Sillem's Commodore Flake

I have read and re-read the reviews of this blend and noted that they are consistently positive. I cannot concur. I found Commodore Flake to be a flawed blend with sins of both commission and omission. First, I want to explore the commissions. When I first opened this tin it seemed adequately dry to smoke right away and, so, I did. On the very first lighting draw my tongue was attacked by a corrosive smoke that made a sore spot immediately. I've been smoking a pipe for almost fifty-five years and have never experienced anything like this. Ignoring the sore spot on my tongue, I pressed on and made sure the smoke went to either side of my tongue, but, to no avail. Soon the sides of my tongue were tingling and I knew I had to stop if I wanted to smoke and enjoy a pipe later in the day. Then there is the taste of this blend; thin and flat and heavily dominated by the latakia with precious little of the nutty characteristic of a good burley component. It reminded me of smoking straight latakia, which I have done before several times. Then there is the room aroma; again, thin and flat. I applied the technique suggested by Regis McCafferty of smoking for a short while, leaving the room for about ten minutes and going back in to find out what the blend's room aroma is. I did this and could only slightly detect a thin and vague English aroma. I laid off smoking CF straight for a couple of weeks and used it in microblending as a condimental ingredient and this worked-out okay. I decided to try smoking it straight again and this time the tobacco was more dried-out. The aggressive tongue bite on light up didn't happen this time. As I smoked the bowl down it began to irritate my tongue, however, this time I pressed on to finish. I found that if smoked in a careful manner, it was tolerable. But, and this is a very big but, smoking faster made this blend flat and tasteless and smoking it very slowly ALSO made it smoke flat and tasteless! That left a very narrow range of puffing that was difficult to maintain but yielded a beautiful marrying of the latakia and burley. As to the omission factor: this blend needs something added to it in the middle range of tastes to give a platform for the other tobaccos to push off from for a really good smoke. The result is that this blend seems incomplete in it's current configuration. Now, a lot of you really like this blend and I am so positive about Sillem's London Blend (I would have rated it five stars if I could have) that I am giving Commodore Flake two stars and cautiously recommending it to all English smokers, even though its not for me.

Smokey, woody, earthy, with hints of sweetness, this tobacco can be a bit harsh with a faster pace of puff. It also changes significantly for me throughout the bowl, as the Cyprian Latakia overtones become less consistent even with a slow and gentle rate, moving from an awareness of the complexity of the leaf to a more general roughness in taste towards the bottom of the bowl.