Samuel Gawith Black Forest

Subtle honey flavouring? Subtle? Not really.

Over time you can become accustomed to the honey, but it's always on the verge of overwhelming the tobacco, and when the honey makes itself known it's a little like smoking a Lockets cough sweet.

That's not to say it's bad. Far from it. Black forest makes a change from the usual aromatics and I'm glad it exists.

In a world of almost identical aromatics it's good to see that SG are marching to the beat of a different drum.

If I'm looking for a high tar alternative to the hot toddy this will be top of my list.

This is one of the few mixtures that actually tastes like its tin fragrance. It really does taste like honey - not some artificial chemical honey tasting concoction but true honey. It doesn't bite and it isn't goopy. I wouldn't want a steady diet of it but having a tin of it once in a while would add a bit of variety.

I had never seen this tobacco before and so, curious, I asked my tobacconist some information about: he answered me, saying that someone just bought it and did not find fairly sweet or aromatic as expected, so to give it to another smoker. I felt encouraged because when I saw that there was in honey, I was worried that might be a "sweet bomb". I loaded my pipe (Radice Silk) with the Franck method and I immediately felt a creamy, almost natural tobacco, without the (feared) honey. The mixture grows in intensity with time,making you smell a little wood ,a little campfire and a slightly toasted nutty flavor. The smoke is thick,rich,and all in all,yes,they must have added honey,but in unexpected,different way:it's on the border,barely noticeable in the "outdoor" flavor. Black Forest is good as freshly baked bread and since I bought it, I can not stop to smoke and enjoy.

Fine cut tobacco, quite dark. Smells nice and a bit foresty from the tin.

Tongue taste (the taste you feel on your tongue when you first get the smoke into your mouth): mild virginias mixed with an almost sharp honey taste at the beginning. After a while the tastes start to melt together, all in all getting milder and slightly more "tobaccoish".

Snork taste (the taste when you roll the smoke around in your mouth and out of your nostrils): Mild scent of honey and forest fruits, but mainly typical virginia tones, not sharp but rather mild virginia.

All together: Smells nice and has a very pleasant taste at the beginning. The taste tends to get first milder, and then at the end almost disappear. Needs to be somewhat dried before smoking, and should be packed lightly to taste maximally. All in all a pleasant tobacco, but lacks the last pinch to be excellent.

I made a mistake of buying this when looking for a sweet aromatic blend as I had never had a Samuel Gawith before. If you're looking for a Danish mixture, this won't do. The first smoke was a double disappointment. Not only it wasn't a Danish mixture I'd been looking for but also, for some reason, there was a strong tongue bite. I thought I'd made a mistake. Later on, however, when I let it dry a bit, I found it pleasant. The taste of honey is nice, but oftentimes barely noticeable as it mostly plays in the background. Overall, this is closer to a non-flavored 'English mixture'. The flavoring doesn't eclipse the tobacco, but, on the other hand, I didn't find the tobacco terribly exciting either. I'd smoked much more interesting non-flavored mixtures than this. So, overall, good tobacco, which can be a pleasant smoke, but I'm not buying it again.

Very sweet and extremely lovable scent. It was my very first pipe tobacco so it's even greater in my mind. Came quite damp so you have to let it dry a bit otherwise it may be hard to lit (I had this problem as a newbie). Now I see it burns slowly and in rather low temperature so it doesn't bite a tongue.

I like this one. Suits me pretty well. Only got a 10g sample pouch of it, but it is one I would like to have again. It tastes nice, didn't bite me, didn't make me feel sick, and it smells OK. Not much more I could ask from an aromatic.

The first time I tried this blend I was a little underwhelmed. This is the second bowl I’ve now had and I allowed myself to slow down and try to draw out some of the nuances this tobacco has to offer. The Topping/casing isn’t very strong at all, in saying that I found neither are the tobaccos. The Virginias are mild and slightly sweet with the cavendish giving the honey a podium to stand on and rounds out any rough edges the Virginias may have had. I can’t confirm what the room note would be like but I was left with a pleasant after taste. I will probably make this one part of my rotation.

I bought this on the hunt for something like Rich Dark Honeydew but with less of a honey upper cut and, after due diligence, I came across the reviews of Black Forest. From the reviews this seemed to be a marmite tobacco: you either love it for its subtlety or hate it because it offers no longevity in it’s flavour so I had to try some. I now know which side of the fence I’m going to be on.

First impressions: in the tin, the tobacco was stuck to the internal wrapping paper, which was much more glossy than the usual wrapping paper. I presume that this might be a result of Covid and SG not being able to get hold of the usual paper; at least that’s what I hope anyway because it has imparted a plastic/varnish type of smell to the tobacco. When trying to pry the tobacco from the paper, The paper began to rip as it was still stuck to the tobacco - bugger, thought I.

The paper had also gone brown where the tobacco had been touching it and this tobacco was dry - I mean abnormally dry for an SG blend.where the paper hadn’t touched the tobacco it was one step beyond “good to smoke” in my opinion. As I jarred it up, I knocked the tobacco about a bit in the hope that the dry tobacco could mingle with damper stuff and then would find a happy moisture marriage. I wish I hadn’t done that in hindsight.

The tobacco itself could be called “Tiger’s Tears” or something (tobacco manufacturers please not that I am available, at a reasonable rate, for tobacco blend naming purposes), the bright leaf is dotted with black cavendish in a ratio slightly less than a tiger’s stripes and it looked inviting.

As for the honey, I’m not getting any from the pouch note, the pouch note is being held hostage by the smell from that bloody paper! If it is there, I cannot smell it. By knocking the brick of baccy about and stirring it up, in the hope of spreading the moisture love, I have only succeeded in sharing the paper love - great.

The taste also reveals no honey at all. I am a fan of the Rich Dark Honeydew but that isn’t an all day for me, I was looking for it’s little brother, that could be enjoyed a couple of times a day and this is not it. If there is any honey then it is passing me by at this stage of our relationship.

The tobacco is...bland? That is to say that it tastes like tobacco (obviously), black cavendish and the golden virginias but it offers nothing; there is no change to the flavour profile from match to ash, it is what it is and some people will rightly applaud Black Forest for this. Other blends can start of tasting exactly like the tin note, only to reveal hidden depths (good or bad) three or four draws into the smoke; this one doesn’t really change.

The room note is cloying, hanging around the room like that uncle at Christmas who doesn’t take the hint that the party is over, it’s the 8th of January and he needs to go home. Not pleasant, more like cigarettes.

I’m going to leave this one, jarred up for a while, in the hope that the effects of the paper dissipates and some of the beauty of the tobacco comes through... hopefully.

If it doesn’t then this will become an experimentation tobacco, to be used when I get the Dr Frankenstein urge to mess about with things that I have absolutely no right to go messing with - “ah yes, I must try the rose water; why hadn’t I thought of that before!” Cue the flashes of lightning, rumble of thunder and the manic laughter.

I like most SG blends, even if I’m not mad keen on the blend itself there is usually something that interests me and makes me think “ooh, today is a Navy Flake like type of a day” but this one isn’t saying anything to me at the moment. All in all, not one that I recommend, mainly because of the paper issues to be honest.