway through the smoke but tends to disappear as the smoke continues. This tobacco mixture yields a thicker white smoke.

Penzance tobacco is a unique smoke and is very enjoyable. All though this blend can become slightly monotone, its smooth rich flavor and great smoking characteristics make it very much enjoyable. A true evening or rainy day smoke.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2003-06-08		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

This is a full english blend with the Latakia and Virginia being the dominant flavors. The Virginia's seem to be aged well to give an enjoyable sweetness to acompany the rich but smooth flavor of the latakia. There is a SUBTLE spiciness noticible from time to time.

The pouch aroma is almost musty/earthy, and the room note, although strong, does not seem to be penetrating. I have smoked this in my truck and not been able to notice the smell the next morning.

Combined, the flavors and aromas remind me of mountain villiages in Central America; cooking fires, burning fields, blacksmith shop, diesel engines.....

It seems to work well in all size pipes by crumbling coarser-to-finer as you fill the bowl. There is always a bit of moisture buildup from the first third to half of the bowl, but this clears up after halfway. I still have yet to have it "bite" even with the moisture.

There is little if any change in flavor from start to finish. Overall, a great blend.

While I do not think non-smokers would share my enthusiasm for the aroma, I recommend it highly to lovers of english blends. I only smoke this on occasion, but would smoke it more often if it were a little bit closer to my budget. But it is worth the price, and when I do buy it, it is in the 8 oz bag, not the tins.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pagercat (40)	2003-01-16		Very Strong	None Detected	Overwhelming	Very Strong

Ahh...Penzance...how I hate thee, let me count the ways...sorry, I can't count that high!

Penzance is by far the worst tobacco I've ever encountered! The appearance is nauseating...the "pools of oil" on the wax paper look more like something I would find on the filthy floor of a garage. The "aroma" (read "STENCH") is enough to make you think that Granny's Depends are failing. This crap disintegrated in my hands as I went to fill a bowl, leaving me with what looked like dried-up contaminated potting soil. Filling my pipe (God rest it's soul) with this gunpowder-like wormdirt was quite unpleasant as it fifn't really "pack" so much as it just poured in like a landfill.

The initial lightup was pure trauma as hundreds of black particles shot through my mouth and into the back of my throat nearly choking me to death on the first puff! Once the pipe was properly lit the smoke tasted like dirt. After a third of a bowl I had to dump it out. The poor pipe may never recover. The only thing that helped fight that horrible taste was a nice bowl of Mac Baren Mixture!

This stuff sucks!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2003-01-13		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

If you can't get excited by Penzance, put down your pipe and stop smoking, as this is the art of tobacco production at it's finest, look no further. It is categorically flawless (pack, light, bite, aroma) etc. It is full of flavor and yet unbelieveably mellow and smooth, with no harshness, bitterness or cloying sweetness whatsoever. Virginia and Oriental lovers on either side of the fence will be pleased again and again. I would make this an all-day smoke, except I fear that familiarity might breed contempt. When I need a lift out of the routine of my yard-weeds, Penzance reminds me why I pursue the gentle art in the first place.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Blackhorse (96)	2002-10-17		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

I'll not bore you all with musical anecdotes or the ramblings of a "returned to the fold" pipe man finally discovering really good tobaccos after some years into good cigars...it's enough to say that this is the one that brought me back. After discovering this website and doing a bit of research I landed on Penzance as one of about 3-4 new tobaccos (Dunhill's London Mix, McClelland's Frog Morton on the Town and Anniversary are others) to try in two new pipes (a Comoy's Guild Hall and a nice little Bjarne). Allow me to offer my thanks for your years of wisdom and taking the time to type your thoughts so succinctly (in most cases)...you have all been a great help. There are many great blends out there that I look forward to - three from Mr. Pease on the way right now. But however great the others are...Penzance is georgous stuff! I'll have some close by always.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2002-06-13		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Ahhh! Penzance. Krumble Cake as the British refer to this tobacco not only has a formidable reputation but upon smoking it has a wonderful unique combination of flavors and aromas. It is definitely a Latakia blend and has a spicy side to it as well but not very pronounced. Burns cool and clean and there is nothing else quite like it around that I have come across. I have tried some 60 blends( a relative neophyte, I guess). It comes in a small rectangular tin and is in wax paper in thin precut slices, that crumble very easily. Hence, the name. The stuff I am smoking of this lately is about 1-2 years old and is simply ..........mahvelous. 4 stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2002-03-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I would like to send a heart felt THANKYOU to a fellow ASP'er who said "RUN don't walk to your nearest tabac store and get some Penzance." I did, and I love it. Nice rectangular golden tin with a label that looks like it was printed at home. Opens to the definate smell latakia and has a wonderful musty smell. If you've ever plowed a field during a light rain, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Crumble cake rubs out extremely easily, I wouldn't even call it rubbing it out. Absolutely no work involved, and we all like that ;) Lights up to a delicious BAM! of latakia. This is by far one of my favorite latakia's, ranking up to if not above CAO's London Blend No. 1000 and Old Ironsides. There is only one thing I can say against Penzance. It seems to leave a slight oily feeling in the back of my throat. At the last Dallas/Fort Worth Pipe Smokers Club meeting I won one of the raffle prizes. It was 8oz's of 2-3 year old penzance. Thankyou to the gentleman who tossed it in the raffle out of sheer kindness. GOT GET SOME and try it...

