Robert Lewis Orcilla Mixture

Robert Lewis - Orcilla Mixture.

Note: a blend I first reviewed years back but thought it read a bit inanely so deleted to re-post.

The blend itself is mostly medium and light brown ribbons but there are a few black spots. It smells wonderful, slightly toasty.

The smoke: ahhhh, delicious. This is a Turkish-forward smoke but it doesn't taste like usual Turkish/Orientals: it has a wonderful spiciness up-front, followed by a woody, floral flavour, and a touch of butter. The Virginia adds a lesser flavour in comparison: it's more of a mild/calm hay note rather than dark, or citrusy, fruit. The Perique gives an exorbitantly light flavour, it needs a search party to find it! Orcilla burns well but performs better under a gentle technique: not due to bite, but it can go quite fast when smoked hard.

Nicotine: mild to medium. Room-note: pleasant.

Orcilla? Great. Highly recommended:

Four stars.

Side by Side Comparison of Orcilla Mixture, Campanile and Original Oriental mixtures

I usually do not open multiple tins of tobacco at the same time of the exact same genre. But with the advent of Embarcadero, Yenidje Supreme and HH Vintage Virginia, all containing Virginia and Oriental leaf without latakia, I wanted to see how three ?classic? blends compared. Each has at least five years aging in the tin unopened. I do not have a tin of aged Cairo, or I would add it to the present review.

I laid out three mounds of leaf from each tin, equivalent to what would fill a very large pipe bowl and then some. As always for me, this is a test for the eyes, the nose, the fingers, the ears and mouth.

Orcilla Mixture: Color-wise, Orcilla is the overall lightest of the three. Mostly light browns and tans, with a few suspicious specks of dark leaf. Moisture content is just right, but there were more stems here than in the two others. There is a fermented nose in the tin and something very faintly smoky when I cup my hands around the tin and inhale through my nose very deeply. I am suspicious of Latakia, but am not confident.

Campanile: Darkest of the three and the reverse of Orcilla. The specks are the lighter leaf, while the remaining are medium browns to black. There are a few stems. There is something definitely smoky in the tin aroma, as with Original Oriental. This was noticeably moister of the three.

Original Oriental: Bright, black and brown in near equal proportions. The most visually interesting of three, but it is also the hardest to anticipate what it will be like smoking. Only a tiny stem. Moisture content is fine, but I smell something smoky, just like in Campanile. These are not supposed to have latakia, hmmm.

Cut: All three are a medium long ribbon cut, with Orcilla being much finer, followed by Campanile and then Original Oriental. All three are nice blends to handle, but will require care when loading due to the long leaf.

I decided on three of my best Virginia pipes for the test run, then one more whiff of Campanile and Original Oriental made me think better of it. I think they have latakia. I will not put noticeable latakia or aromatized leaf in a pipe reserved for Virginia blends. I switched out two pipes for pipes used with very light English blends that had very little noticeable residual smell in the bowl. Orcilla loaded with ease, followed by Campanile. Original Oriental took more care. I used the Frank Method with each blend.

My notes on each blend as follows:

Orcilla.

First Bowl Impressions: Not a light-weight by any means, and deep, earthy, spicy flavors betray the lighter appearance of the unburned leaf. I do detect brighter leaf at times. There?s a definite tingle in mouth and nose, but no Latakia, which is a good thing in this case. The burn is exceptionally even, white and rapid. My experience says, ?Respect this or your tongue will get slapped.? That said, it was easy keeping this cool. There is flavor aplenty. ?Sipping? this carefully avoids the need for aggressive puffing. Since this develops somewhat down the bowl, I?ll give my impressions on the middle and last third of the bowl.

The second third of the bowl is when the flavor intensifies. It does not vary from one flavor to the other, except when a little ?something? arrives. This ?something? might be Perique. If you do not generally like blends with Orientals or Turkish leaf because they are harsh, sour or oppressively acrid, Orcilla will change your mind. The Turkish in Orcilla are as good as any I have smoked in any blend and better than most others.

Last half is about the same as the middle third, but a bit more intense. I also sense more Perique. Overall, a solid blend with no arias, but Orcilla is surprisingly fuller than I anticipated without being overwhelming in flavor or strength.

