Mac Baren Navy Flake

This is the first flake tobacco I have tried. I wanted to like it very much, due to the four star reviews. I have smoked about six bowlfuls. The flakes are easy to handle, and the tobacco looks well made. It folds nicely, burns well, and produces nice volumes of smoke. But, to me, the smoke is tasteless. It is mild to the extreme. This tobacco is bland and boring. I wish I could describe all the flavors in it, as others have. But, I taste nothing. I would like to say what it tastes like, but it doesn't taste like anything. It is just smoke. Recommend trying MacBaren HH Old Dark Fired Ready Rubbed.

There are so many very good tobaccos out there that this just doesn't make the cut for me. Why not? Because it is foul. I am not talented enough to truly distinguish the reasons, but I believe that it is the cavendish that I dislike.

Mac Baren’s Navy Flake was a one-and-done blend for me. Though the toasted tobaccos are not really bad, down the bowl it tastes to me like a re-light with an old Zippo lighter. I suppose this owes to some combusted additive or other, and more than likely it’s the same additive that makes it smell rather like vanilla at the light and briefly thereafter. Again, the tobaccos aren’t bad; neither are they notably good, IMO, which generally means for me, why bother, especially in a hotly contested category like VA/Bur. Strength is mild. Tastes are toward medium from mild. Room note is nice. Aftertaste is faint lighter fluid over trailing VA/Bur tobacco. Can’t personally recommend it, so 1 star.

So the one star is my personal opinion on this tobacoo. It has nothing to do with quality!!!

This was the very first tobacco i bought. I saw some reviews on youtube, and read some reviews on here. So it had to be good right? You know, with all the great reviews!

The tin note smelt fantastic!!!! Almost like a sweet, raisin with some hay tossed in there. I rubbed out the flake and packed.

Lighting the pipe. It burnt the hell out of my tounge. I couldnt taste anything from this tobacco. Even before the scorching of my tounge, i couldnt detect any type of grassy notes. Just really hot air. The room note was a great. A warm sweet grass aroma. It took a flame beautifully. Stayed lit. And ashed to this fine off white powder. The flake wasnt to moist or too dry.

I waited a few days to try it again. This time, i just kinda rubbed it into a ball and packed it in the bowl. SAME THING!!! And i puffed even slower. I ended up asking around if the same thing happened to them. I was informed the sugar content of the tobacco itself is known to bite. Age will mellow it out. And. Theres a reason many people call this brand "mc tounge bite"

So i tossed it into a jar. Did my thing. And forgot about it.

Fast forward to almost 9 years later. IT STILL BITES LIKE A MADMAN!!!! No matter how slow i puff it!

im a little bummed too. The color, the texture, the aroma is absolutely great! That alone makes me want to smoke it. But i honestly cant get past the tounge bite.

Openning the small tin reveals lovely emossed gold paper covering a neat arrangement of very pretty thin flakes and a pleasant tin note of honey and tobacco. The whole thing screams of quality. As the flakes are thin and not heavily compressed they rub out easily but need a little dry time.

So far so good.

I can't taste the rum only the honey which I find very disappointing from a 'navy flake'. To be honest I don't like the combination of honey and tobacco but then that's a personal thing. More importantly this bites me like a rabid dog. I simply can't smoke it and I'm a naturally slow smoker, my guess is there is something in this blends that doesn't agree with my mouth chemistry.

This is the first flake tobacco I've tried. The aroma coming from the bag is nice and prompted me to buy it. I smoked it in multiple pipes to see if I might like it more, but found myself disappointed every time. The flavor is mild to the point where it's difficult to taste anything. I also noticed that this particular tobacco left my mouth feeling coated with something, reminiscent of a cheap aromatic tobacco. I assume the casing on Navy Flake is the cause of it. Either way, I would not purchase this again.

I've purchased a tin of this while I was on "pipe rest" for 4 years. About an year before I started smoking again.
I started with it, and first few bowls were disgusting. I wondered if that's because the tobacco is poor, or I just haven't really gotten into it as I should. Well, it was both. I wasn't accustomed to pipe smoking, after ten bowls was better, but the tobacco is bad. I smoked original choice after that, and few other aromatics, they were better than this. As good as aromatics can be actually.
If you like navy (rum) blends, you may like it. Doesn't bite much, and the artificial aroma is not overwhelming, you can even feel some of the tobacco here and there, but still the artificial chemical flavor stays there. That's one thing that bothers me much about the danish style aromatics. I'd rather smoke cheap american aros that make the tobacco smell like something totally different, than the danish style flavored tobaccos which casing and topping is supposed to enhance the natural flavors of cavendish and VA. In my oppinion, it just adds some artificial flavor, and that's it.
It's neither pure tobacco, nor heavily perfumed which in some cases can be a good thing (Condor for example). It's just some junk, there's tobacco, but ruined, and there's perfume, but only the one that goes along with cavendish.
I don't know, maybe It's just my taste, but if you are predominantly into English/Balkan and VA, VA/Pers, then you won't like it. Maybe you won't hate it as much as I did, but certainly won't enjoy it. One star from me.

I would say to save your money with this one. I had higher expectations for this one and loved the tin aroma but unfortunately the tobacco didn't have much taste to me. Also, the vanilla-like aroma disappeared after being lit for a few minutes.

This is the first time (and probably the last) that I disagree with pipestud. I absolutely hated this! The casing was sour and unpleasant, it smoked with the refinement of napalm and was way overpriced. There is also some taste at the back of this that really put me off. I am a real flake lover as it fits with my work and leisure time perfectly but this one to me just detracts from the genre. Avoid this and go for something else.