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-12-30		Strong	Very Mild	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

another winner from esoterica. this one reminds me a little bit of bow-legged bear from C&D, a tobacco i also enjoy very much. both are crumble cakes with rather complex flavors. this is definitely a full english blend, not something you would give to a smoker just crossing over from aromatics. latakia and oriental fans will think they have died and gone to heaven. the virginias add an interesting and tasty complexity to the flavor. there seems to be a very faint casing to this one, but it only adds to its' appeal. seems to require a little more re-lighting than other blends. penzance comes in a small rectangular tin, but don't let the size fool you. because it is a pressed cake, there are just as many bowls in that container as in a larger round tin. it goes especially well with a cold mug of sam adams boston lager. a worthy stablemate to it's tasty cousin pembroke. if anything, i may even like this one a little better, but they are both great tobaccos. 4 stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	NEWMAN (305)	2001-11-15		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Strong

Although I normally smoke straight VA flakes, I found this an enjoyable change especially after meals or when outdoors. The Latakia really comes out in the aroma and I've found no non-smoker who liked it and some complained. I wouldn't try this indoors in company of other than pipe smokers. However, the taste is another story and was uniform from start to finish. The slower that I smoked it in a large bowled pipe, the better, sweeter and more intense the taste. The pipe held an aftertaste so you might choose to dedicate a pipe for this tobacco. Cool smoke without any bite but I wouldn't smoke this all day or as a steady.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2001-03-29		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

Penzance is probably one of my favourite English tobaccos. It comes in krumble kake that easily breaks into either large or small pieces for your pipe. The tin aroma is that of latakia, almost musty. Penzance packs and lights easily, and unleashes a lovely smooth English taste. It burns cool and gets better through the bowl. I love Penzance in a large pipe with time to enjoy. Penzance is not an economical tobacco, but it is worth every cent.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	CubishPatriot (14)	2021-11-16		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Tolerable

Many will crucify me for saying this. But not the best English Blend made. I've smoked 2000, 2008,2016, and last run of 2020/21. It's always the same. Flakes that are really a crumble flake. A subtle taste of burning tires, and that delicious Germain Virginia trying to make itself known thru a cloud of less than perfume laden Oriental and Latakia smoke. I have a small stash of SH My Best Blend, SH Exotique, Sobranie, and SH Congac. All of these top Penzance IMO just because the fine ribbon makes for a more consistent flavor and smoking experience. I'm a flake guy. Coins, plug, flake, curly, makes no difference, fold and stuff and smoke for eternity. But not this stuff. I keep Penzance around for when I'm looking for a good trade or need to buy something else I like. But I can't say I'd be sad if I was out or couldn't get it again. Fine quality tobaccos from an exceptional blending house that doesn't deliver. There I've said it. Don't hate me.

Pipe Used: Various Bowl Sizes

Age When Smoked: 6

Purchased From: Smoking Pipes

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	paulw (76)	2020-11-19		Medium to Strong	Medium to Strong	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

I had heard about this. I had forgot about this. A customer traded a half opened tin.It was a 50 g tin That he traded me for an estate pipe. This is a Virginia Latakia blend with a cult following. It was smoky I repeat smoky.I had to re-humidify it for a month. I can see why there is a following for this blend it is unavailable now and very hard to get. I think you can get a 50 g tan on four noggins for $127?

Pipe Used: Dunhill cumberland billiard group 2

Age When Smoked: Penzance tobacco was three years old

Purchased From: One of my walk in customers

Similar Blends: McClelland British Woods.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pipeologist (27)	2019-05-10		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

Like all Germain tobaccos,Penzance is named after an English town.A seaside resort,as a matter of fact,in the South Western tip, where middle class holidaymakers spend much of their holiday ( vacation) entertaining their kids at great cost during the downpours of typical English summers. It has been some twenty years since my last Penzance tobacco encounter,which was bought at the Davidoff shop in Manhattan. That was Penzance was readily available and had not yet been elevated to it’s current supreme status .That delectable taste of peaches and cream,in tobacco terms, alas, occurred only once previously ,with the smoking of Cohiba Coronas Especialles ,many moons ago in non Havana cigar restricted London . The second occurrence was yesterday,when I received an 8 oz.bag from the States. One of the few bags sold to a non favoured client ,not to be stashed away in some American piper’s cellar,perhaps ultimately finding it’s way onto EBay. I do like my Latakia,I must say and Penzance has that in abundance. Unlike many lat. blends,which are actually lat.bombs,there is that smooth,mango,(totally bite free) creaminess which I could happily enjoy ad infenitum. So there it is.For me,probably the most delectable tobacco I have ever encountered.Superlative adjectives would do it an injustice . Worth the wait: absolutely! I can’t see me getting my mitts on any more in the near future,so I can now cross this off my bucket list and pass into oblivion a happy man.

Pipe Used: Cornelius Manz and Dunhill

Age When Smoked: New

Purchased From: My secret

Similar Blends: Anything quintessentially ecstatic.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JustAnotherPiper (4)	2019-04-04		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I bought a tin of Penzance ten years ago at the Tinder Box and my recollection of it is a very good, full-bodied tobacco, though I didn't find it any more remarkable than anything else I was smoking at the time. I smoked half the tin, and gave the rest to a friend of mine who wanted to try pipes instead of cigars. I don't recall anything specifically that I liked or disliked about the flavor. I do recall that I had a hard time keeping the stuff lit. Maybe I just didn't understand how to prepare it correctly. Like cube cuts and flakes, it probably requires the right shape and size of pipe to really get the most out of it. In any case, I was enjoying Nightcap and Old Ironsides and those were excellent blends that I didn't find fussy, so Penzance became a distant memory. But it recently sprang back into my mind during a discussion of different tobacco cuts, and I thought I'd try giving it another go. After a brief search for some, however, I reconsidered my position.

My conclusion of Penzance is that those beholden to it are just a little bit insane. At the time of this review, eight ounce bags of the stuff are selling for nearly $200 on eBay. I simply cannot commit to that level of devotion, nor do I recommend to anyone that they dent their bank account so significantly just to try the stuff. If you can get your hands on Penzance, it is good, perhaps excellent. If you like Oriental blends, you're certain not to be disappointed, but there are plenty of other wonderful, similarly composed blends out there that can be had easily and at a reasonable price.

