Lane Limited 1-Q

IQ, IQ-140, Wildcat, Wilshire. This was the blend that, years ago, I started with. I walked into Royal Pipes & Tobacco in Norman, OK, a determined young man who was going to buy a pipe and a beginner's tobacco. After some discussion with the wise, older man behind the counter, I settled on an ounce of a blend called I.Q. 140 and an unfinished Savinelli.

And it was a good blend then. My pipes changed throughout the years, I added several to the collection (and broke one or two), but this was still the blend I off and on again smoked. I tried one or two other blends, but I was not a serious pipe smoker and kept coming back to this one.

It bit my tongue at first, about how you'd expect of a new smoker. But once I got used to smoking a pipe, loading, tamping... this was a well behaved blend that had a decent flavor. Being an aromatic the room note is of course mostly pleasant to other people.

For the newcomer to the pipe world, this is one blend I would recommend strongly.

This is one of the first blends I tried in my novice pipe-smoking adventures. It was the first tobacco/pipe combination where everything just clicked and added up to some of my first great smokes. Great for beginners, easy to keep going after a little dry out time, doesnt goop up a pipe too much, and has a nice room note. This isnt one of those aros that smell great in the tin but taste horrible either, its slighty sweet but not overly, and I detect a little bit of nuttiness, although you'll quickly find it becomes bland once you move on to some stronger blends. Even so I'll always be keeping a bit of this on hand for when I want a nice, mellow, easy smoking blend.

A very well rounded, slightly sweet, but not overbearing, aromatic tobacco. Very little, if any casing, but a fantastic aroma from the fire-cured Cavendish. An excellent choice for the new pipe smoker, or a seasoned smoker looking for a light, sweet smoke. One of my regular blends.

Alot of English smokers won't admit it, but this benchmark aromatic is quietly used by even some hardcore latakia pipesters to give their blends something other than what they purchased out of the tin. A gentle smoke by itself, and marketed under zillion different names, should be called Aromatic 101. GREAT room note.

I was told that this is the #1 most popular bulk blend, and apparently it is at almost every pipe store in the US. I imagine that is because of the pleasant smell when you pop of the container lid at your local tobacconist.

This is a great tobacco for newer pipe smokers, but probably loathed by stout English blend smokers, as is the case with most aromatics. So if your an Anglophile when it comes to pipe tobacco, this is not for you, and you probably not going to be reading this review anyhow.

On the other hand, this is a great tobacco for those who like an occasional aromatic, and even better for new pipe smokers. It smokes very well for having so much cavendish and burns surprisingly cool, albeit wet, but not as bad as most aromatics.

I bought this because someone recommended it as a nice mellow aromatic that doesn't have the nastiness of the Capt Black types.

When I first lit it, it has almost no flavor at all. The smell was very nice but no taste at all.

As I got to about halfway through the bowl, it started to get a nice flavor that was similar to the room note. It is a tobacco that gets better the further down it goes.

I was not expecting much from it but was pleasantly surprised. It's not a strong smoke but a mellow one that you could smoke for an extended period.

I'll smoke the 2 oz I bought, but I'm seriously considering mixing it with something else to make it more, well, just more. Love that the smell of this stuff burning is so unbelievably pleasant, just wish it was a little stronger in the taste department. Very mild sweetness and a downright pleasant aftertaste (when you can taste it), like a really watered down Werther's Original. Very well behaved tobacco after some drying out though, smokes like a dream.

My bro-in-law smoked this for years, and it smells simply out of this world. For a non-pipe smoker who loves the smell of the pipe smoke, this is as good as it gets.

Go into any shop in the whole of the USA that sells bulk brands and this will be their biggest seller. So, obviously a lot of people like it. But I struggle with it. It turns to goo in my bowl. It gets hard. It doesn't stay lit. It just doesn't smoke good to me. The taste, unlike the smell, is unexceptional - and for the trouble it causes, I just simply can not fathom why it get sells so well.

Not the worst I have ever had, but far from being a satisfying experience.

I do not like the rating system here as this is not quite so bad as to compare to the worst reviews I would give, but one step up from there is "Somewhat Recomended". I do not recommend this at all but it is not as bad as say Borkim Riff Whiskey (see my review) and I would not put it into the same category as that wretched, useless weed.

It's a tad to mild for me, use a cob, skip the filter, I tended to smoke this with a "THATS IT", O well does have a smooth draw and an easy roll, very bland to me, I would not purchase again, but this blens has a great following, so there's somthing to say about that, to me it has only a base for blending. 1 star