Peterson Hyde Park

I was curious when I found this tin at my local tobacco store and decided to give it a try, unfortunately. The smell is ok, but that`s it. The tobacco is stored in a plastic bag for some reason, but I won`t hold that against it. There`s good flavours here for sure, but they are overshadowed by a harsh, fume-like smoke. It`s not a tongue bite, but a thin and gas-like sensation that is all but nice. I`ve tried smoking it in three different pipes, but nothing can help this tobacco in my opinion.

Soap!

Ok, let me elabotrate. Upon opening, I found a small plastic bag inside the round tin as other reviewers had noted, but what I also saw was that the block of product was actually square, crammed into a round tin. Immediately, this gave me the impression that this was made under 'license' by someone who normally only uses square or rectangular tins.

The tin aroma was not the sweet, maple and Virginia leaf aroma I expected but was very subdued.

The tobacco, being a mixture of broken / partly rubbed flake and ribbon-cut, came apart easily and had noticeable moisture but didn't appear excessive. It packed well but was quite hard to light.

Upon actually getting it alight the dominating aroma and flavour was, unexpectedly, soap. Floral soap.

It basically screams "I'm a lakeland blend in a Peterson tin!"

Room aroma was tolerable, flavour was dominated by the soapiness and body was full. Nicotine level was medium tending toward the higher side for less experienced smokers.

Overall it was a disappointment because it didn't in any way match what reviewers said nor my expectations from the description of the composition.

Does Maple sugar smell and taste like soap when burned? Anyone out there know? Otherwise this simply has to be just plain wrong!

Oh. My. God.

The memory of the one and only pipe full of this horrid concoction is still seared onto my taste buds and into my brain. If ever I could give negative stars it would be to this travesty of a mix. I could smoke the dried droppings of a diseased elephant as long as it contained enough vitamin N, but not this.

I'm not one given to exaggeration nor hyperbole, but merely sighting a tin of Hyde Park induces sweating, hypertension, panic attacks and dropsy.

I bought a tin as I'm quite a fan of some of the Peterson range, 3P, Irish Flake, Old Dublin & Irish Whiskey in particular; and also as it was highly recommended on this site.

I'd never heard of, nor tried, anything with a lakeland scent before and thought to myself "how bad could it be". Well much to my detriment I found out. The equivalent of spraying a spectacularly awful perfume directly into your mouth and nasal passages; ruining your sense of taste and smell for days on end.

I enjoy trying new tobaccos, and generally try to fit a new tin in every week. To make my selection I avidly read the reviews on this site. If a tobacco has 200 reviews, all of them giving 3 or 4 stars, and just one of the reviews mentions in passing that the brew has a slight hint of lakeland floral - that's it. That tobacco is struck off. I t may be ambrosia, and the world's best ever blend, but I'll never be trying it; the scarring and the nightmares from my Hyde Park experience have seen to that.

There are claims that this is made by Gawith Hoggarth. I think not. I think this is a Chinese copy. It smells right, out of the tin. It looks right, rough and moist. Indeed, it is reminiscent of Rum Flake, as others have mentioned.But it's a crap smoke.

It's shallow. It lacks tlhe depth, decency and delicacy of a genuine Gawith Hoggarth product.

Like others in the Peterson range, it tastes of wood. Like Irish Flake. Although Irish Flake is a better quality twig.

Hyde Park should be half the price. You don't mind cheap and cheerful at a cheap and cheerful price.

It's a Eurotobak - and that is pretty damming!

I suppose I tried this blend on the back of the body of favourable reviews on this site. I couldn't say I was best served by them however. As an aside, there are very few tobaccos that I dislike. Apart from Lakelands. More on that follows.

The tin notes were of stewed dark fruits, plum, blackcurrant and a rum high note; reminiscent of Christmas pudding. Packing was fairly straightforward, though required a half hour of drying - it probably could have done with more.

Upon lighting I was immediately taken by a scent I had missed in the tin, what I can now define as a rose incense quality, and, what is that? Toilet water. It appears that Lakeland floral is there to a degree, and being more sensitive than others to its depredations, I immediately doubted my ability to enjoy the tin. I was also getting bitten in earnest. By mid-bowl, the incense was still there, I got a few of the deeper notes of dark fruit, very little tobacco flavour plus I couldn't get away from the florals. Nicotine strength was low, though the smoke was fairly rough and astringent. I also found it very difficult to maintain, and by this point, every relight was an exercise in bite limitation. I tried over the week to have at least a bowl a day to see whether it was my technique that was wanting, but to no avail.