Personally, I think Penzance is held in such high regard more to justify to one's self the time and considerable expense in acquiring any amount if it rather than its superiority to blends of similar quality. I'm reminded of those wine tastings where they put some cheap wine in an expensive bottle, and vice versa, and even the professional tasters are fooled.

Age When Smoked: New

Purchased From: Tinder Box

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2019-02-18		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable to Strong

This is definitely one of the best Balkans on the market. Why?

1) The methods in which J.F. Germain processes their Virginia leaf offers a distinctly sweet aroma and flavor that follows all the way through the smoke. This really helps to bring balance to the blend with a large quantity of latakia and plays well with the sour/tanginess of the oriental leaf.

2) Though balanced, I find this balkan blend to remain quite complex and will hold your interest throughout the smoke.

3) The smoke is also very smooth with no chance of tongue bite.

Age When Smoked: 6 & 1/2 years

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	OhioTony76 (59)	2019-01-05		Mild	Mild	Medium	Pleasant

I’ve smoked aged and fresh Penzance. There is a difference. This review is based on a 6 year sample I smoked this evening. Jar note, smoky but mild. Incense like undertone. I rubbed out one flake gently. Dried 30 min. Gravity filled my Clark’s Favorite. Charring light, Tobacco resists the flame. After the third or forth light the pipe is lit with thin smoke output. Mild Latakia flavor with bakers chocolate undertone. Pipe goes out. Relight, smoke output is up, Latakia strengthens. Creamy campfire smokiness. Burning very slow. After about 10 min, the pipe is out. Relight, massive smoke output, filling the room. Bitter chocolate, smoky Latakia. There is a sweetness in the background that keeps it balanced. Large clouds of gray smoke still. Thick mouthfeel. Smoking wonderfully. Favors are still creamy and smoky with a bitter sweetness. Burn rate really picks up. Near the bottom, the pipe goes out. I dump some ash and relight. I get another 5/10 min or so of smoking. Body at medium. Still burning well. Very low nic hit. When I’m finished, there’s almost no dottle or moisture. This is good evening or before bed smoke. No nicotine to keep you up.

Age When Smoked: 6 years.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	dbl-bbl (45)	2018-06-14		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

OH NO ... NOT ANOTHER REVIEW FOR PENZANCE !!! After 40+ years of smoking the pipe I finally decided to give this one a test drive. Thanks to my favorite seller of aged tobacco goods, I got my hands on a 6 yr old tin of Penzance ... and now I've experienced all “the pomp & circumstance” regarding this blend. With the understanding that there is zero, zip, zilch added flavorings ... this tobac is truly a blended masterpiece! I’m becoming a full-time Latakia-Oriental-English-Balkan junkie (especially in the cold weather months) ... and I do enjoy them when they’re done right ... and this one is just that. I'll skip the "flavor profiling" in my short & sweet review, as others before me have so eloquently told it all by now. I’m simply casting my vote for this wonderful blend. I would like to add that curiosity got the best of me and I wondered how this aged tobacco compared to a fresh tin … so I bought one. Surprisingly I actually preferred the new batch over the aged stuff … which is not often the case for me. It seems like the blend may have lost some of its “vigor” after 6 years. Nonetheless both are a treat to experience. Sure I had to pay a slight premium for the goods but me thinks it was worth it. I prefer Penzance over Margate … which I found a little difficult to keep lit. Will I pay a premium for it again? I doubt it … as I’ve found some readily available blends that I enjoy equally as much. All said, if you’re a serious piper and like Lat-blends … it’s worth a try ... but if you're going to try it ... I'd recommend doing sooner than later ... as the price keeps going up & up due supply & demand.

Pipe Used: Briars & Meerschaums

Age When Smoked: Fresh & 6 yrs old

Purchased From: www.pipestud.com

Similar Blends: Sorry, I’m not telling this info ... for it'll make my "comparable blend" become as difficult to find as Penzance !.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Randy Tuggle (46)	2018-05-20		Medium	Extremely Mild	Full	Pleasant

This tobacco is mentioned with a LOT of praise by so many people. Why? Because it is worthy of it! Uniquely made in the old-time way, this blend can create moments you'll never forget with any decently crafted pipe (or cheap cob). I recommend drying out a bowlful for about ten minutes (minimum) if you're opening a new tin as it can be a bit goopy when fresh. Smoke slowly, patiently, and it will burn very nicely to a fine white ash leaving the memories with you. You will be spoiled! Great for celebrating those special events in life!

Pipe Used: Petersons, Algerian briars, Italian briars

Age When Smoked: fresh

Purchased From: Someone I know who can get it for me

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	CherchezLaghost (52)	2017-12-20		Mild	Mild	Medium	Pleasant

This is obviously delicious stuff. We all understand the market forces that create the demand for this blend and dislike it, so i won't wade into that mess. Suffice it to say that i do think the blend is worth picking up at fair price when you have tge opportunity. It is a thoroughly well crafted, incense like, pungent english mixture. The va present are beautiful and age well. The orientals dont strike me as so forward as some others seem to taste, to me it's pretty consistent with most english mixtures in oriental to lat ratio. In other words, the lat is dominant with the orientals supporting at interval. Nothing to complain about here aside from its unavailability. I find it to be most similar in flavor profile to the 90's bengal slices, albeit without the topnote. Rich, heady, redolent, and creamy smoke. Utterly satisfying. Not worth losing sleep over. I have the better portion of a pound from a bulk bag, and smoke it very rarely as i doubt ill find it again easily or cheaply, however i am glad i have it.

