Peterson Balkan Delight

This is one of the best latakia blends ever tried! No bite, full of taste and smooth! Although not my cup of tea, I take my hut off to its high quality. I easily smoked a couple of pipes while watching a movie and I actually used the rest of the tin to give some roundness and smokiness to other blends that needed a character and nicotine touch with big success! If you like latakia you must have it! If you don't, you must try it! Well done peterson! You are back in the game again!

now this is superb,plenty taste here to get your taste buds going fairly strong but not to strong I think this reminds me of the old balken sobranie my old dad used to smoke, latakia lovers will enjoy this one ,I will be buying more of this another top quality smoke from Peterson.

One of the biggest disappointments of last months. Being a huge Latakia/Balkan/Oriental lover, I really wanted to taste this particular blend by Peterson as soon as possible. However, I haven’t noticed any of typical Balkan components during my five or six smokes. Just boring, flat mixture, not enough latakia in it at all. Just stick with Old Dublin or try much better Balkans than Delight: Gawith Hoggarth Balkan Mixture, Stanislaw Balkan Latakia or Samuel Gawith Balkan Flake (in case you don’t need any orientals).

Update: Several months later, the taste in opened tin has improved a little bit. Still not satisfying enough, but two stars seem to be fair.

I've been moving to Balkan/English blends for the last few months and my regular burn has been Dunhill's Nightcap for a while, just recently also Gawith Hogarth's Balkan Mixture for a less intense version of the genre.

This week though, my local friendly tobacconist produced this Balkan Delight which he'd speculatively ordered in for me. I've not had much fun with Peterson baccies so far, but holy crap this stuff is perfection for my current tastes. It's immediately promoted to my Go-To-Tobacco. Yes, it's strong, but not in an aggresive way. Very full range of flavours in the taste which for me remains pretty consistent from about a quarter way through the bowl to the fine ashy conclusion. It burns cool, and I've seen just two vestas get me through the whole bowl even with a little housekeeping tamp a couple of times.

I don't need to dry it out at all even though it seems to be packed slightly moist. Even so, I get little or no gurgle in my preferred pipe - a Falcon "Coolway" briar (cheap but very good smoker) and it's not needed more than one pipecleaner during the smoke.

The tin aroma is for me nothing like the actual smoking flavours. It smells quite smokey, but I don't find that to be very present in the actual smoking of it.

I don't enjoy nicotine at all. I've put aside several tobaccos for giving me a spinny head. Nightcap for example, is to be treated with respect I find. This Balkan Delight stuff doesn't seem to be high in Nic to me, although given the types of tobaccos in this blend it surely must be quite high with it. Well if it is, I don't feel it, so I'm happy with that.

For me, this is a perfect blend. It packs easily, it behaves itself throughout, and most importantly it tastes full and quite excellent. I know I'm really enjoying the taste of a tobacco if I catch myself nodding in approval. As I have with this. Good work, Peterson.

Begins as an Oriental forward but still quite smoky English – I believe some Orientals are used here… Quite soon Perique emerges as black pepper spiciness which gets more pungent as the bowl progresses. There is a toastiness that makes me also think of English style unflavoured Cavendish . I can also feel nutty and dark chocolate notes – not from any added flavoring though, also a suspicion of mushrooms which could be from the Perique.

To me Balkan Delight tastes like an Oriental forward perique-enhanced medium to full English blend which has complexity and which evolves quite nicely to become very spicy in the end. It has a medium to full strength and I find it to be a very satisfying smoke. Can bite a little if pushed.

A very strong latakia smoke. Perique is in background. Not a strong bite from the Perique. It plays more of a spice roll. The star up front is the latakia. The Virginia is next in line as a filler. It's not strong on strength but strong on latakia taste. Really between mild and medium strength. Had three bowls in a row with no issues. My tin showed signs of age when opened. The paper was dark and stained. Nice mellow smoke.

Just too much perique for in this mixture for me. It's a good smoke but I am not a perique fan and this has enough to make its presence strongly known. If you are a perique fan you will love it. Just way to spicy for my taste.

I am not an English tobacco purist. In other words, I like variations on the Latakia/Turkish/Va theme.

So it doesn't bother me that this has no Turkish or Orientals, and that it has Perique; one of my favorite tobaccos is C&D Bayou Night.

But this is very much a European tobacco without Burly and unlike any C&D product. Balkan Delight is extremely smooth and mouth filling, like a Latakia chocolate desert, and totally bite less.

I do not find it that high in N. Full tasting yes but not as full in body.

I have made a mix of GH Kendal Dark and Balkan Delight and this mixture I truly love, it's powerful and rich and biteless and tastes like an English with a heavyweight knockout punch, and not a bit of mouth irritation (many typical English mixtures bother me for some reason).

I highly recommend my own hybrid mixture to myself. I can see a lot of English/Balkan smokers looking for more complexity and coming up short with this, however, it is right for me (when strengthened with KD).

Balkan delight...absolutely amazing blend...except there's no orientals so why in the hell it's named Balkan.As the lock of the tin says generous amount of latakia and is there...it's not too over powering but it's right there...virginia gives a little sweetness and good old perique gives the spicyness which I like.Just a another good blend from Peterson's...next time I'll visit my local tobacconist I shall get 3 tins more.