Ongoing Impressions with Orcilla: I keep reaching for this of the three being reviewed here. It gets better each time I smoke it. The balance is perfect, highlighting the Virginias by off-setting them with the mild Turkish. The blender has a palate for subtle, rich flavors that anyone could enjoy who likes flue-cured leaf or Oriental leaf. This is World-class blending indeed.

Campanile: First Bowl Impressions: Subtle, but definite Latakia at the match and throughout, with a surprise taste of non-descript topping. Campanile is a nice, refined mild-medium English, but not an Oriental blend or a ?spiced? Virginia. It really does not develop much down the bowl, but does burn beautifully, cleanly, coolly, and to a dry, slightly mottled white ash. If J.J. Fox were a tobacconist in my neighborhood, I would feel quite blessed with access to such quality (and to think of the blending houses the residents of Edinburgh, Dublin and London had access to, without forgetting Kendal or Jersey, is to sigh that a great era has passed). With the price per tin and solid competition readily available, I am not likely to purchase more. I can still recommend it because it is well crafted, just not a niche that needed filling in my rotation.

Ongoing Impressions: Truly a clean pipe, clean palate blend. The Virginia leaf is top-notch and just gets creamier the more I smoked it in the same pipe on repeated occasions. This is far more refined than my staple lighter English, EMP. If I could get this more reasonably priced, I would enjoy a tin now and then.

Original Oriental:

Initial Impressions: This is more in the genre of Orcilla, but darker still, with that acrid taste for which Turkish leaf is renowned. Thankfully, it is not sour, bitter or bitey. Compared to Orcilla, this starts off strong, like an amusement park ride launched by catapult. Orcilla starts more like the walk before the jog before the run. Despite the instant ?pow,? Original Oriental is smooth enough. The thought occurs to me that Original Oriental borders balkanic. There might be a smidge of Latakia here, but much in the way it appears ghostly in Pease?s Fillmore. If there is perique, it is quite enigmatic. I think Original Oriental is more like McClelland?s Yenidje Supreme, just fuller-flavored, but not as refined.

Ongoing Impressions: This has merit by itself, and I really do enjoy its complexity and richness. If I smoke it back to back with Orcilla and Campanile, it is ?odd man out.? I think that this is because Original Oriental demands my attention, and I do not always want to think too much about the ?act of smoking.?

2020 update: this is no longer a shag cut. It is mostly comprised of ribbon-cut Virginia with small oriental leaf (Yenidje?), a few ribbons of Latakia, and granulated perique. I was disappointed when I received my tin because I’ve been enjoying shag cuts recently but this has quickly become an all time favorite oriental blend.

The Virginia’s are smooth with hay notes. The oriental tobacco, I believe Yenidje, has a distinct buttery lemon taste. There is not much Latakia, but it’s smoky woody aroma compliments the other components. There is a bold black pepper note throughout the entire bowl which must be from the perique. The blend is savory, very peppery, and expertly balanced. Very highly recommended.

The Robert Lewis mixtures are a recent discovery of mine, and I'm happy to have found them having lost several of my favourite Dunhill mixtures. Orcilla is a lovely light blend with Orientals taking centre stage and the merest hint of Latakia. The Perique is barely detectable.

On opening the tin a lovely Marzipan sweet smell rises to greet you - entirely natural, there's no topping. There's spice, yeast fresh bread, malt, horse food, and some oriental funk. The tobacco is a fine ribbon cut, mostly bright and light browns, with a few flecks of black leaf. It's on the drier side, and packs and lights perfectly.

The flavour has from the first light a delicate sweetness, with a light oriental spice. It's bready, lightly toasty at times and slightly astringent. If you search, you'll detect a hint of smoke, like the hint of a faraway campfire over the hills, but that's all the latakia offers. Centre stage are the glorious orientals, at times slightly sour and always astringent like a cup of black tea. Think of a cup of Turkish style black tea with sugar, and that'll give you an idea, I think the sweetness is provided here by the Virginias. The Perique seems to contribute to the subtle sour character of the Turkish, but it's the merest hint of a seasoning here.