Pipe Used: Cobs, meerschaums, briar

Age When Smoked: New to 3 yrs

Purchased From: Smokers Haven

Similar Blends: Bengal Slices.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	B Short (6)	2017-12-17		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

At first, I struggled with this blend. Mad that it wasn't living up to its hype in my head. Throughout 2017, I've smoked a bowl maybe once or twice a month starting in January. Every smoke would leave me disappointed, thinking again and again, WHAT am I missing?? Until last night. Every smoke from January to November tasted the same. Mesquite BBQ in a very faint distance but that was it. But last night I wanted to try something I hadn't tried yet. I dried it out more than I had been, and I through it in a cob. Finally, the magic of this blend opened up to me. I was taken through sweet pineapples, and sour woody spice. And I do mean pineapples. As a matter of fact, the entire second half of the bowl, that's all I could think of. Not overwhelmingly so, but just enough pineapple to be good with the smokey creamy bbq taste. I'm not a fan of pineapples on pizza btw. This wasn't like that, but more like a peated whiskey with a couple drops of pineapple juice in it. After this experience, penzance has a new meaning for me. Giving me more complexity that most other blends I've had. I wanted to hate it. I wanted it to not be what it was hyped up to. Mainly because it's hard to get... But after a year of trying and tasting this blend, (and mastering the retro-hale) it finally makes sense to me and I must bow down to the holy grail of pipe tobacco.

If you struggle finding the flavors of this blend, dry it out a bit and try it in a cob before you give up on it. It may help.

Pipe Used: briars but best in a cob so far

Age When Smoked: less than a year

Purchased From: unfortunately ebay...

Similar Blends: Quite nights kinda....

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Cherry picker 1779 (52)	2017-12-08		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable to Strong

Smoking a bowl of this now, the wife literally just said " I wanna Lysol you so bad, that smells terrible." So cheers to the room note fellas! Anyway, The one thing I guess I could say is that this has a uniqueness in the flavor profile that I haven't found in any other blend except maybe Germaine's special Latakia flake. I find this blend very hyped up. I'm mot going to get into the appearance, tin note, moistness or anything other than smoking it. I find it to be awfully monotone. It starts out super weak and lacking flavor. In a large bowl combined with French inhaling it's capable to get you a sub par nic hit but definateley not much here. Every time I get around to a bowl of this I keep thinking I should have went with a more fulfilling smoke. I'm glad I bought it and was able to obtain this because of its scarcity and fame and simply to be able to say I did it. But in all honesty I can't believe all the four stars here. Margate is better. King Charles mixture is better. Nightcap is better. Penzance half way through starts getting pretty good actually, but I really don't like having to smoke half a bowl to get there. I tend to like more Latakia in my pipes and maybe that's part of it. I prefer Presbyterian mix, and squadron leader over this also. I'm some place around the halfway point right now and my palate is telling me " okay we get the point , you done yet?" - ( the wife just glanced at me and did one of those sighs like she can't wait till it's done).... I'm not hating on good ol penny here, I'm just saying that this sort of hype is rediculous. The day I got my hands on a tin I was thinking i I hit the pipe lotto. But the experience is actually that of the time your brother buys you one of those fake winning lotto tickets. Buy some if it there but don't chase the shit. Trust me , it's not worth it.

Similar Blends: Germaine special Latakia flake.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bleepy (9)	2017-12-06		Very Mild	Medium	Very Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

I won't go into details, because there are no details to go into. It tasted like sour ash to me. There was no flavor at all. I couldn't pick out any latakia, any orientals, or anything at all. It was just sour smoke.

It reminded me of a burley blend with that sour/bitter nut flavor, like Haunted Bookshop, but far worse. It had no flavor at all.

EDIT:

6 months later I taste a soapy floral essence, especially on the retrohale. But not much else.

Pipe Used: New clay pipe

Age When Smoked: New & 6 months

Purchased From: Online

Similar Blends: Cornell & Diehl - Haunted Bookshop.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jorge Soler (202)	2017-10-29		Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant

This presentation comes quite moist in the tin and the flakes are quite dark in colour. Despite this, they seem to smoke perfectly fine with just a few relights. The tin-note is quite pleasant with sort of a fruity background, which is something that shows in your smoke. Smoking this tobacco I was under the impression it was well aged as it was quite mellow on the palate and I could not detect any harsh spots or rough edges. I think the stress is put more on the orientals than the Latakia, which flares up every now and then as you progress with your smoke. The smoking experience is quite unique and there is something that sets this blend apart, but I cannot quite put my finger on it. I think the merit of this tobacco is all down to the perfect combination of all the different components singing as a choir with one voice. That is to say some of the characteristics are lost, and the smoking experience is rather dull and subdued, but in a good way. Nothing really sticks out, but the marrying of all different flavours is simple superb. Pity it seems so difficult to come by.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Hobie1dog (2)	2017-07-23		Medium	None Detected	Very Full	Tolerable to Strong

From the first puff, I found my Holy Grail blend. Since I hate Burley blends, this seemed to be at the farthest end of the other flavor spectrum. Has that plum pudding flavor and is obviously one of the most desirable all time best blends ever produced, just look at how much the 8oz bags go for on Fleabay. Unlike most Aromatics that lose 90% of their flavor 1/2 way down the bowl, I even enjoy the last 1/3 of the bowl as it changes flavors. Supply and demand will likely keep the price escalating as more people discover it. I'm no reviewer like JimInks, but just wanted to add another thumbs up to the 276 other people who gave it a 4 star rating and echo all the lush descriptions.

Pipe Used: Peterson XL23

Age When Smoked: 2011

Similar Blends: Quiet Nights, Plum Pudding.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BriarWoody (33)	2017-01-16		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I've been smoking this blend off and on for several years and recently opened a fresh tin. Given its scarcity, I was surprised to find some at the Tinderbox in Southcoast Plaza (as well as Balkan Sobranie).

The flakes were more crumble cake than I remember. It's easy to load, fairly dry out of the tin, and much less finicky and easier to keep lit compared to Margate and its other sister blends.

I think it's the best from Esoterica, smooth, smoky, earthy, savory and dry -- a true medium English that's mild to medium in nicotine. The tobaccos are aged, melded and sliced to perfection.

I prefer more Virginia punch, sweetness and strength in my English blends, but this is a pleasant, easygoing smoke that really hits the mark at the halfway point.

