Hermit Tobacco Works Co. Captain Earle's - Ten Russians

Tin note of pungent sour smoky and tart fruit. Tobacco is a brown, dark brown and black marbled Krumble Kake. Moisture content is great. Kake breaks apart and rubs out with a little effort. Burns slow with a few relights. The strength is medium to strong and nic is medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and very consistent, with notes of floral, smoky, herbal, spices, wood, leather, incense, musty vegetation, savory, dry, tangy, citrus peel/zest, fermented sour, ripe sweet fruit, bready, mildly bitter, a sweet grassy background note, and a peppery retro. Latakia is leading with Virginias and Oriental/Turkish supporting. Cavendish is cheering from the cheap seats. Room note is tolerable to strong, and aftertaste is great.

Appearance: 2-ounce tin had a label with the date "August 9, 2019." The tobacco is fairly even and fine cut, compressed into a cake that nevertheless crumbles easily. The color of the blend is well dark-brown, reminiscent of a not-so-dense oil, with occasional flecks of the color of stale hay. Definitely, it’s plenty of latakia. What is interesting: the color of the cake is darker than not only Quiet Nights, but also Da Vinci, which is claimed to have 75% latakia. The consistency of the tobacco is excellent, I did not need to dry it out.

Flavor: opening the tin, along with the dense aroma of latakia, I immediately picked up a distinct aroma of "ketchup". It became clear that the tobacco would take some time to air it before I could recognize the individual notes. After two weeks in the glass jar, the tobacco notes became more distinguishable, but the latakia notes - leather, peat, tar, baked meat - certainly dominated. Along with them there was a sour note of cheese, a subtle wine note of cavendish and a slight spicy aroma with a note of musk. As for the Virginia, it was almost completely lost in the density of latakia notes - I felt the baked fruit only after five minutes of airing the tobacco.

Taste: the taste was dry, dense and eloquent from the first seconds - massive wood-smoked, peaty and at the same time, creamy, with a dash of meat juice, latakia, which is so much that I almost touched it with my tongue. There was a bit of white pepper as a spice, a little bit of oriental sourness... Just a slice of grilled beef off the coals. No sweetness, simple and, I repeat, very dense. A "real man's" tobacco, a latakia bomb in all its glory. Cavendish and orientals smooth out the pressure of the "black queen" just a little, but there is almost no room for Virginia. Despite its simplicity and brutality, the flavor can't be called heavy - although maybe I'm just used to latakian blends. This flavor doesn't change much and doesn't depend on the shape of the pipe - except that the woody notes are a little more noticeable in bents than in straight pipes. The tobacco smokes equally dry and cool, leaving no moisture and burning out into whitish ash. The strength of the tobacco is clearly above average, the nicotine hit is possible even from a large pipe, in XL pipes it is inevitable.

The smoke from the blend is a dense carpet around the room, with a peaty, woody smell, and resists even a good draught and stays in the room for a long time. Don't even try to smoke this at home – or, obviously, you’ll be kicked out into the cold. Fortunately, my wife loves latakia. But even she found the smoke from the big pipe a little too much.

Well, conclusion? A somewhat monotonous, but very powerful, in taste and impact, blend. I don't recommend smoking it on an empty stomach. Also, it goes great with a glass of rum - add to yourself the atmosphere of the sea and remember Captain James Earle, his wife, Honor - and the ship “Charles W. Morgan.”