It'll burn fairly completely, doesn't need an excessive number of relights, and responds well to "breath smoking" really gently to bring out the best flavour. If you puff a little harder it produces magnificent plumes of smoke but the flavour suffers a little.

This is a fine morning pipe, ideally on a lazy morning with time to appreciate it fully. It's not very strong, so feel free to load up a large pipe and really take some time over it. You can have it ticking over in the background while doing something else, but it deserves your attention from time to time.

This tobacco really is splendid, I've already bought more in fear of it too disappearing. It's not a substitute for my dear Durbar, it's different and unique, as have all the Robert Lewis mixtures been that I've tried so far. It's comparable to Early Morning Pipe in strength and light character, perhaps just a shade richer but with considerably more Oriental flavour.

I'm currently smoking some roughly 3.5 year old Orcilla Mixture, so I'm basing this review mostly on that... with some memories of fresh Orcilla.

I've always really liked Orcilla Mixture, but I haven't bought a tin in almost a year. The tin I'm smoking from now was actually one from my cellar that I forgot about. And I have to admit, It ages *beautifully*. Fresh Orcilla has a tin note of very faint fruit/figs, Oriental sharpness, and a slight bit of hay. Tin note of this 3 year old batch is much sweeter and more raisiny/figgy. The Oriental tobacco scent is there, but it's less sharp and more subtle/complex. And the hay is gone, replaced with something that is more like vanilla. There isn't any real discernible latakia scent in either. First few puffs of the aged Orcilla... *very* smooth. So much smoother than I remember fresh Orcilla being. It's sweeter, less sharp, and more complex than fresh. The Oriental "dryness" in the fresh is replaced by a more complex buttery-ness in the aged. Both are quite rich. Orcilla has a unique flavor even when smoked fresh, which is a big part of why I like it so much. The Orientals have this really nice, lemony, almost floral note that I haven't tasted in any other blend. That flavor is still there in the aged version.

Bottom line: I really like Orcilla Mixture. When smoked fresh, I consider it a great blend, but aged at least a few years, it's phenomenal.

Incendio sent me a couple of bowlsful to sample, which I did in a small egg and in an Oom Paul. Orcilla ranks among the SMOOTHEST blends I have tried; not a hint of harshness. Wonderfully aged Virginias and a hint of Latakia. Sweet and slightly grassy. Smoked easily to the bottom of both bowls. Not one puff was distasteful. I'm going out and buying some as soon as I finish this review.

The reviews and the header description suggest there is some confusion about the component tobaccos used in this mixture.

A mostly golden shag tobacco. The tin note has an aroma that I have never properly identified, but is common enough: a vanilla and malt scent that I think is supposed to be whisky. This topping fooled me into thinking that Orcilla Mixture was a straight Va, since there is little Oriental on the tin nose.

This deception is immediately ripped away at first light and the oriental aromas, spicy and sour and somewhat peppery, burst into life. This is a very bright and lively tobacco and wonderfully refreshing.

No latakia that I could detect either by sight or smell.

Burns beautifully and completely, but is finished in a trice. A winner for me.

...as stated, this mixture is "old school" in nature and has been around over 100 years...My first introduction to this mixture was in the early 1960's and was primarily responsible for my developing taste of Oriental tobaccos.

While there has been changes in how this mixture is processed, it still has very strong ties to what I smoked from the 60's to the late 80's.

I find the overall aroma and taste of this mixture mild and yet tasty...and while not overly complex, flavor variations throughout the bowl are wonderful. Recently re-kindling my interest in finding some of the "old" tobaccos I smoked, it has been a pleasure to find a few of those I am fond of.

This wouldn't be an all-day smoke for many but for those of us who truly enjoy Oriental tobaccos, this fits the bill nicely.

I normally smoke this in a group 4-5 size pipe and keep it moist as it controls burn rate better. It is shag cut but not a fine or "eye lash" cut. If you favor Oriental mixtures...Orcilla may be a good choice.

...a pipe is to be savored...

Very remindful of Dunhill's Aperitif regards the presentation and smoking qualities. A little more spice perhaps, and more subtle in the overall presentation.

As per the remaining Robert Lewis blends, this one is long on quality and smokes cool and dry. A must try for fans of predominantly Oriental leaf.