Pairs well with an Islay single malt.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2015-11-11		Medium	Mild	Medium	Tolerable

There's a little local shop I know of that often has bags and tins of this, because nobody actually smokes it - they're all too busy cellaring it to realize that it's become something far less than it once was.

I like to flip their stock on eBay whenever possible, but I go slow so they don't realize that an 8 oz bag is reselling for $150.

In light of that - 4 stars!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Llewellyn (9)	2014-10-19		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Smooth smooth smooth, with a "fluffy" full flavour in any size bowl. Even love the long after taste. Wife and friends think it smells like a pig stall in the tin and smoke, but after they tasted it in the bowl love it! Prefer it in the evening with a porter or stout.

Pipe Used: Standard and Large

Age When Smoked: 3 years

Purchased From: Cupojoes

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	AfternoonPipe (5)	2014-06-25		Medium	None Detected	Very Full	Very Strong

I'm really quite perplexed... I love English blends; dark, smokey ones included. Given the reviews I expected something quite enjoyable. The flavour, however, was that of burnt paper. I wasn't sure if this was just me, so I gave it to a few experienced pipe-smoker friends, they took a few puffs and all said, 'that is terrible, it tastes like burnt paper.' I have no idea...

Pipe Used: Mastro de Paja bent billiard

Age When Smoked: New, and then again aged 6 months

Purchased From: smokingpipes.com

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	A.E. (22)	2013-12-13		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

Esoterica Penzance is a good pipe tobacco, no doubt; medium to strong, and smoky dark in flavor. There was no real bite or bitterness, but I found that after it burned down a bit, it seemed that the flavor became stale and a sourness lingered on the palate. Perhaps my expectations were set too high. I was expecting a luxuriously rich, opulent, and flavorful smoke - pleasing to the taste, nose, and sinuses. This just isn't it. Penzance is better than the other Esoterica blends I've tried - including Stonehaven, Dorchester, Margate and Dunbar - but not by much. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Esoterica blends begin with tobaccos that are not "top shelf". After that, no matter what the "secret blend recipe" or "aging method" is, no matter how mysteriously "unavailable" the blends are marketed to be, the end product will always be less than "top shelf". A river can never rise higher than its source.... Because of the much touted reputation of the blend, and the demand presumably fueled by its supposed unavailability, vendors charge a significant premium. In my mind, the cult-like demand and premium cost are not justified by the actual quality.

Pipe Used: Davorin Morta

Age When Smoked: Fresh out of new tin

Purchased From: PipesandCigars.com

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-07-26		Medium	Medium to Strong	Very Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

This is a great tobacco. I had heard much about it and desired to try it. My tobacco store had some in stock and I bought it, lit it up and it as been great. I do not spoke it as my steady choice but I especially like it in the evening when I am relaxing. It puts me in a nice relaxed mode. I highly recommend this for those who want a great English tobacco.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	WillardFan (90)	2013-07-11		Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I've been smoking this in a clay pipe. I pack it loosely, seems to stay lit a bit easier. This stuff has a flavor which is hard to describe. A little sweet, a little smoky, but it goes well as a mix of the two. Nice with a rich coffee. French roast or an espresso really compliments this baccy. A good peaty scotch is a winner as well. My wife hates the smell, but the dog doesn't seem to mind. I usually trust his judgement anyway. A nice N level. My end of the day smoke for sure! This is in my top ten, but I'd like a bit more sweetness. Definitely worth a try!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	samcoffeeman (33)	2013-03-27		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I decided after reading some discussion on Penzance yesterday I would have that for my daily pipe yesterday. It had been a bit since I had smoked it, as I have been trying samples of other blends. I opened up my jar, near full of 8oz and find it seems to have dried just a touch since I first placed it in.

Penzance appearance/aroma/preparation

Penzance is a very unique flake tobacco. It has a quite dark appearance, most likely due to the high latakia content. This renowned ingredient also imbues this tobacco with a deep smoky aroma, not so much campfire as other english blends but something much deeper and darker. One thing that makes this tobacco incredibly unique is its consistency, not as defined by conformity with previous attitudes, behaviour, practice, etc., but as defined as the state or quality of holding or sticking together and retaining shape. This tobacco flake nearly falls apart upon handling. It has a soft delicateness that is pleasant to handle. It also makes the preparation quite simple. I select my Charatan Special 211, my english dedicated pipe for this smoke. I grab a few pinches from the jar and allow light pressure from my fingers to break the tobacco apart as it drops directly into my bowl, and give it a light tamp along the way.

Smoking Penzance

It took a few re-lights to get this bowl going, mostly due to my packing method. Penzance does not seem to expand much upon lighting. The smokiness of the latakia hits you promptly in this lat-forward blend. During the smoke you will notice the uncanny cool-smoking quality of this tobacco. I do find a slower smoke produces more flavor so mind your puffs, although it will never bite you. I find the flavor profile throughout the smoke to be very consistent, although it changes depending on how you smoke it. I found very light puffs to taste leathery and musky, similar to the smell of a tack shop with a wood fire burning inside. Puff a bit harder and the taste actually reminds me of dirt, not in a bad way. You may appreciate that if you are a gardener, it is like the smell of fresh loamy garden soil, perhaps with a bit of mulch. When you exhale through the nose, the taste again changes, although I am lacking an analogous description. It seems to have a bit more flowery character, perhaps the orientals coming through moreso during the nasal exhale.

Overall

I find the taste profile of Penzance to be quite distinctive. It is a pleasure to pack and it stays lit very well. It smokes cool and dry with no bite. It does have a decent nicotine kick, which I started to feel about 1/2 to 2/3 through the bowl. It is something I would smoke on occasion I wish to have something entirely different. I would say it is worth acquiring some, I enjoyed the search for this as much as smoking it. Certainly not a every day tobacco for this pipe smoker.