I couldn't persevere and consigned the tin to the back of the cupboard. I revisited it with 8 months of age in a Kilner jar, and the initial moistness was no longer an issue. It had also lost some of the high notes, but was how I remembered it - perhaps a little more spicyness. Unfortunately, the next bowlful was a revisitation of the first, albeit without as much bite and the florals, not as forthright. Staying lit was less of a problem, but the incense remained.

I really wanted to like this blend, but at this stage I abandoned the experiment, and binned the remainder; a first for me. At a guess, room note was probably delicious, but I received no satisfaction from this, my first Peterson's foray. All in all, too much effort, and a flavour profile that doesn't suit my tastes. Vive la difference!

As much as I've tried to like dark fired tobaccos, I can't. This review isn't about the quality of the leaf or blending but my preference against dark fired leaf.

If you like dark fired VA, this one might be worth your time. The dark fired taste overpowers any sort of flavor I can taste in the smoke.

This Peterson’s offering has always left me bewildered. Basically because it’s inconsistent in some important aspects, aroma in the first place. Nevertheless, it has quite some interesting traits to show that eventually convinced me to finish the whole 50g tin.

Upon opening, a gentle scent of liquor caresses you nostrils, alongside with the smooth, syrupy sweetness of the maple casing, which is nothing more than faint.

I had to take all the tobacco out of the plastic pouch, rub and spread it out a little and let it sit for an entire afternoon due to combustion problems I faced at the first smokes. I got rid of the plastic envelope and stuffed it in a very tiny glass jar and forgot about it for a year. On purpose, that is…

Twelve months passed, better see if time did some magic. And it did! The smell of the casing was there in all its integrity. The taste has become sweeter, but the flat indolence of the Burley popped out from time to time. The surprise came as the aftertaste : a fragrant, subtle and, I’d say shy, sweetness of bread crust.

The combustion was no more a problem : I can safely say this is one of the blend that I smoked an entire bowl of straight to the bottom by using just four matches. Besides, it was demanding in matter of attention, lest a bitter, flat, inconsistent smoke.

All in all it’s a quality blend, and gets better over time, and even thought I can see how many may like it, it left me as much disappointed as needed to prevent me from buying anymore. Peterson got way better blends to offer.

Cheers Everyone, Brandr ODS

I love Peterson blends (some of them) but this one - quite controversial, if you look at the mixture of reviews below - is the most disgusting thing I've ever smoked. It looks like grated cow-dung or dead spiders in the tin, smells vile, and tastes even worse - a dark, miserable mulch with a horrible chemical note in it that makes you think you're going to throw up. Forget letting the tobacco speak to you, giving it time to work its magic etc. etc. - the taste in the mouth is so unpleasant you don't even want to start liking it.

The reason why one's so venomous at smoking a Peterson blend like this isn't because one's anti-Peterson. It's that some of the blends (Luxury Blend or Deluxe Mixture, for example) are so divine, complex and comforting that you completely trust Peterson's sense of taste, and then find the rug pulled after spending £14 on a tin like this (the contents of which are bound for my toilet in approx. 5 minutes, as I do not even want to pass this one on to a friend who has offered to smoke anything I cast off). Do not believe there are flavours of rum or maple in this, with all the sweetness and complexity that description seems to hint at. I have heard Hyde Park described as faintly Lakelandy - in fact, it tastes more like what you'd scrape off the bottom of a pond. Avoid, and save your money: this one's a stinker. And what's more, I think it's already ghosted my pipe.

Please read sibeen's review below for confirmation - every word is true.

Not worth writing to much on this tobacco I found little flavour or taste also little to say on the tobacco being an aromatic. I have smoked cheaper cigars which have given me more pleasure. Being pleased with Peterson's Old Dublin I thought the tobacco worth a try, opening the tin was disappointing as there was little aroma and when smoking was more disappointed. I would say it is a good stater tobacco as it dose not burn the tongue and would not put the new comer to pipe smoking to give up and maybe move up to find some other tobacco.