Update - Moved to two stars, I got rid of all of my Penzance. This blend made me believe latakia is not for me, but I am learning to enjoy it in other blends again. Penzance is an experience but, for me, not one that needs or wants to be repeated.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-03-06		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

There is nothing in the world that quite tastes like this blend. It is consistent all the way through, one of the few tobaccos that smells exactly like the smoke tastes, and the aftertaste that lingers with you is also the same. It is magical in a way.

TwoXseveN nailed it with the poem.

Godfrey, can you provide me with some contact information so that we might talk about getting ahold of some of your tins?

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	kckijana (3)	2013-03-01		Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

You'll have to decide for yourself if it is worth the hype. If you can find it. I sure am happy I did because this is my favorite Balkan and #2 overall with the mellow wood smoke aroma that softens the edges. Plenty of flavor without overwhelming in any way. Truly a fine tobacco. Too bad it is not more available.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-02-26		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

On experience more so than taste I've heard it described as such:

"It like Waking up in the morning in a soft meadow after falling Asleep unprotected and outdoors With a gentle dew resting forever on the back of your teeth And on the tip of your tongue While the salient wisps of last night's whisky Dance through the threads of your mist covered clothes"

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Godfrey (2)	2013-02-26		Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

So may i intuduced myself from over here the Netherlands . My name is Godfrey and smoke , restore and refurbish damaged and vintage pipes . Also i collect pipe,s from Eli Belgium a master pipe maker ( see his website )

I see you have trouble to become Esoterica Penzance but i have always 10 tins in stock and can send them to the USA but notice the shipping costs .

Regards Godfrey

TwoXseven beautiful discription , bravo .

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Phonomet (44)	2013-02-16		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Full	Tolerable

Upon first lighting one is delighted by a smoky latakia and strangely phenolic aroma. The comparison to Laphroaig is spot on in its iodine tartness and malty sweetness. About halfway through the bowl something strange happens. Colored scarves cover your lampshades, a twinkling of bells in the distance ring with conspicuous augmented 2nds, dark eyes peer at you from behind the veil, wise men from the Orient bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, wave upon wave of spices greet your nose and at this point ladies and gentlemen, you have entered Penzance...

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	ERader (5)	2013-02-09		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I read all the "hype" about this blend and rarely follow the crowd...........well they were RIGHT! Simply on of the BEST English blends I have ever smoked. I would vote it to be a classic, will keep this in my rotation.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-01-03		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Pure Nirvana. Smooth, smokey and buttery. Nothing else like it..

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-11-22		Medium	Medium	Full	Tolerable to Strong

Ah... Penzance. Enlist me among the many who had to take time to comprehend and appreciate this blend. At first I didn't get it and now I do BUT!!!!! with the following proviso:

With over 300 reviews I think almost every opinion has been covered regarding this blends taste, aroma, and quality. I would therefore like to address this review based on consistency.

My education with Penzance began with a few 2005 tins and as previously stated, I didn't get it at first. All the hoopla and admiration was a mystery to me. As time and more bowls passed I hopped onto the band wagon and welcomed this blend to my regular rotation.

When the 2005 tins were history I scored a few of the most recently available vintage. HORRORS! It was truly awful. A one dimensional, musty and rank catastrophe that was as much alike to the 2005 blend as Balkan Sobranie is to Amphora Red. Was this possible? Not even the age of my older stash could explain such inconsistency. Into the garbage it went and my search began for older issues of this blend.

The tobacco gods then smiled down and allowed me to locate a stash of tins which were made prior to the "Butera" label change which I understand began sometime around 1996.

This batch has provided me with some of the most heavenly smoking experiences I've ever encountered. Surely this was the Penzance which at first earned it's reputation. One of the finest tobaccos I've ever smoked.

As Penzance is very difficult to obtain, many of us will snatch up as many tins as they can find when located.

Accordingly, the purpose of my review is one of caveat emptor for this blend. Before buying a dozen tins you've miraculously found, make sure you've sampled one tin of the vintage involved as you could possibly be in for a big smoking and financial disappointment.

Newer vintages: one star. Older vintages: Hall of Fame nominee IMHO.

You've been warned.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	HillbillyBriar (3)	2012-11-09		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Very Strong

One of my all-time favorite blends. Not unlike a lot of other English blends except for a raw, musty component that really sets it apart. A tad bit sharp when young, but a year or two of age will knock off those edges and smooth is out completely.

Love the crumble cake flakes that make loading a snap.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	hawky454 (107)	2012-08-22		Mild	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I got my hands on this first in early 2010 and I just didn’t get along with it. It had a very distinct quality to it that I can only describe as diesel fuel. It wasn’t an aversion to Latakia as I loved and smoke a number of f heavy Lat blends in those days. Anyway, I took it as a loss and traded it off. Fast forward two years and here I am, really enjoying this stuff. This is a nice, full bodied blend very similar to Smokers Haven Krumble Kake and both are made by Germain so there ya go. Great, complex and smooth as velvet. I can think of several blends I would reach for before this but it is absolutely worthy of a four star rating. If you can find the stuff give er a whirl, ya might like it but try not to harbor any unrealistic expectations of it, it’s just a very nice, expertly blended crumble cake. The nicotine is in about the mild range. Great all day smoke and I tend to enjoy it while reading a good book. Be sure to give it a good half an hour of dry time, gravity fill your pipe and enjoy!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	albfneto (184)	2012-07-02		Strong	None Detected	Full	Strong

Is a good English mixture, full rich (due to Orientals), but... is too strong.

Latakia and Turkish, Orientals, dominate and Virginia disappears...

Other reviewers said that have sweetness, not for me, not sweet.., contrary... is bite, and bite a lot, bitter..

Pensance is a legend, excelent,

Between all of the English mixtures that i know and smoked, this is one of the Favorites. For me the best English Mixture is Chipmann Hill and the Second place is this, Penzance.

These two surpasses many others. Are better than many, including legends 4 stars and benchmarks, as Presbyterian, Stonehaven, Squadron Leader, NightCap, Dunhill's Standard Medium, Altadis Similar 965, Dunhill's 965 etc...

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-05-12		Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Strong

You know, after hearing so much hype about this legendary tobacco, I finally found it for a very affordable price in NYC. As I used to be mostly an aromatic smoker, I was a bit afraid this blend would be too much for me to handle. And even though I had tried many tobaccos with latakia in them, still this blend made me afraid. I remember the moment I lit it and I could not believe how good and complex this stuff was. Greasy, humid, leathery, yet mild and sweet. Strong and creamy at the same time. I was Hooked. Still am. And it made me start smoking more english blends. I do not find it strong or heavy on the latakia side. Is obviously not for everybody's tastes, and I guess it has too much hype running around it, but it is one of the finest blends I've ever tried. Just a classic that deserves to be tasted. It may be an acquired taste, but, boy, it is addictive!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JustOneforMe (28)	2012-04-12		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Very Full	Very Pleasant

Objective: Moderate moisture, the cake crumbles easily and dries well. Smallish tin fits in pocket or carrying case well. Produces a great volume of smoke. Price in Bulk 8oz bag is quite reasonable. Difficult to find online, but my local B&M has an ample supply, I'm quite fortunate.

Subjective: This is the tobacco I find myself wanting to smoke most often. It has a wonderful complexity, burns very well, the smoke is creamy and moderately stout. I have gotten lost and almost fallen asleep smoking this in the late hours, it relaxes me so. In my opinion, this is the best English available on the market.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-03-20		Medium	Very Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I paid way too much for an 8 ounce bag of this because of the insane hype surrounding it. It is very moist and needs to be crumbled and allowed to dry for about 30 minutes before packing it in a small (think Dunhill group 2) pipe. If you rub it out too much it turns into wet dust, and then it packs so tightly it becomes impossible to keep lit. If you tamp too much or smoke it too moist, you end up with an impossible to keep lit soggy mess at the bottom of your bowl that ends up tasting nasty. When properly dried and packed, however, you end up with a nice English blend with a great Latakia punch that is best described as "round" and "creamy" on the tongue (no bite). I also like mixing a little of this with some drier tobacco for a little Latakia spice that slows down the burn of a drier tobacco (try it with some "And So To Bed", which tends to dry out quickly). While I find it a delicious and refined blend, it is not worth the insane hype that surrounds it.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-02-16		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

I found a tin of this that was ignored and dusty at the bottom of a rack at a tobacconist I visited out of town. The sticker with the price had a date from 2002 on it. When I smoked it I was pleased, but it made me wonder just what everyone is so crazy about. It was a great tobacco, it really was, but I find it absurd that people would horde this to the degree that they do. That the entirety of the entire world wide web is continually sold out of it is befuddling.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-02-10		Mild	Very Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

i really don't know what to say. This tobacco is a masterpiece in every way. When i took my first draw..i was struck by an epiphany of amazement. There is only one way to describe Penzance, Incredible.

it's a shame it's so hard to obtain though.. I'd love to be well stocked with this blend.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BourrePipe (2)	2012-01-07		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

Clearly a favorite. Just for the perfect match with a glass of laphroaig, this mix is simply amazing and worth any price. And the complexity of the blend revealing different note going trough the bowl never ceased to amaze me. Just can't understand why it's so difficult to get, Germain could make a fortune if they could supply the demand, now It's the retailer who are making a fortune on us selling the tin twice the price. Just hope to get it more easily in the future....and for the tin lover maybe a more appealing label more worthy of the content would'nt hurt either!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrT999 (318)	2012-01-07		Medium	Extremely Mild	Full	Tolerable to Strong

I have to agree that this is not a Lat-bomb, as the other orientals form a nice background, but the Latakia is (for me) the primary player and I prefer mixtures where it's more in the background as well. For what it is, it's excellent, but since I know there are many tobaccos out there I would rate a 4, the question arises would I rebuy this particular tobacco, assuming my tastes don't change much more. In this case, the answer is no.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	cgar (37)	2011-11-28		Medium	Very Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Enough has been said about this well crafted english! One of the finest tobaccos available and one that I will keep with me for as long a loooong time.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	juvat (36)	2011-10-15		Strong	None Detected	Full	Tolerable to Strong

Im changing my review. After letting the opened tin sit for a couple of months, I decided to give it another go. Suffice to say, I "get it" this time around. This stuff is amazingly good! I don't know what it was that made me treat it so hostile before. But I am now a convert and will be buying this whenever I can.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-10-15		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

A signature blend from Esoterica. I have a couple of tins sitting around in my pipe humidor for when I get the urge for this unique blend. I can understand how someone can say that the latakia used here is quite strong and complex, but I certainly wouldn't classify the aroma on the periodic table. Having said that, I love the interplay of latakia and virginia--the latter being the glue that holds the whole thing together. Very well done and great presentation too.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Kokinhenik (93)	2011-09-24		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I finally had a tin of this legendary blend. I loved the flake cut and the required crumbling. It's a real classic touch to the smoking experience. Esoterica blends have one of the most intriguing tin bouquets. I smell a strong note that I keep identifying as olive. To date, this is the only Esoterica blend that I enjoyed. The smoking flavor is on the medium to full side. It lights up with a very creamy soft flavor but then about mid bowl develops a nice nutty, musky, complex. Almost peppery, as if it had perique in it. The latakia remained ever present. I wouldn't call this a lat bomb as many others have. The lat content is rather well managed compared to several other popular blends. This is a great evening smoke. I have to say that many other blends in this genre are just as good though not as unique in flavor. That strange olive note comes through in the smoke and sets it apart. I wouldn't say it makes it better, just very distinct in taste. I guess that makes for all the fuss.

Update: Mr Big - very interesting point you made. Reading the entire forum revealed 7 other iodine call outs, starting with reviewer Loosewatches back in July 2006. I too had a hard time placing that scent. I ended up landing on Olives. Curiously they have a fair amount of Iodine that occurs naturally. I did a smell test and there is a similarity between the antiseptic and the tin. Several other Esoterica blends have that same iodine scent as a noticeable component of the tin bouquet. As I mentioned, this is the only one where it comes through in the smoke for me. That unique taste is what drives the fuss for this blend. It sets it apart in flavor from other blends in the genre.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-09-24		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

Penzance is a wonderful blend that I tend to smoke more in the fall than in any other time of year. It has a wonderfully deep flavor with a nice thick body to it. I would say not to try to smoke this blend to fast. It always wants to burn nice and slow at its own pace for me and if I try to speed it up I lose the flavor quickly. This blend sometimes requires more relights than others due to its cut and crumbly nature. The only bad thing I can say is after a day or two in your pouch the flake will have fully crumbled, but who cares right? As it seems nigh impossible to obtain these days I am very happy to have 8 ozs cellared away and two more tins for ready smoking.

Can be very wet out of the tin/8oz bag and requires some drying.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-08-25		Medium	Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant

this is a masterpiece and is my favourite tobacco. i love everything about it.the texture and the way it crumbles to load the pipe.this is a very enjoyable smoke,very relaxing,never tiring.the latakia is just right not over powering.lucky enough i manage to keep this in my rotation at times when i can get supplies from a friend in the usa when available.if i run out i smoke samuel gawith balkan flake.i find the specail latakia flake which is produced by the same blender jf germain is very blunt and bland and no way can it be compared to penzance.so if any of you guys like the latakia english blends,your ganna love this one.very well worth trying and money very well spent.you be glad you did.i which this was made for the uk market.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-08-11		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable to Strong

Lots of latakia, not very mushroomy. Very unique and lovely.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-08-05		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Wish I could put the taste/flavor and exp into words better...I will say IMO there is nothing like this bacci...if you are an English blend lover...it is a MUST have! Smooth, slow-burn, full of flavors...

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Kilmarnock Piper (251)	2011-06-26		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

A fellow pipe site member sent me a small sample of Penzance. Strangely, I have tried maybe 175 blends, but missed this very popular English (not the only famous one I've missed, though). Yeah, I can see why it has so many reviews and folks are hoarding it! It is a perfect English in terms of balance. The Latakia is just right, and you can taste the Virginia. No bite, no off tastes, and a good burner. I'll certainty call it a four star, but I don't think I'll throw out my stash of other blends yet. (The fellow who sent it to me claims he can hardly smoke anything else now!) I will certainly put it on my list when it becomes availiable again. I can't really say much more than that with any kind of intellectual honesty after three bowls, but I can't see ever calling this anything less than excellent. If I ever get to smoke more of it, I'll try to add some additional thoughts.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-06-06		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Holy F, this stuff is good. It's hard to add much here that hasn't already been said, but I feel obliged to give it another 4 star vote. It's a very good English indeed. It's a hugely earthy flavor, as opposed to the leathery spice of SMM or the dynamic floral/herbal orientals of SL. Warm, low, satisfying. Still mild and easy to smoke though- no fear of tongue bite or nic-knock. It's not so far in a different galaxy that I would pay double MSRP to get some on eBay or anything, but it's absolutely a top-tier English choice and you should try it if you find any available.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	derlict311 (71)	2011-05-30		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Very smooth, very deep and very latakia. Not the holy grail, I can assure you, but worth a few tins if you have the chance.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	krg1000 (183)	2011-05-21		Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

After much waiting, I finally got an 8 ounce bag of this fine blend. I can see where all the positive feedback comes from. This is definitely a blend that needs to be tried. Upon opening this, it smells just plain wonderful to me. I find it really does not need to be rubbed out at all, since it is not too hard pressed. It lights and stays lit very easily. It burns slowly for me and has a nice room note to it. It produces a nice amount of smoke. It burns down to a fine ash at the end of the bowl. when it is available. I can easily understand why some have several pounds of this in their cellar. I highly recommend getting at least a tin, if not an 8 ounce bag. You will definitely not be disappointed.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Wellpipe (66)	2011-05-05		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable

This medium English has a unique tin note - earthy and strangely sweet like rich moist garden soil. The smell put me off a little at first - it almost smelled spoiled - but I've warmed to it. The smoke is soft and cool with flavors of malt and a tinge of saltiness. There is mellowness and refinement here with some complexity waiting just below the surface. Definitely top-shelf.

Update March 2013: I have seen a few reviews posted saying that the later vintages of this blend are inferior to the older vintages. From my experience I cannot agree. I have smoked from both older and newer production and in my experience they are fairly consistent and equally excellent. Cool, creamy, smooth, and flavor unique to this blend.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-04-08		Mild	None Detected	Medium	Strong

Probably one of the most beloved tobaccos available today, if you call its current status available. I have one tin opened and 9 unopened tins from '07 in my cellar. This opened tin has been "breathing" for a month or so now. It's not my first go-round with this esteemed blend.

I don't mind the presentation, a "krumble kake". I've found it's best not to let it get too dry even though it always seems wetter than I prefer my tobacco. It loads and lights easy. The burn is very good and rarely needs relights.

The tin aroma is smokey and its appearance is predominantly dark, black in fact with some light strands here and there. Its flavors consist of a campfire-like background with some spice on the nose which I like. It's sometimes buttery, sometimes bitter, but rarely sweet. The latakia seems in just about the correct proportion to not overpower the Orientals which dominate the flavor. If there's Virginia in Penzance I can't taste them.

I can see why this is such a popular blend and everyone should try it at least once. For some reason, perhaps its lack of nicotine (in a word, wimpy) or its lack of sweetness, I have never been able to get excited about Penzance. I like what's there, but it's missing something important to me. Still, I have to recommend it. It's got a lot of good qualities including the high quality leaf it's composed of. You could do a lot worse.

1 person found this review helpful.